wizard doing it all DM help

[CMagnum]

In the red hand of doom 3.5 campaign I am running we have a seven person party consisting of a rogue, a fighter, barbarian, wizard, monk, bard and cleric. I am finding the wizard to be overly competent and damaging, greatly out shining the others in damage and overall ability. He is just blasting the hobo's and dealt about 90%of the damage to both dragons they have encountered so far. Does anyone have any ideas of how to give the others a better chance to shine in this action without needing to restrict the wizard too much? I have been giving out items specifically for the others and excluding the wizard from good items. Do you think that more encounters per day could help so he can't just blast away all day? He likes evocation spells which have been great at dealing with the masses of weaklings. Maybe adding Spell resistance to the tougher monsters? Any ideas would be appreciated.

[AnachroNinja]

Going into this I have to assume the rest of the party is pretty unoptimized. Otherwise an evocation wizard probably wouldn't be such a problem. Is the wizard optimizing heavily? Like, arcane thesis and incantatrix to lower metamagic, or is he just throwing fireballs and orb spells?

Unless he is really going crazy your only real option is going to be talking to him and encouraging him to mix in some party support, or working with the other players to up their system mastery. The downside there is that an across the board jump in the party optimization would likely necessitate a rework of the campaign because RHoD isn't really keyed for high optimization parties.

With a bit more info about the relative optimization levels, might be able to give better advice.

[CMagnum]

The rest of the party had basically no optimization, a few decent items I've given them but the barbarian hardly even rages, the cleric loves casting sanctuary then heading, the fighter doesn't power attack often etc. Then the wizard: hasn't PrC'd yet but has a circle of mages and some good feats. I'll get home in half an hour and be able to tell you what he's got.
It is my first time dming so I'm new to this. Just looking for general idea to give the others a chance to feel powerful.
Thank you for the quick reply

[CMagnum]

so the whisper gnome wizard 8 has for feats: improved initiative, scribe scroll, spell penetration, focused caster and arcane thesis.

They are spread from level 6 to level 8 (the wiz is level 8) and I would say that the rest of the party is not optimized at all. I have been playing with the group for one year (and that was my start) however I enjoy reading forums and have put a lot of time into the game resulting in myself being the most knowledgeable about 3.5 by a decent amount, the rest of them are pretty casual. I would say the wiz has put the most time into learning and reading ideas out of the group by far.
He does a lot of blasting but also has mage armor, fly, glitterdust and a few other utility spells up his sleeve. Weasel familiar that he keeps out of the fight.

[icefractal]

The rest of the party had basically no optimization, a few decent items I've given them but the barbarian hardly even rages, the cleric loves casting sanctuary then heading, the fighter doesn't power attack often etc. I think that's your problem. A blaster Wizard is generally the easiest to balance kind of Wizard, much less overwhelming than one who uses BFC/SoD tactics. However, that doesn't matter in the situation you have - one person is playing their character effectively, the others aren't.

So yes, I'd give them items, but specifically, I'd give them items that heavily pushed them toward effective strategies:
* Barbarian gets a totemic belt (or something) that allows them to Rage once every battle.
* Cleric gets a banner that auto-Quickens a healing spell (and gives it Close range) whenever they attack. Or if the player really wants to be a pacifist, it does it when they cast buff spells on their allies.
* Fighter gets a special weapon that's more deadly the more accurate he is - meaning that it auto-power-attacks: +2 damage for every point he exceeded the target's AC (even if he's using it one handed; a sword-n-board Fighter needs the help).

And don't exclude the Wizard from items entirely, he's not doing anything wrong. Maybe give him defensive items (Bracers of Armor, Ring of Spellbattle, Anklet of Translocation) more so than offensive ones.

[CMagnum]

Thanks for the ideas! I have been trying to balance by giving the others tailored equipment, these items all sound like just the stuff they need. I appreciate the response :)

[CMagnum]

And thanks also for the inclusion of the wizard in items as well - he does deserve to get stuff you are right, just that he doesn't need it to add to his destructive abilities in this case.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I don't understand the problem. There's an artillery character providing artillery-grade firepower. That's what the blaster wizard was always expected to be when the game was designed.

You could suggest to the wizard that the might consider shifting focus to BFC and/or buffing/debuffing. Even without optimization a blaster wizard has a pretty significant adavantage in damage dealing capability until mid-level barring shock-trooper shenanigans. Even then he still enjoys a targetting advantage. Unless he shifts away from blowin stuff up, the others are going to have to step up their game and then you're going to have a new problem with everything in the RHoD and any other module you run being hilariously underpowered.

