New Campaign, Issues with 2 player characters

[Cyussu]

As the title states, I'm having issues with 2 of the 9 PCs in my campaign, their characters' templates are properly made, it's a Gestalt Campaign. My issue is, out of all 9, the average AC of 7 of the are just barely breaking 20. Which 2 of them are well over 30's, one player made a Human Half-Troll Wendigo. I allowed it, and now I'm having issues with "killing" him due to finding out he had like 39 AC, so unless I cheat, my current setting cannot deal a single point of damage to him. As for the other one, it's a Druid with almost 30AC, and his pet has around 2 or 3 AC higher than him. He's not that large of an issue, but I'm still having issues actually hitting him and his panther, not impossible as with the 1st player, but quite difficult with the setting limits. Our next gather date is 1st weekend of next month so I have roughly 3 weeks to "fix" anything.

Campaign Setting is LA+6 cap, Racial Hit Die Denial, and specific template restrictions concerning race.

Any and all helpful advice is nice. Thank you ahead of time :)

[Squark]

You have a couple of possibilities

1) Talk to the player characters outside of the game and explain that their characters are far more powerful than the rest of the party, and you have trouble challenging them without making the encounter to deadly for the other characters.

2) Ask on the 3.5 forums for specific vulnerabilities of that Half-Troll, and see if you can't find a vulnerability you can exploit that's relatively specific to him. This isn't the best solution, though, as you can't use that too often or he'll be understandably upset you seem to be targetting his character to the exclusion of others, even if you do have a good reason.

Also, AC isn't everything. What are their fortitude, will, and reflex saves like?

[Cyussu]

You have a couple of possibilities

1) Talk to the player characters outside of the game and explain that their characters are far more powerful than the rest of the party, and you have trouble challenging them without making the encounter to deadly for the other characters.

2) Ask on the 3.5 forums for specific vulnerabilities of that Half-Troll, and see if you can't find a vulnerability you can exploit that's relatively specific to him. This isn't the best solution, though, as you can't use that too often or he'll be understandably upset you seem to be targetting his character to the exclusion of others, even if you do have a good reason.

Also, AC isn't everything. What are their fortitude, will, and reflex saves like?


I finished speaking with him moments ago, he quit because I told him his character was a bit broken. I nerfed a couple things because he had both Fire & Cold Subtypes, which gave him Immunity to Fire & Ice. So I told him he takes 1/2 damage instead of nullified damage. AC isn't everything no, but other than his Will save, the rest were flat out insane. Somewhere around 18 for Reflex, and well over 20 Fort at 7th lvl Gestalt. As for the other issues, he re-allocated his classes after a "misunderstanding" which there was none. No real issue for me, other than the fact he butchers the class system by only take 1-2 levels in any given class, after being explained how Gestalt was ran, he ignorantly stated I was wrong, the DM... I told him pick 1 Class and "Main" it, meaning it always gets a level, and he can dip all he wants with the other level, in which he started complaining "How would I get prestige classes then?" ... I really would rather not ramble on over how dumbfounded that argument was...

[Red Fel]

I finished speaking with him moments ago, he quit because I told him his character was a bit broken. I nerfed a couple things because he had both Fire & Cold Subtypes, which gave him Immunity to Fire & Ice. So I told him he takes 1/2 damage instead of nullified damage. AC isn't everything no, but other than his Will save, the rest were flat out insane. Somewhere around 18 for Reflex, and well over 20 Fort at 7th lvl Gestalt. As for the other issues, he re-allocated his classes after a "misunderstanding" which there was none. No real issue for me, other than the fact he butchers the class system by only take 1-2 levels in any given class, after being explained how Gestalt was ran, he ignorantly stated I was wrong, the DM... I told him pick 1 Class and "Main" it, meaning it always gets a level, and he can dip all he wants with the other level, in which he started complaining "How would I get prestige classes then?" ... I really would rather not ramble on over how dumbfounded that argument was...

It sounds like the problem is resolved, then, if not cleanly.

My advice to you, for future campaigns, is as follows: Discuss power level expectations with your players in advance. Setting clear expectations of what will and will not fly is a good way to prevent confusion or disagreements. Establish what classes, spells, and abilities are banned or nerfed in advance. Applying nerfs in-game rarely ends well, and often causes hurt feelings, as illustrated by this player's reaction. Detail house rules in advance. It sounds like you're using a very specific form of gestalt (i.e. main class one side, free game other side), which isn't the usual rule. This player may have been unfamiliar with your rule, and his response (i.e. that you were "wrong") could have been an overreaction to having not known this house rule. Once play has begun, keep track of character growth. This can be accomplished by keeping your own duplicates of the PCs' character sheets. This serves multiple purposes: It keeps you aware of what the PCs are capable of and where their growth is headed; it allows you to more carefully craft encounters that are both challenging and appropriate; it gives you a fall-back in case a player forgets his sheet one day; and it serves as a deterrent against character sheet shenanigans. With a copy of the sheet in hand, you'll be prepared if you start seeing unusual stats cropping up or conflicting class levels.
Prevention of player issues is a two-way street. And while it seems that this player overreacted (rather badly, I might add), it's possible that some of the confusion could have been avoided with clearer communication.

[Cyussu]

It sounds like the problem is resolved, then, if not cleanly.

