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ShneekeyTheLost
2007-09-05, 10:07 PM
We've all seen individual people as powerhouses, how about groups? Here's one we ran which was just... ouch.

CoDzilla Druid/Planar Shepherd. Do I really need to say any more?

Uber Heal/Buff bot Cleric/RSoP/Heirophant with DMM Persist and Divine Reach from Heirophant (one level dip) who was dropping down Chain Reach GMW/MV/*Persisted* Freedom of Movement (because Persist can affect anything with a fixed range, and Divine Reach has a fixed range of 30'). Also has Spontanious Domain (Healing) for auto-max and auto-empower Heal spells. Then went on to DMM Persist Divine Power and Righteous Might for himself.

Sorc (traded in familiar for metamagic on the fly)/MotAO/Incantatrix/AM who was battlefield control and buffing. He got a Greater Metamagic Rod of Chain Spell, and Arcane Reach. So he Chain Reached Mind Blank for us every day, how thoughtful for him. Also thoroughly abused Twin Ray Empowered Enervation. A lot. Had Forcecage and Cloudkill as spells known. Contingency, Celerity, and Time Stop too. You know what happened with that combo, I hope. He also had PAO, of course.

Lion Barbarian1/Fighter2/PsiWar4/Bear Warrior7/Exotic Weapon Master2/Warshaper4. OMG cheeze. Expansion then Morphic Reach on top of that. 30' reach with Spiked Chain with Improved Trip. Power Attack/Shock Trooper cheeze. Pounce from Lion Barbarian. Bear Warrior lets him qualify for Warshaper, which gives him immunity to stunning, crits, and sneak attacks... extra reach... Fast Healing 2, and more stats. EWM for Exotic Reach and Flurry of Strikes. This guy was just... everything fall down go boom. After Epic, he was going to finish out Bear Warrior. He didn't dare risk Frenzied Berzerker, because the party had no way of shutting him down.

Wizard 3 (Conjuration specialist, banned Evocation and Enchantment)(PhB II variant which trades in familiar for teleporting)/Master Specialist10/Iot7V7. Batman lives again.

Beguiler 20. The least 'optimized' person in the party. Also an enchantment specialist to cover the Wizard and Sorcerer's general lack of enchantment spells. You didn't see him until you were already screwed over.

So here's what happened...

At the beginning of each day, the sorcerer and cleric do their thing. Everyone now has an immunity to anything that hampers their movement, including grappling, immunity to mind-affecting, unable to be scried, and since everyone purchased +1 equipment of x, y, and z... everyone now has +5 of OMFG stuff. Anything trying to hurt the party found out that the tank could shut down just about anything you care to name, if the wizard and sorcerer didn't do it first. Barbarian was doing consistantly over 100 damage a hit. He was hitting a LOT (extra attack from Flurry, plus Combat Reflexes, improved trip on every attack, Pounce + Power Attack + Shock Trooper = everything die now, kkthxbi). The Beguiler was flat impossible to find, until after he had locked down the most obnoxious whatever was around.

Anyone else saw groups of insane ability?

Anxe
2007-09-05, 10:12 PM
And you DMed this group? Without taking away their stuff? This is why we have DMs people! To keep player from messing with the rules.

One more thing to add, how is Bear Warrior cheese? I always thought that class sucked.

asqwasqw
2007-09-05, 10:17 PM
Na, it is okay to have a group like this, as long as you have, say, them fighting gods. Overpoweredness is only usually a problem when one of the party has it. Nice story, by the way.

ShneekeyTheLost
2007-09-05, 10:22 PM
And you DMed this group? Without taking away their stuff? This is why we have DMs people! To keep player from messing with the rules.

One more thing to add, how is Bear Warrior cheese? I always thought that class sucked.

Several reasons.

1) +20 strength, +2 Dex, and +8 Con while raging, plus normal bonuses from rage.

2) Bear Warrior allows access to Warshaper, which means immunity to criticals, extra reach, and other fun abilities.

And he couldn't go FB due to immunity to mind-affecting abilities and battlefield control so he couldn't be controlled if he ran amok, so it wasn't a bad choice.

Viscount Einstrauss
2007-09-05, 10:27 PM
My groups tend to power game, but I encourage it. I like the challenge of making fights hard but not impossible for stronger builds. I also give them plenty of chances to use that sort of power to fly through a handful of fights every now and then that are weak next to them, to let them get some kicks out of the power they've devised. Not too much, but a party that's fixed themselves up to be immune to mind-influencing abilities tend to like the superiority they feel when they encounter the odd mind flayer every few sessions.

ShneekeyTheLost
2007-09-05, 11:25 PM
My groups tend to power game, but I encourage it. I like the challenge of making fights hard but not impossible for stronger builds. I also give them plenty of chances to use that sort of power to fly through a handful of fights every now and then that are weak next to them, to let them get some kicks out of the power they've devised. Not too much, but a party that's fixed themselves up to be immune to mind-influencing abilities tend to like the superiority they feel when they encounter the odd mind flayer every few sessions.

