How to manage a metamagiced maniac

[D3agle93]

There is a campaign I'm currently running in which I let one of the players have a fairly OP build, mainly because I thought it sounded cool. I forgot to realize that I would be trying to fight this thing as the DM.

His build as i currently know it is spellcaster 5/ Metaphysical Spellshaper 2. He used arcane spellcaster from Unearthed Arcana to give himself as large a spell list as possible, then using Spell shaper from Book of Erotica Fantasy (yes, I'm allowing that book and yes, it has made some sessions that awkward) to metamagic spells to an obscene level. For any who don't know the class, it is a 3 level Prestige class that lets the caster take damage to an ability score rather than increase the level of a metamagiced spell. At 3rd level, it also drops the level increase by 1. So far, he has used the reserve feat mitigate suffering to replenish the damaged score, and in the upcoming levels he plans on dipping Binder to bind Naberius. So far, he has proven to be a force to be reckoned with, ending most encounters with a massive fireball that destroys everything they're facing or eliminating the greatest threat with maximized shivering touch. I've tried coming up with ways to mitigate his destructive power without penalizing the rest of the party, and thus I turn to the forums.

Any books are usable, homebrew is discouraged, and I would prefer not to outright murder any of the PCs, though the player is firmly aware that might have to.

[ZamielVanWeber]

1) Generic classes are never meant to mix with non generic classes (Including Prestige Classes). Admit your mistake and make him rebuild with a normal core class.
2) RAW Metaphysical Metamagic only mucks with Restoration, but RAI it almost certainly meant all forms, so mitigate suffering and Naberius would need caster level checks to function. Losing access to generic Spellcaster will probably help a great deal with mitigate suffering though.

[Lagren]

There is a campaign I'm currently running in which I let one of the players have a fairly OP build, mainly because I thought it sounded cool. I forgot to realize that I would be trying to fight this thing as the DM.

His build as i currently know it is spellcaster 5/ Metaphysical Spellshaper 2. He used arcane spellcaster from Unearthed Arcana to give himself as large a spell list as possible, then using Spell shaper from Book of Erotica Fantasy (yes, I'm allowing that book and yes, it has made some sessions that awkward) to metamagic spells to an obscene level. For any who don't know the class, it is a 3 level Prestige class that lets the caster take damage to an ability score rather than increase the level of a metamagiced spell. At 3rd level, it also drops the level increase by 1. So far, he has used the reserve feat mitigate suffering to replenish the damaged score, and in the upcoming levels he plans on dipping Binder to bind Naberius. So far, he has proven to be a force to be reckoned with, ending most encounters with a massive fireball that destroys everything they're facing or eliminating the greatest threat with maximized shivering touch. I've tried coming up with ways to mitigate his destructive power without penalizing the rest of the party, and thus I turn to the forums.

Any books are usable, homebrew is discouraged, and I would prefer not to outright murder any of the PCs, though the player is firmly aware that might have to.

This sort of trick is what fuels Priya the Prismatic Priestess. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?280365-Priya-the-Prismatic-Priestess-Buffs-Across-the-Spectrum) Fortunately, it doesn't sound like he's taken Persistent Spell. Unfortunately, unlimited free metamagic is still the kind of thing that breaks campaigns.

(Also, be very glad that he hasn't heard of Sheltered Vitality from Libris Mortis, which would allow him to outright ignore the ability score damage, since he can cast as a fourth-level cleric.)

What characters are the rest of your group playing? Are they anywhere close in terms of optimization?

[Florian]

Use a shadow demon, upgrade it with the Demonic Possession and Improved Possession feats. Start a random encounter with the shadow demon already in possession of some nasty melee brute, wait for the caster to grill the host, have the shadow demon possess the caster now and start casting self-centered fireballs at your leasure.

[tuesdayscoming]

Use a shadow demon, upgrade it with the Demonic Possession and Improved Possession feats. Start a random encounter with the shadow demon already in possession of some nasty melee brute, wait for the caster to grill the host, have the shadow demon possess the caster now and start casting self-centered fireballs at your leasure.

Where are these feats from?

[Florian]

Where are these feats from?