Icefractal has a solid plan though. Giving an offensive advantage to other players and leaving the wizard's offense to his own buiding can help to narrow the gap at least.

[CMagnum]

I have tried nudging him in the direction of being a little more buff/debuff with ideas like haste, enlarge person and so forth, but even though he learned these spells he doesn't really use them often as he seems most content when doing what he is able to do with his damage blasts. I don't want to penalize him for choosing to play his character idea effectively in the campaign, so if anyone as any other good ideas for items to dole out to the other players that would be appreciated.
As I mentioned I am pretty new to the game so I guess the better title for the thread would have been about helping the other characters become better than to nerf the wizard.
Thanks to you all for the ideas and suggestions, it is all very helpful and appreciated.
CMagnum

[AnachroNinja]

Just as a side note, are the other players voicing concern about how the game is going or do they seem to be enjoying their play style despite being less effective? In the long run, if the party is succeeding, and everyone's having fun, the problem may not really be much of a problem.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I'm afraid you're only hitting the tip of the iceberg. As the characters continue to level, the gap will only get more noticeable. Be glad your cleric is of the heal/buffbot type and not interested in a ClericZilla.

Be grateful that the only thing the wizard is doing is blastomancy. He could be a Conjuration or Transmutation focused GD Batman Wizard. Also remind him that Arcane Thesis only works on a SINGLE PREDEFINED SPELL. You name the spell when you pick the feat, and it cannot be changed thereafter. What spell does he have Thesis'd?

If you want to encourage him to do more buffs, use this demonstration:

Damage a Fireball does? (level)d6 per enemy hit. So, that's roughly 3.5*lvl*enemies. You said he's level 8? That's around 28 damage per enemy hit, give or take. Oh, and watch out for Friendly Fire.

Damage a Haste does? Well, it gives an entire extra attack for every ally pretty much for the rest of combat. Remember, it is a party buff so you are hitting BOTH the Fighter AND the Barbarian. So one free attack from both fighter and barbarian... PER TURN. That's probably going to more than even out in the first turn, everything after that will be massively in favor of Haste while you do something ELSE.

if he is level 8, then he has 4th level spells. Suggest to him Mass Enlarge Person. Here's why. First off, it affects both the Fighter and the Barbarian at the same time (the first level version will only affect one). Like before, you're looking at rounds/level, so probably for the rest of combat. You're giving them a size bonus to Strength, so bonus damage, then a size increase on damage dice, which is more bonus damage, then you give them REACH. This is flippin' HUGE (well, Large, at least). That means they get to make an Attack of Opportunity before the opponent ever gets a chance to close in many cases, and means they DON'T have to provoke an AoO against a weapon of reach or a large opponent.

So why does this impact the wizard? The bigger they are, the more likely they will get opponent's attention, and the less likely something will get past them to him.

Also, opponents can't make a saving throw if you don't target them. Buffing is 100% guaranteed to work. Blasting has a chance of saving for half (or even zero, since you do run across evasion enemies in RHOD) damage.

You won't need to worry about SR, if you're playing RHOD, you'll be seeing plenty of SR creatures coming up that will start giving him fits. If he's still giving you issues, start tossing in monsters with two levels in Rogue (or monk) for bonus reflex save and Evasion.

[Droopy McCool]

I remember my first time DMing...

Actually, nobody in my group ever played a Wizzy or Sorc for the longest time. Every encounter I made was balanced against a group of mundanes. I remember one guy's character died, so he threw together an unoptimized Wizard 8. Party was attacked by two Behirs, and I was excited to use the improved grab/swallow whole abilities. Combat went like this:

First Behir shot a lightening cone, hitting the Paladin.
Second Behir grabbed the Paladin and prepared to swallow him.
Wizard cast enlarge person on him, making him just too big to swallow. Later he finished the Behirs off with some fireballs.

My initial reaction was disbelief. I had never seen anyone take over and ace combat so easily. Everything I prepared was pointless now. To be honest, the player felt gross about trivializing the game like that and made a different character.

Regardless, I feel like items will help, but you should prompt the others to use their abilities; not to optimize their build, just utilize all their tools. Power attack, rage, whatever. It doesn't make sense to not use these things, especially when it's a class feature. You didn't say they were new players, but this has a new player feel - lack of system mastery aside.

McCool

[CMagnum]

The other players are aware and have made "jokes" about the disparity of damage occurring, though I don't see them really putting in the time to do anything about it on their own, hence me seeing about some easy fix.

[CMagnum]

McCool, I have mentioned to them their abilities and feats before, but it seems that short of me telling the barbarian to rage at the beginning of every combat and reminding the bard to buff the party with his singing they are just not going to do it. They have all played for at least a year longer than I have.