Oh yes, I quite agree. They mowed through the Driders pretty easily since they were immune to all the webbing around. They walked through a whole town of Illithids. The main tank one-rounded (and actually succeeded in tripping) the Taurasque. I made sure each one of them got the chance to show off their uberness. Chunked a whole PILE of level Minotaurs with 10 levels of Barbarian each. The ones the guy with the big chain didn't kill, the beguiler locked down.

Then they ran up against some serious challenges. Half-Golem Balors, anyone? But they still won. Half-Fiend 12 headed PyroHydra was a bit trickier since none of them thought to bring cold-based blasting spells, and the Fiendish template made it harder since it had significant cold resistance. A Hydra, with Poison as a SLA 3/day and Destruction 1/day. And Summon Monster 9. And significant SR as well. They'd better be glad the Sorcerer pulled an Energy Sub (Maybe he had a level of AM for Mastery of Elements?) Cold Acid Fog he dropped on the thing or they'd have been screwed. As it is, it still took forever because of Cold Resistance 10.

After the encounter with the hydra, the Cleric made sure to Chain Reach Persist Death Ward too, after the Beguiler got hit with the Destruction and failed his Fort save. Fortunately for him, he had a haversack half full of Nightsticks.

Stormcrow
2007-09-05, 11:44 PM
One more thing to add, how is Bear Warrior cheese? I always thought that class sucked.

I'd say the cheese comes from the LION barbarian taking BEAR warrior. Its $%*&ing ridiculous. *mutters about completely ignoring flavour in favour of crunch*

BCOVertigo
2007-09-05, 11:58 PM
I'd say the cheese comes from the LION barbarian taking BEAR warrior. Its $%*&ing ridiculous. *mutters about completely ignoring flavour in favour of crunch*

Haven't you ever seen a totem pole? They have lots of animals on them not just one!

Man, it's people like this that give the rest of the optimizing crowd a bad name. Hopping between charop boards trying to find the most ridiculous crap they can short of infinite loops.... Hilarious though it would be to envision the mighty tarrasque falling on its colossal ass after some bear-tard swipes him with a spiked chain screaming "LAWL PWNT".:smalltongue:

I have to say though if they have fun and the DM doesn't mind who are we to point fingers?

Saph
2007-09-06, 06:34 AM
We've all seen individual people as powerhouses, how about groups? Here's one we ran which was just... ouch.

. . .

Anyone else saw groups of insane ability?

Yikes. That sounds horrendous.

I normally find that most D&D groups are much more balanced - there'll be one or two optimisers, one or two newbies, and two or three who are somewhere in between. I've never seen a group like that.

I'm glad I wasn't the DM - after a few sessions of them mowing their way through everything that was supposed to be a level-appropriate encounter I probably would have just thrown a Hecatoncheires or something at them out of sheer annoyance. :P

- Saph

Dausuul
2007-09-06, 07:19 AM
Yeah, that's pretty over-the-top.

The group I'm currently playing in is fairly optimized, but nothing on that scale. We have a dread necromancer with Corpsecrafter feats (me), a warblade with White Raven maneuvers, a dragon shaman, and a bard/dirgesinger with Requiem. I make the undead and hand them out to the rest of the party, so everybody gets to play with one, and then everyone else buffs them up to insane levels.

And, of course, everybody has Tomb-Tainted Soul, so I can heal them all up to full hit points after every battle. It makes us all a little sad when we find healing potions, though.

Tormsskull
2007-09-06, 07:34 AM
*hugs the core books*

Charity
2007-09-06, 07:52 AM
I'm with you there, fortunately my guys an girls are not given access to non core generally.
I like to include stuff strictly on an individual basis from other sources.
Although a lot of the PHB II has made it through.
To be fair my players are not too worried about optimisation, in fact in a few cases I have urged them to be more optimised not less.

Ikkitosen
2007-09-06, 08:47 AM
To be fair my players are not too worried about optimisation, in fact in a few cases I have urged them to be more optimised not less.

Lol! I've tried to educate them, but there haven't really been any times when my Beguiler can go "And zat is 'ow eet is done!", thus educating the wizard that fireballs aren't always the answer. Eh, Olly? :smallbiggrin:

Tengu
2007-09-06, 08:55 AM
*hugs the core books*

Not only is most cheese easily accesable in a core game, it also is much harder to make a good non-caster under them. A group where everyone is a powerhouse and having fun is okay. A group where wizard and cleric are powerhouses, but everything the others can do is carry loot and coup de grace enemies who are rendered helpless by batman's spells? Not so much.

Tormsskull
2007-09-06, 09:03 AM
Not only is most cheese easily accesable in a core game, it also is much harder to make a good non-caster under them.

Easily accessible is completely up to the DM. If you start a campaign at level 1, and advance using core-only rules, you won't see very much cheese at all IME.