Demons Revisited.

[Slithery D]

Demons Revisited.

This isn't a Pathfinder thread, though.

[Florian]

This isn't a Pathfinder thread, though.

It's not flagged in any way, though.

[legomaster00156]

It's not flagged in any way, though.
Since the PrC is from the BoEF, we can safely assume this is a 3.5 game.

[D3agle93]

Sorry, forgot to add tags when I made the thread. Still new to posting here. The game is in 3.5, but if there is something that from 3.0 or Pathfinder that translates nicely I am not beyond taking a look at it.

As for the rest of the party, we have a lvl 7 Warblade and lvl 7 Artificer, both human, and a Scout/Ranger w/swift hunter in a custom ape-man race (player had seen the most recent planet of the apes and wanted Caesar). I also have a DM PC for when we need an extra body; he is a Sun Elf Crusader going into Eternal Blade. My character is more a just-in-case thing, but with the encounters I've had to make just to challenge them he's seen a fair bit of action.

To the player's credit, he has tried to tone down the brokenness and accepted that there will be some serious story bias against him. My campaign prominently features 2 pantheons at war: 1 supporting divine magic, the other for arcane. Since he can cast divine as arcane, he already has half the world against him. Furthermore, he is a silver brow human in a world where all dragons are generally hated and feared. Essentially, dragons were extremely rare until 700 years past, when hundreds of them were flung into the world in the middle of a massive dragon war. Every dragon, chromatic and metallic, are considered monstrously evil.

Feat wise, he has energy substitution (cold), energy admixture, maximize, empower, and persist. Typically, he has persistent Detect Magic running on him and he gives our leap attacking Warblade a persistent jump. Ive already told him that having the detect magic running in a heavily magical area will be detrimental to him, kinda like a sensory overload. He took Weak Will as a flaw, and RP wise has a major flaw. His character is basically a nerd version of Barney Stinson from How I Met your Mother, sleeping with every legal looking girl he can. This will come to bite him in the ass very soon. One threat he will soon face is a tantrist/cancer mage infected with every STD in the book plus a few choice normal diseases. I doubt he will be enjoying her company.

[MisterKaws]

Talk to him in private, and ask him to rebuild, if it doesn't work, send him a very nice CL10 living fireball(MM3 p91) for the maximum irony, this CL10 fireball would have a CR 8, considered some sort of tough fight for ECL 7 players. It has SR 20, +7 fort and +6 other saves, 60ft movement, and a hit from it's slam also affects the target as if hit by the spell's effect, which means certain death for a 6th level caster, if this thing uses a charge at him, he's as good as dead, probably entering -10hp instantly, but the others will have to kill it without his help, which might be pretty hard considering it's immune to most save-or-suck effects, has DR 10/magic, SR 20 and deals 6d6+1 even on a successful save.

Edit: Just in case it doesn't work, there's nothing saying that you can't put metamagic on living spells(I'd treat this as templating for a living spell), let him taste his own poison.

[Lagren]

Sorry, forgot to add tags when I made the thread. Still new to posting here. The game is in 3.5, but if there is something that from 3.0 or Pathfinder that translates nicely I am not beyond taking a look at it.

As for the rest of the party, we have a lvl 7 Warblade and lvl 7 Artificer, both human, and a Scout/Ranger w/swift hunter in a custom ape-man race (player had seen the most recent planet of the apes and wanted Caesar). I also have a DM PC for when we need an extra body; he is a Sun Elf Crusader going into Eternal Blade. My character is more a just-in-case thing, but with the encounters I've had to make just to challenge them he's seen a fair bit of action.

To the player's credit, he has tried to tone down the brokenness and accepted that there will be some serious story bias against him. My campaign prominently features 2 pantheons at war: 1 supporting divine magic, the other for arcane. Since he can cast divine as arcane, he already has half the world against him. Furthermore, he is a silver brow human in a world where all dragons are generally hated and feared. Essentially, dragons were extremely rare until 700 years past, when hundreds of them were flung into the world in the middle of a massive dragon war. Every dragon, chromatic and metallic, are considered monstrously evil.