Shneeky - great ideas and I will definitely pass these along to the wizard. the arcane thesis is on scorching ray

CMagnum

[fishyfishyfishy]

There is an excellent guide to running the Red Hand of Doom on these forums and I highly suggest you check it out. It was very helpful when I ran the module for my players. It's how I started my campaign.

As for addressing your specific concerns I would say that you don't really have much of a problem. There will be enemies with elemental resistances and SR in later stages of the module. Blasting will only be effective against the mobs of weaker enemies and the rest of the group will have to deal with the bigger threats.

I suggest giving them a few healing items (wands are good) so the Cleric feels more comfortable branching out with their spell selection. The upside is the Bard can also use these. An item that duplicates the effects of the extra Rage feat can help the Barbarian feel like they can use it more often. Maybe also give out something that can easily remove fatigue. A special instrument for the Bard can give an extra +1 to inspire courage.

Edit: find out why the players chose their specific classes and what appealed to them. Once you understand what they want out of the game you can better tailor their treasure. Get them to compile a wishlist of things they want for their character and use some of that as rewards.

[Bucky]

They are spread from level 6 to level 8 (the wiz is level 8)

Why is there a 2-level spread in the party? That sounds like an obvious source of a power-gap.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Why is there a 2-level spread in the party? That sounds like an obvious source of a power-gap.

Death, with a party like that running RHoD, would be my guess.

[CMagnum]

The difference in level is mostly due to people missing multiple sessions - the wiz is one of the only few who hasn't missed at least one - some up to 5 sessions so far. we play 3-4 hours once a week.
I work hard to balance the encounters for the party ability, and have only killed one character so far.

[Droopy McCool]

McCool, I have mentioned to them their abilities and feats before, but it seems that short of me telling the barbarian to rage at the beginning of every combat and reminding the bard to buff the party with his singing they are just not going to do it. They have all played for at least a year longer than I have.

Well then, I don't think there is much you can do aside from force-feeding them magic items to duplicate abilities they neglect. However, until they decide the difference in damage is a problem, I'd say let it ride.

McCool

[nedz]

Dropping targeted items is iffy because the player you have designed the item for may not like it and choose something else. This is especially true for beginners. Too often the item gets put in the bag and sold or even just never identified.

The healing items drop is a good idea though, however it does invalidate the healbots character choices so it might not work out too well.

The usual counters to AoEs is to have the enemy spread out, or hide, or close quickly to combat, etc.. If you present the blasterbot with lots of Fireball shaped formations, well you know what happens.

Also the point about invalidating the player's tactical choices, even bad ones, is also important. You really want them to improve their tactics and not for you to play the game for them.

[johnbragg]

It would mean swapping out some of the encounters in the module, but maybe instead of telling them, again, what their character classes can do, you show them. See what a Hobgoblin Bard 1/Sorcerer 6 (with a wand of cure light wounds) leading a Barbarian 4, Rogue 4 (with a Ring of Invisibility) and a Fighter 4 with some of your party fighter's best feats (you mentioned Power Attack, so start with 2H-PA).

If it's reasonable that the rogue could have scouted the party, start with the party hearing singing. (Pick appropriate theme music. I always find that The Who's Behind Blue Eyes creates a great vibe for confusing the party. And then, just about when combat is starting, in all hell breaks loose.) 1. Enlarge barbarian. 2. Haste, while Barbarian starts raging. 3. Enlarge 2HPA Fighter. Rogue breaks invisbility with a Sneak Attack on whoever when actual combat starts. Those fireballs are less damaging since the Sorcerer has cast resist energy on his buddies.

Keep mentioning the +1 to hit and damage from the bard song, too.

Maybe send in a second wave of 3 mooks, 1st level archers with Precise Shot, just to make things more chaotic. They get the bardsong bonus too. EDIT: Why not cast magic weapon on their bows too, just for fun?

Kit them out with whatever magical goodies you want the party to end up with. They'll appreciate and use them more after getting whacked with those items, hard. You could be really mean to the players and have the Sorcerer load up the Rogue, Barb and Fighter's weapons with the MAgic Weapon spell so they suffer the damage but don't get the loot. (Duration 1 min/level). That's up to you.

Side effect could be that your players NEVER allow a hobgoblin to escape alive again. :smallbiggrin:

[johnbragg]

NOTE: If Fighter is a sword-and-board fighter, he won't get the full benefits of Power Attack. Does the player seem to have something he prefers, and we can find or homebrew something so that he pulls his weight?

[Bronk]

McCool, I have mentioned to them their abilities and feats before, but it seems that short of me telling the barbarian to rage at the beginning of every combat and reminding the bard to buff the party with his singing they are just not going to do it. They have all played for at least a year longer than I have.