My advice to you, for future campaigns, is as follows: Discuss power level expectations with your players in advance. Setting clear expectations of what will and will not fly is a good way to prevent confusion or disagreements. Establish what classes, spells, and abilities are banned or nerfed in advance. Applying nerfs in-game rarely ends well, and often causes hurt feelings, as illustrated by this player's reaction. Detail house rules in advance. It sounds like you're using a very specific form of gestalt (i.e. main class one side, free game other side), which isn't the usual rule. This player may have been unfamiliar with your rule, and his response (i.e. that you were "wrong") could have been an overreaction to having not known this house rule. Once play has begun, keep track of character growth. This can be accomplished by keeping your own duplicates of the PCs' character sheets. This serves multiple purposes: It keeps you aware of what the PCs are capable of and where their growth is headed; it allows you to more carefully craft encounters that are both challenging and appropriate; it gives you a fall-back in case a player forgets his sheet one day; and it serves as a deterrent against character sheet shenanigans. With a copy of the sheet in hand, you'll be prepared if you start seeing unusual stats cropping up or conflicting class levels.
Prevention of player issues is a two-way street. And while it seems that this player overreacted (rather badly, I might add), it's possible that some of the confusion could have been avoided with clearer communication.

Well as I stated, if not poorly, I gave the group a deadline 4 months in advance to have their characters ready, they weren't, and I guess that gave the only player that I had an issue with the ability to overpower it to the stats of 3 characters slapped together. "LA (deathtouch+1, half troll+4, fire souled +1) =6. 1 barbarian, 1 rougue, 1 battle dancer, 4 fighter, 4 bujin, 1tsukai=5, 1 cult, 1 mind spy. CR 15 1/2 = (7HD, (deathtouch+0, half troll+2, fire souled +1)(aku-tsukai +1[hd8=+2] aku-tenshi +1 swarm-shifter 2, death knight +1, lgion +1/2, wendego+2) taint AKUTSUKAI" which class/template banning wasn't the issue. It was that prior to this revamp that he chose, the main issue was that he dips as little levels as possible and abuses that note. He actually increased the power of the character significantly after re-doing classes, which ticked me off. He does all in his power to just abusively powerhouse every character he's made. He had a cult leader character who's leadership score at 7th Level is in the 30s. That's all fine and dandy, but he'd gain followers who were on par in strength to the entire party, and he'd gain a LOT of them.

I digress, the point is, optimizing according to houserules is fine, but taking what is said, then butchering it horribly to make it something YOU want, and going against the DM at every turn in-game to get what YOU want, even when it's 100% against not only your Alignment(He was doing very blatant "good"-aligned acts as a CE Character, repeatedly) just to attempt to persuade for his own goals. Which involved PK'ing at one point, which as a Wendigo is not against his character's Alignment or Mentality.

The Gestalt note was after is bitched and cried for 2 weeks over not being allowed to optimize it, I shrugged, stopped caring, and let him do it under 1 major circumstance. I know how Gestalt works, and I just didn't wanna keep hearing him complain. And as stated earlier, I gave them several months in advance to get everything stablized, in which a majority of them weren't finished until day of. As for Progression Sheets. I have all key stats in a notebook of each character, ranging from AC, Primary Stats, Saves, and Equipment. So that much is settled.

And as a last note, I try my best to word everything as precise to what the meaning of the statement should say, rather than the PC's attempt at leaving massive potholes across a 5-mile stretch of black ice. And thank you both for replying quite swiftly on the matter.


EDIT --- I understand fully on how powerful the Leadership Feat can get and how swiftly it can hit that mark. I encourage people to get Cohorts, gives me a reason to through more Quantity rather than pure Quality of Enemies without them being too overpowered and the combat be Winnable.

[Curbstomp]

A few thoughts:
1. A player re-doing his character is not something that you are required to allow, but if you allowed it you certainly should not complain. That is HIS character not yours. If he is following the rules as laid out by the game in general and by you in specific why are you complaining? Your main complaint seems to be against min-maxing. Some players really like to do that, others lean heavier into role-play or comedy or a variety of other things. If you cannot think of a way to challenge a min-max build like he has, then don't run a gestalt game.
2. Multi-classing is a part of the game in D&D 3.5. Unless you outright ban it as a house rule it is allowed by default.
3. Evil characters can perform good acts. Particularly when those acts are in their own interest.
4. To be honest it does not sound like you know how gestalt works. It is inherently overpowered. Additionally you seem to have modified the rules for it but made that unclear to your players.

My advice:
Stop running a gestalt game. I've run several gestalt campaigns over the years and they can be a lot of fun, but with a party the size that you described it is a really bad idea. In fact the gestalt rules specifically mention that they are meant for use will small parties. Your posts seem to show you struggling to handle the abilities caused, at least in part, by playing in the gestalt format. So stop doing it.

[Bullet06320]

9 players is tuff begin with, even more so with a gestault game, that allows all sorts of cheese to drip off the table, lol, and a lot harder to keep track of and properly prepare for

as far AC goes, touch AC is usually easier to hit

sonic and force spells and effects, very few things have resistance or not enuf of it

maybe you could have been clearer in the beginning as to house rules, but by the sounds of it, the player had plenty of notice to be preprared and just wanted his way

[ben-zayb]

Combat is also not the end all, be all. You can still challenge them in puzzle-type encounters, social encounters, or challenges based on the environment (terrain, traps, etc)