Feat wise, he has energy substitution (cold), energy admixture, maximize, empower, and persist. Typically, he has persistent Detect Magic running on him and he gives our leap attacking Warblade a persistent jump. Ive already told him that having the detect magic running in a heavily magical area will be detrimental to him, kinda like a sensory overload. He took Weak Will as a flaw, and RP wise has a major flaw. His character is basically a nerd version of Barney Stinson from How I Met your Mother, sleeping with every legal looking girl he can. This will come to bite him in the ass very soon. One threat he will soon face is a tantrist/cancer mage infected with every STD in the book plus a few choice normal diseases. I doubt he will be enjoying her company.

How is he using Persist if he doesn't have Extend Spell? It's a prereq.

[MisterKaws]

How is he using Persist if he doesn't have Extend Spell? It's a prereq.

Yup, now it's mandatory rebuild time...

[D3agle93]

How is he using Persist if he doesn't have Extend Spell? It's a prereq.

He, ah, uhmm... now that I think about it, I'm not entirely sure. I know he has persistent spell, but I'm not entirely sure on the feats. I have an old version of his sheet, but he changed some of it when I told him he couldn't use admixture with shivering touch to deal something 36 Dex damage with a touch attack. In the last fight, he used admixture, maximize, and persistent. He may have dropped empower.

Edit: I don't want to force a rebuild. He knows his character is a broken mess and fully expects me to kill him. To that end, he has backups prepared, just as crazy but nowhere near as broken. He is a major power gamer, but I've seen most of his builds and they follow RAW remarkably well. It's me being forgetful rather than him cheating.

[Crake]

Quick and simple solution: Change the ability damage to ability burn. Is not affected by spells at all, so sheltered vitality doesn't prevent it, and magical healing will not restore it. The only thing that will return it is time spent resting.

[Lagren]

Quick and simple solution: Change the ability damage to ability burn. Is not affected by spells at all, so sheltered vitality doesn't prevent it, and magical healing will not restore it. The only thing that will return it is time spent resting.

A free -1 to all metamagic level modifiers is still pretty scary. There's literally no reason for him to not prepare everything with his choice of +1 metamagic.

[MisterKaws]

He, ah, uhmm... now that I think about it, I'm not entirely sure. I know he has persistent spell, but I'm not entirely sure on the feats. I have an old version of his sheet, but he changed some of it when I told him he couldn't use admixture with shivering touch to deal something 36 Dex damage with a touch attack. In the last fight, he used admixture, maximize, and persistent. He may have dropped empower.

Edit: I don't want to force a rebuild. He knows his character is a broken mess and fully expects me to kill him. To that end, he has backups prepared, just as crazy but nowhere near as broken. He is a major power gamer, but I've seen most of his builds and they follow RAW remarkably well. It's me being forgetful rather than him cheating.

If he already expects his death, then there's no problem going the "you've got AIDS!" route, just get something with a ridiculous number of STDs.

Also, you can always use the "Rocks fall" method, just a little more creative, like having one of the divine magic gods(destruction preferably) drop that ray-thingy salient divine ability, forgot the name right now, anyway, nothing short of an arch-demon/fiend//ancient dragon/titan/abomination/top-ranking celestial/etc can survive that.

[Crake]

A free -1 to all metamagic level modifiers is still pretty scary. There's literally no reason for him to not prepare everything with his choice of +1 metamagic.

Do what many metamagic reducers do and make it -1 (minimum reduction to 1). So a +2 becomes a +1, but a +1 remains +1, and +0 remains +0. It already has a clause for this, so he still has to pay for +1 metamagic.

Gotta remember, that being 3rd party, the BoEF is entirely up to DM adjudication/adjustment to suit his desires (i mean, technically everything is within that realm, but 3rd party definitely more so). Adjusting it to fix any design issues that interact with the class in ways unforseen by the authors (since it was designed in a vacuum with core only) isn't something I'd recommend doing, it's something I would insist doing.

[D3agle93]

If he already expects his death, then there's no problem going the "you've got AIDS!" route, just get something with a ridiculous number of STDs.