They may have been playing longer, but they might just not be very good at it, or it isn't their primary focus. There's nothing wrong with reminding them of what they can do when it's their turn.

For example, if the barbarian attacks without raging, just say, 'and are you raging for the +2 damage bonus?'

You can remind the rogue whenever an attack would offer sneak attack.

Is the bard not inspiring courage, or using magic?

Remind the cleric that they can buff too.

The monk? I'm sure you can think of something. Stun more?

That kind of thing.

[atemu1234]

They may have been playing longer, but they might just not be very good at it, or it isn't their primary focus. There's nothing wrong with reminding them of what they can do when it's their turn.

For example, if the barbarian attacks without raging, just say, 'and are you raging for the +2 damage bonus?'

You can remind the rogue whenever an attack would offer sneak attack.

Is the bard not inspiring courage, or using magic?

Remind the cleric that they can buff too.

The monk? I'm sure you can think of something. Stun more?

That kind of thing.

Monk - "Hey, old buddy ol' pal o'mine, you may want to take a few levels in cleric and go into enlightened fist... why? Oh, no reason..."

[ComaVision]

Monk - "Hey, old buddy ol' pal o'mine, you may want to take a few levels in cleric and go into enlightened fist... why? Oh, no reason..."

I make this mistake all the time too but Enlightened Fist is the Arcane one, the Divine one is Sacred Fist.

[atemu1234]

I make this mistake all the time too but Enlightened Fist is the Arcane one, the Divine one is Sacred Fist.

Ah, whoops.

[CMagnum]

Wow, thanks for all the useful information everyone. Great ideas for not spoon feeding it but showing the way JohnBragg. BTW the fighter wields a greatsword so power attack would benefit him.
Nedz, they have been good about equipping items they find though often it is the wrong person interested in the item or the rogue like to grab anything he possibly can.
I'm getting that I should let newbs be newbs as long as it goes pretty smoothly.

[CMagnum]

Johnbragg, I haven't run the dirty looters side quest yet. When they're in a small town I'll reformat that encounter with your idea for sure

[CMagnum]

Would the monk need to stop monk progression if they took sacred fist PrC?

[Caedes]

One of my close friends always plays a Wizard and as a DM it used to be hard to keep the other players interested. Or keep him from trivializing everyone else's roles.

We have worked together over the years to try and bridge this gap. And for the most part we are successful. Here are my thoughts. And I want to note these may not work for everyone.

1. Discuss with your Wizard the effect it has on the game and try to build the relationship. Much of the time when they see that being god can degrade other people's play they might pull back a little. I have found discussions not in front of the main group are best. As it is easy for these discussions to put a Wizard on the defensive.

2. Keep everyone on the same level and XP. When I was in college and playing D&D all the time it was easy to catch up on XP after missing a game. But now I see Real life happens, so I do not penalize players that can't come. It also helps, keeping the power levels a little closer. The difference between a 6 level fighter and an 8th level fighter are pretty substantial. And on a bookkeeping level, you always know where all your players are at.

3. I completely agree with others view on the magic items and loot. Restricting loot from a wizard is a good way to encourage the wizard to play against you. And there is almost, nothing as damaging to a game when a powerful wizard pc starts pushing against your story because the player behind it feels shafted.

4. This ties into #1. But talk with the player and ask him more about what he views as a challenge for his character. Then add some flavor into the game to "challenge" him/her.

5. Check in on the forum thread as mentioned earlier about this module. And see what you can add or tweak to make combat more interesting for everyone.

At the end of the day, wizards are powerful beings. But luckily for us as DMs there is often an understanding human on the other side. And working with them you can both grow to be better DMing and Wizarding.

:D

[the_david]

Do you adjust the encounters to the size and level of your group? Red Hand of Doom was written for a group of 4 players that starts at level 5 or 6.

[johnbragg]

One of my close friends always plays a Wizard and as a DM it used to be hard to keep the other players interested. Or keep him from trivializing everyone else's roles.

We have worked together over the years to try and bridge this gap. And for the most part we are successful. Here are my thoughts. And I want to note these may not work for everyone.

1. Discuss with your Wizard the effect it has on the game and try to build the relationship. Much of the time when they see that being god can degrade other people's play they might pull back a little. I have found discussions not in front of the main group are best. As it is easy for these discussions to put a Wizard on the defensive.
:D

This is good advice, but I don't know that it's good advice for OP's table. Same level is a good idea, but it's probably too late for that. OP's wizard is dominating the game through blasting. He's dominating because everyone else is slacking, as in not using their abilities well. The Barbarian isn't raging. The greatsword-wielding Fighter isn't power-attacking. the Bard isn't singing. The cleric is at least using spells. Maybe in a later encounter we can show the cleric how to buff allies during combat, or use Dispel Magic to debuff the baddies.