Explain what a "good non-caster" is. I've made several non-casters that I had a lot of fun with in core-only.

Indon
2007-09-06, 09:03 AM
Yeah, that's pretty over-the-top.

The group I'm currently playing in is fairly optimized, but nothing on that scale. We have a dread necromancer with Corpsecrafter feats (me), a warblade with White Raven maneuvers, a dragon shaman, and a bard/dirgesinger with Requiem. I make the undead and hand them out to the rest of the party, so everybody gets to play with one, and then everyone else buffs them up to insane levels.

And, of course, everybody has Tomb-Tainted Soul, so I can heal them all up to full hit points after every battle. It makes us all a little sad when we find healing potions, though.

That sounds like an awesome group concept.

Tengu
2007-09-06, 09:06 AM
Explain what a "good non-caster" is. I've made several non-casters that I had a lot of fun with in core-only.

One that won't feel useless when having a batman wizard in the group.

Person_Man
2007-09-06, 09:11 AM
Your group doesn't sound like it'd be a problem for me as DM. Game balance is only an issue if some players are strong and others are weak. If every player is strong, all you need to do is throw in more powerful enemies.

Tormsskull
2007-09-06, 09:13 AM
One that won't feel useless when having a batman wizard in the group.

I'm playing a batmanish Wizard in the campaign I'm in right now, and I'm arguably the weakest in the group. The Barbarian in our group is destroying everything, the melee ranger in our group is doing alright. I don't think they feel useless.

Back when I played my rogue character I never felt useless next to the batman wizard in the group.

Dausuul
2007-09-06, 09:23 AM
That sounds like an awesome group concept.

The only problem is that it's very heavy on buffs (dragon shaman, bard, warblade) and debuffs (dread necromancer, dirgesinger). We spend a lot of time trying to remember how many plusses apply to our rolls, and the poor DM is going crazy keeping track of all the debuffs the dirgesinger and I load onto our enemies.

Plus, we're all eeeeevil, and the canned adventure we're playing isn't really built for that.

Saph
2007-09-06, 10:02 AM
One that won't feel useless when having a batman wizard in the group.

A well-played batman wizard shouldn't make everyone else feel useless. Unless you're playing at very high levels, the most efficient way to use arcane magic is to buff the party, debuff the enemies, and let the fighter-types do the work.


Your group doesn't sound like it'd be a problem for me as DM. Game balance is only an issue if some players are strong and others are weak. If every player is strong, all you need to do is throw in more powerful enemies.

True up to a point, but eventually you get to the stage where it's very difficult to give the party an encounter that won't be either a speedbump or a TPK. The higher the power levels, the less wiggle room there is between 'party annihilates encounter' and 'encounter annihilates party'; if the party can wipe out nearly anything in one combat round, then the enemies have to be of comparable power and battles get very swingy.

- Saph

Zincorium
2007-09-06, 10:35 AM
True up to a point, but eventually you get to the stage where it's very difficult to give the party an encounter that won't be either a speedbump or a TPK. The higher the power levels, the less wiggle room there is between 'party annihilates encounter' and 'encounter annihilates party'; if the party can wipe out nearly anything in one combat round, then the enemies have to be of comparable power and battles get very swingy.

Only if both the PC's and the DM focus on offensive power, really. I've DMed for groups that are at least as high powered as the example above, and it's fairly easy to give them meaningful challenges as long as you get a bit creative with how.

Fiendishly difficult fighting conditions, immensely tough-for-CR enemies (homebrewed golem-types work wonders), and lockdown tactics do a lot more to add difficulty to an encounter than sheer volume of damage will, with the added benefit that it's unlikely that any particular PC will die.

If the players have prepared properly for the dungeon full of intelligent, grappling kelp submerged in murky water with random wild magic zones caused by an artifact they're after...

They deserve to have a fairly easy time. And they've spent time and other resources to get to that point. Encounters other than the BBEG should reduce hit points, cause people to cast a variety of spells, and use up consumable items. And that's doable no matter what the power level.

Person_Man
2007-09-06, 11:03 AM
True up to a point, but eventually you get to the stage where it's very difficult to give the party an encounter that won't be either a speedbump or a TPK. The higher the power levels, the less wiggle room there is between 'party annihilates encounter' and 'encounter annihilates party'; if the party can wipe out nearly anything in one combat round, then the enemies have to be of comparable power and battles get very swingy.

- Saph

I'll concede that point. It's why I disdain Epic. It'll be interesting to see if they can actually fix this when they add levels 21-30 to core rules in 4th ed.

Although I've found that giving high level enemies high AC, high DR, high SR, and varied but moderate in power power offensive abilities tends to help make combat meaningful but not deadly at high levels. You can also balance your encounters by sending moderately powerful enemies in waves rather then all at once. Or you can have them fight demi-gods who have much more power then the group, but choose to toy with them during combat instead of outright destroying them.

So while its difficult to DM a group like this, I wouldn't say its impossible.