Also, you can always use the "Rocks fall" method, just a little more creative, like having one of the divine magic gods(destruction preferably) drop that ray-thingy salient divine ability, forgot the name right now, anyway, nothing short of an arch-demon/fiend//ancient dragon/titan/abomination/top-ranking celestial/etc can survive that.

I don't want to kill, both because everyone likes the character and because he allows for some interesting story options. It may come to the point where I grow too aggravated balancing the encounters and I drop the ceiling on him, but I'm trying to avoid that.

I have already put a limit on how low he can drop the level boost. Any boost is a minimum of +1. I do have a question about mitigate suffering. It says it gives temporary ability points for 10 minutes; is that treated like temporary HP, with only the highest number mattering or does it stack with itself?

As for ability burn... what is that? I understand that damage is temporary and heals 1 per day and that drain is permanent until restoration fixes it, but I've never heard of ability burn.

[Crake]

I don't want to kill, both because everyone likes the character and because he allows for some interesting story options. It may come to the point where I grow too aggravated balancing the encounters and I drop the ceiling on him, but I'm trying to avoid that.

As for ability burn... what is that? I understand that damage is temporary and heals 1 per day and that drain is permanent until restoration fixes it, but I've never heard of ability burn.

Ability burn was introduced in the expanded psionics handbook as a form of ability damage that simply cannot be magically cured at all. It functions exactly like damage, but is not affected by magic at all, and is only ever self inflicted (so enemies can't inflict ability burn on you for example, only on themselves). It stops him from just spamming ability damage followed by ability healing on himself, and since it's not ACTUALLY ability damage, it bypasses any immunity to ability damage from any source, so you can't exploit it that way either.


A free -1 to all metamagic level modifiers is still pretty scary. There's literally no reason for him to not prepare everything with his choice of +1 metamagic.

Also, just re-read the class, it already has the suggestion I made, making it's reduction to a minimum of +1 anyway, so no free metamagic from it's metamagic mastery ability.

[Vizzerdrix]

How about this. Sick a rival wizard (someone jealous of his power) on him, but with an imp. He orders the imp to follow the dude around and peg him with poisoned arrows every now and again throughout the day. Something that mucks up stats a bit.

For extra fun, shoehorn that wizard into runelord and etch a rune of Arrowsplit on the bow. Imp now has 1d4 poisoned arrows per shot.

Hmm... I wonder if skiurids wouldn't be a good way to deal with him. Every problem can be solved with enough use of squirrel, after all. :smallconfused:

[ZamielVanWeber]

A free -1 to all metamagic level modifiers is still pretty scary. There's literally no reason for him to not prepare everything with his choice of +1 metamagic.

The -1 is to the final cost. So 2 +2s end at +3, not +2.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Your problem is that you're being too permissive. This is an out-of-character problem, not something you solve ingame. Turning it into an arms race will just end up cutting the other players out completely and probably suck all the fun out of it for you.

Having a character like that in the party means the other players need to play at least around that level or risk becoming sidekicks while he hogs the spotlight, and that you need to optimize your encounters to a roughly similar level to provide a challenge (unless your group enjoys just rolling over everything, but in that case why do you bother with all the die rolling and mechanics?).

There's a reason most optimizers use "don't overdo it and match your groups power level" as a kind of unwritten first rule. It's a group game, not a one-man power fantasy.
If the rest of the party (or you as a DM) isn't up to that level of optimization tell him to tone it down. He can still play an effective wizard without breaking the game, and the other players want to have fun too (as does the DM).

Just because something is RAW doesn't mean you have to allow it in your games, and if mr. powergamer can't deal with that your group is probably better off without him unless you enjoy being spectators while he lives out his mary sue fantasies. Tell him to go write bad fanfiction to get it out of his system if he has to.

[AvatarVecna]

It's not flagged in any way, though.

For things like this, I like using context clues, such as the multiple mechanics and sourcebooks mentioned in the OP that are from 3.5, and the complete lack of mechanics or sourcebooks mentioned in the OP of Pathfinder origin. The complete lack of a Pathfinder tag also helps give this kind of context, but a lack of Pathfinder mechanics mentioned isn't necessarily a sign unless there's also a lot of 3.5 mechanics being mentioned (which there are).