The Wizard is playing right, relative to everybody else at the table. They need to step up their game.

[Caedes]

This is good advice, but I don't know that it's good advice for OP's table. Same level is a good idea, but it's probably too late for that. OP's wizard is dominating the game through blasting. He's dominating because everyone else is slacking, as in not using their abilities well. The Barbarian isn't raging. The greatsword-wielding Fighter isn't power-attacking. the Bard isn't singing. The cleric is at least using spells. Maybe in a later encounter we can show the cleric how to buff allies during combat, or use Dispel Magic to debuff the baddies.

The Wizard is playing right, relative to everybody else at the table. They need to step up their game.

Good to use the same amount of advice with the other players. Have a little 1on1 session with them as well. And be like. Hey, you know you can do this right? I am not sure as to how new the players are, but sometimes new players are scared too use what they have. either due to forgetting or thinking that x/rounds of rage a day is very small. Sometimes, it takes a slap to the head and what do you think Bards do? They play music! Do it!

:D

As far as the equalization of the levels. I do not think it is ever to late for that... May have to sacrifice half a gaming session so everyone can level. But it can be done. :D

[nedz]

As far as the equalization of the levels. I do not think it is ever to late for that... May have to sacrifice half a gaming session so everyone can level. But it can be done.

Nah - just have the Wizard shake hands with a couple of Wights

Seriously: if you are having balance issues then making everyone the same level should be the first thing you try.

If one player is simply more able though, then I suspect you would have this issue if he was playing a Monk. There is nothing we, or you, can do about this: it's an issue for the players to resolve and everyone has to learn. Encouraging a debate about tactics may help and you could have an NPC initiate that quite easily.

[Gabrosin]

I'm surprised more people haven't advocated for improving the opponents' defenses. Adding in better saves, spell resistance, spell reflection, and anti-wizard tactics will help make the other party members (appear) more useful. It's true they might encourage the wizard to adopt even BETTER tactics, like party buffing... but party buffing doesn't have the same "the wizard is doing everything" feel to it. When an unoptimized mundane suddenly becomes large and hasty, they're having too much fun smashing to realize how screwed they'd be without the buffs.

In a large group it's more important than ever for each party member to have their day in the sun. Keep track of who's doing the most and who's doing the least, and adjust your encounters to favor the ones getting the least action. Throw in additional non-combat encounters if need be. Maybe the rogue needs to disable some traps, or the monk needs to... meditate, or something. If the wizard jumps in to try to take over those things as well, then you know you have a serious problem.

[ksbsnowowl]

I'm surprised more people haven't advocated for improving the opponents' defenses. Adding in better saves, spell resistance, spell reflection, and anti-wizard tactics will help make the other party members (appear) more useful. It's true they might encourage the wizard to adopt even BETTER tactics, like party buffing... but party buffing doesn't have the same "the wizard is doing everything" feel to it. When an unoptimized mundane suddenly becomes large and hasty, they're having too much fun smashing to realize how screwed they'd be without the buffs.

A really good way to get all that is to just apply the Spellwarped template (MM3) to some of the monsters in the module. They gain SR that has a unique property of dispelling any spell that fails to overcome its SR. This could potentially prevent the spell from hurting other foes hit at the same time (I'll have to look up the specifics of the ability to be sure). (Sorry, this is how one of my old DM's ran this, and the mistaken idea has stuck with me; they do get bonuses from spells that fail to overcome their SR, though).

That's just something off the top of my head that may alter the encounters to make it harder for the wizard to deal with 90% of things on his own, and require some of the other players to shine a bit (and may lead to the wizard altering spell tactics on his own as a result.)

Given the size of your party, changing one or two of the monsters in each encounter into a Spellwarped creature may bring the encounter level up, compensating for the large number of PC's.

It even fits somewhat with the later implications of the adventure. Azzar Kul (sp?) is looking at bringing some interesting creatures to bear upon Brindol, and later... the other city (forgot its name). Maybe Spellwarping is an early effect of whatever Azzar Kul is doing...

[CMagnum]

Do you adjust the encounters to the size and level of your group? Red Hand of Doom was written for a group of 4 players that starts at level 5 or 6.

the_david, I have been upping the difficulty for the encounters, adding more enemies and often increasing the level or HD of what they are facing. We have just completed Rhest as well, so I think they are on track level wise. Did have a decent amount of random encounters along the way.

Caedes, I have discussed one on one with the wizard and the barbarian (my roommates) and they are both aware and open to these ideas that have been presented. I will have similar conversations with the others as well.

Hopefully all it takes is a little more awareness on the part of the less influential party members to up their game. As has been stated, the blaster wizard is not overly strong, it is mostly that the others are not using their abilities to their fullest which is creating a more significant power dynamic than might normally take place.

nedz, As far as experience goes, the lower level characters are getting more XP per encounter than the others so as long as they keep showing up they will balance out in a few weeks. I feel like this method encourages people to show up but doesnt keep them behind forever.

ksbsnowowl and Gabrosin, I will check out the template, I like the idea.
Edit: I like the spellwarped template, definitely will be throwing that in on some baddies!

[ericgrau]

so the whisper gnome wizard 8 has for feats: improved initiative, scribe scroll, spell penetration, focused caster and arcane thesis.

They are spread from level 6 to level 8 (the wiz is level 8) and I would say that the rest of the party is not optimized at all. I have been playing with the group for one year (and that was my start) however I enjoy reading forums and have put a lot of time into the game resulting in myself being the most knowledgeable about 3.5 by a decent amount, the rest of them are pretty casual. I would say the wiz has put the most time into learning and reading ideas out of the group by far.
He does a lot of blasting but also has mage armor, fly, glitterdust and a few other utility spells up his sleeve. Weasel familiar that he keeps out of the fight.
The following doesn't belong in low optimization: whisper gnome, arcane thesis. Tell him sorry but no, swap them out.

As for having a barbarian that won't even rage and a cleric that wastes round 1 casting sanctuary every fight, that's an additional problem. Rage adds a lot of damage. 1 early round for every fight could add a lot of anything. The cleric could at least wait until he's in danger or has an extra round. Power attack OTOH doesn't actually add much damage because of the attack penalty. More likely he has poor feat choices in general; perhaps others he doesn't use either. Encourage the barbarian to rage. Dunno how you can convince them if you say you've already tried, but I'm just saying rage, budgeting your rounds and feat selection all make a huge difference. Maybe you could ask them what they want to do and give custom feats, spells and/or ACFs towards those ends; don't need to be that strong as long as they actually use them unlike their current abilities. Or point out existing feats, spells, etc. Like instead of saying "healing is suboptimal" which the cleric may not care about, there's augment healing and close wounds. Plus in lower optimization healing isn't so bad.

Dunno what happened with the bard and monk but I know they are both very hard for low skilled players to pull off. Could pull up some guides or allow rebuilds as other classes.


RHoD is a third issue. It expects area damage or other mass effects to be handy because of the mass foes. It even recommends it specifically. But then mass foes should likewise fear mass damage from years of experience. Have any with a ranged weapon ready actions to disrupt casting. They are a well trained army after all; should be standard tactics. Anyone that looks like a wizard, sorcerer or druid should be an automatic target.

Good luck.

[ZeroSpace9000]

Just one thing I wanted to put out there quickly. If you have PCs who are behind on levels because they don't show for sessions, DON'T assume they will catch up via XP bonuses. If they're back 2 whole levels, that's a lot of sessions they've missed. Add in the power disparity due to optimization level and class selection, and the gap will probably just increase even more. This may cause them to just drop out completely.

Don't have any other nuggets right now, partly because I don't know enough about the people. I'll read this again, when I get home.

[ksbsnowowl]

Have any with a ranged weapon ready actions to disrupt casting. They are a well trained army after all; should be standard tactics. Anyone that looks like a wizard, sorcerer or druid should be an automatic target.


This is really sound advice. Hobgoblins are lawful evil. They should be trained, and the above should be paramount among the training. The Red Hand has casters, and their leaders are casters; they would instruct their soldiers to do as recommended above.

For example, in the very first ambush, there are... six?... hobgoblins ambushing the party with bows. Have at least one, maybe two, not fire on the party to kick off the surprise round. Instead, have that one or two ready actions to fire at anyone who starts casting a spell.

[johnbragg]

Oh, by the way, what IS the wizard's Arcane Thesis spell? At 8th level, I suppose he could be dropping empowered, maximized burning hands for 30 hp, reflex save for half. But that's not a great use of a 4th level spell slot. IS he empowering fireball?

[AnachroNinja]

OP already stated that the arcane thesis spell is scorching ray, so his area spells are just using his native caster level. That said, forcing him to change his race and feats arbitrarily is a terrible idea.

Not only is whisper gnome not a particularly optimal choice for a wizard as compared to many other options, but arcane thesis is neither broken in general on its own, but is not overwhelming in particular when applied to scorching ray. At level 8 with the +2 CL boost he's not even gaining a damage boost from it currently due to the way scorching ray scales. On top of that, the individual rays give it a much greater level of vulnerability to fire resistance of any kind, and it's SR:Yes.

While he has certainly taken some good options, nothing he is using is really optimized. He just picked a pretty good race and a good feat. Don't penalize him for that.

[Scorponok]

To OP:

A couple of things you can do. An evocation wizard is actually the easiest to combat.

- Instead of making fighters go against the party, consider rogues, or some other class with good reflex saves. This makes a difference between taking 30 damage per fireball or 15 damage. Surviving one fireball and being able to charge the wizard next round makes a lot of difference in the outcome of the battle.

- Have your enemy NPCs come out of hidden walls and trapdoors and charge the party from behind. This can turn out very bad for the low HP characters. Enemy NPCs should spread out to avoid fireballs.

- More encounters per day. In this case, a sorcerer might actually outshine a wizard when it comes to spells per day. More encounters mean more spells get used and an unspecialized wizard may not have the longevity of a sorcerer.

- Arrows, arrows, arrows! A surprise attack, or an encounter where the enemy NPCs get to attack first can virtually half the wizard's HP from a distance with arrows. Better yet, arrows, wait for the wizard to put up a Wind Wall, then the enemies retreat. Level-3 spell wasted for the day and one less potential fireball to worry about.

- Enemies with equipment with resistance to fire. I give some of my enemy NPCs cloaks that absorb 10 points of fire damage then dissipate. This helps them survive at least the first fireball, and they would not be that expensive.

- Drow Poison: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#poison
Save is DC13 but wizards don't have great Fort saves unless they've dumped their feats and ability score improvements into CON, and failing the save means unconsciousness. Your semi-boss having arrows tipped with these is completely reasonable. It's probably not nice to have all your enemy NPCs carry it though.

You don't want to make the wizard player feel like he's being unfairly targeted, but if one enemy NPC survives the encounter or gets away, he can tell his friends to be wary of the wizard next battle, and to target the wizard first. This is fair, and will make the player playing the wizard feel like he's gaining some notoriety in your world.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Would the monk need to stop monk progression if they took sacred fist PrC?

Both Sacred and Enlightened Fists advance some of the monk's primary features along side advancing the spellcasting ability from their divie or arcane casting class, respectively. Enlightened fist is stronger for a front-liner gish and enlightened fist is better for a more utility focused character, IMO.

[Fizban]

In the red hand of doom 3.5 campaign I am running we have a seven person party consisting of a rogue, a fighter, barbarian, wizard, monk, bard and cleric. I am finding the wizard to be overly competent and damaging, greatly out shining the others in damage and overall ability. He is just blasting the hobo's and dealt about 90%of the damage to both dragons they have encountered so far. Does anyone have any ideas of how to give the others a better chance to shine in this action without needing to restrict the wizard too much? I have been giving out items specifically for the others and excluding the wizard from good items. Do you think that more encounters per day could help so he can't just blast away all day? He likes evocation spells which have been great at dealing with the masses of weaklings. Maybe adding Spell resistance to the tougher monsters? Any ideas would be appreciated.

My immediate first response is that the wizard is pretty much just doing their job. RHoD is built with the assumption that you'll have someone dropping Fireballs or equivalent and that's just what they're doing. The only way to change this is to make the enemies tougher so they survive the first Fireball, and increase the other player's mobility enough that they can reach the battle before it's over.

Case in point: when I ran the module myself, the arcanist slot was eventually filled by a wizard-Malconvoker. Unfortunately summon spells are Short range and require time to deal with multiple foes. When compared to the dark paladin riding a fiendish pegasus with an improved flight maneuverability feat (net result some 140' good, note that pegusai special mounts are right there in the DMG and there are several versions of the feat in various books), well the wizard was quite frustratingly useless. The high speed mounted melee character could zoom out and crush dudes with medium strength power attacks before the wizard was even in summon range, and so the poor Malconvoker had to pick up a Runestaff of Fireball and Lightning Bolt just to have the capability to contribute in many fights. Sadly he got critted to death right before the temple at the end where summons would have been great.

Reading a bit further down the thread, yeah you've got the classic problem. Uncharitably, the "lazy mundanes vs engaged caster," where the only player interested in optimizing has taken the most powerful class, and the rest of the players can't be bothered. Fixing this requires brute force either rigging the fights in-game, making them stop and actually engage in character creation out-of-game, or playing hardball until they die enough to realize they need to step up their game on their own. Plenty of good suggestions above regarding show-don't-tell on what they could be doing better, more foes spread further apart so they don't all die at once, keep everyone at the same level, maybe force the wizard on the defensive a bit with readied archers (also gives the cleric a priority healing target).

A bit of a shock might help jump-start their systems: it's astonishing what happens when a party loses their main caster*. Have the wizard player take a day off or get conveniently wrecked by something (drow poison+"failed" saves works), and the rest of the party faces a mid-high encounter without the blasting. If they see that even without the wizard around stealing the glory they can't get the job done, they might be more receptive to beefing up their characters (I allow rebuilding and tweaks whenever needed, restrictions on stuff like that are for videogames not actual people). Or they might just hate the wizard for being so "OP" without even trying. It's a possibility anyway, dunno if it's the best option.

*Saph's got a nice campaign journal with some serious sorcerer game, and while all the party members are required for victory (lots of teamwork and synergy), it's still hilarious when half the party goes "looking for trouble" without the caster so they can get the last few xp before levelling up, invariably ending up dead-er and worse off than they were before.

[Merellis]

I suggest reading the RHoD DM Handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?171284-The-3-5-Red-Hand-Of-Doom-Handbook-for-DMs-Major-spoilers!-WIP-PEACH!) for ideas on buffing the monsters.

Though, this is exactly the kind of campaign where a blaster wizard shines. Hobo's everywhere with low enough HP that Fireball is the best spell ever when they're grouped!

[ericgrau]

See below

"OP already stated that the arcane thesis spell is scorching ray, so his area spells are just using his native caster level."
And mass foes are individually weak so area spells need no boost. Now he's ready for everything.

"Not only is whisper gnome not a particularly optimal choice for a wizard as compared to many other options,"
It's significantly better than gnome, particularly for a ray caster which needs attack bonus at any level below ~11-13. Attack bonus, touch AC, HP, moving away from danger quicker. And it's no big fluff deal to switch to gnome.

"At level 8 with the +2 CL boost he's not even gaining a damage boost from it currently due to the way scorching ray scales."
Cheaper empower or maximize too. Also caster level helped at level 5 when they started and will help at level 9 which is about to come.

"On top of that, the individual rays give it a much greater level of vulnerability to fire resistance of any kind, and it's SR:Yes."
Even as the most common resistance fire resistance is rare, temporary spell switching is trivial, and yet he has a feat for that just in case. I ignored that feat because resistance is so insignificant and mainly only comes up in nay saying. Rarely in any session logs or any help X went wrong threads. SR is more common, which is probably why he built up a +6 against it.

"While he has certainly taken some good options, nothing he is using is really optimized. He just picked a pretty good race and a good feat. Don't penalize him for that."
+10% damage from his race, +25% and in 1 level +75% from arcane thesis, a bit more from a weaker feat, a bit more from another weaker feat, and suddenly he's dealing the damage of 1.5 to 2 characters. It all adds up. Plus his allies not even playing up to low optimization (no rage, etc.), plus the campaign itself. Now he's more like 3-4 characters and it's way out of hand. That's why I zeroed in on everything abnormal. It all adds up.

Yes 1 feat/ability/race/situation out of several that only 1/10th breaks the character is completely broken because then he can take 9 more.

[CMagnum]

Wow, there is a lot of information coming in. Thanks for everything. I have talked to most of the group, got a few things in place for their next encounter to encourage a more unified party play style, used some templates and will employ some of the tactics mentioned. I am not going to get the wizard to change or ban anything (yet). We will see on Monday how everything goes..
Thanks again for all the info and ideas you have all been very helpful
CMagnum

P.S. I'll let people know how the next session goes, probably posting on tuesday in this thread

[AnachroNinja]

Standard gnome is certainly not a gold standard for wizards, and I'm not sure why that is what you would compare whiskey gnome to. A better example would be the standard choice of human, which would grant him the bonus feat to potentially actually have empower or maximize, those two feats you called out as the reason his arcane thesis is over powered.

We don't know if he had arcane thesis at level 5 so your assertation as to its utility is pointless, but if he did, then yes, he gained 3d6 damage over any standard d6/CL spell. Hardly outrageous. And next level he will gain a third ray, which is not a 75% increase in damage, but then in but sure why I expected that to make any sense after your assertation that it is currently adding 25% damage rather then the 0% it actually accounts for.

So at its peak, we will have a 9th level wizard doing an average if 42 per spell, with 3 attack rolls, and he can do that probably 5-7 times a day depending on how many utility spells he feels like sacrificing. This is compared to the average of 20+ damage per hit that the party fighter is doing, assuming he took no feats and it's using some standard magic great sword for his level.

Yes, let us tremble in fear while clutching our nerf bats, and hope that the mighty blaster wizard doesn't spot us. *sigh*