Challenging a High-Op Player in a Low-Op Party

[Esquire]

Hey all - just started a new Pathfinder campaign; homebrew world, but the first adventure happened to be an adapted Grasp of the Emerald Claw from 3.5 Eberron. Anyway, most of the players are fairly new and don't have a lot of system mastery. The party blasted through the first half of the adventure, mostly on the strength of one character, a fairly well-built earth kineticist. The first session just broke up with the party about to enter the giant ruins, and I'm wondering how to challenge a character with 30-odd damage per attack and a very high AC and to-hit without utterly devastating the rest of the party (ifrit sorceress, sylph druid, human fighter and cleric; the aforementioned low-op characters). Thoughts, either general or adventure-specific?

[Kelb_Panthera]

30 damage per attack at level 6 doesn't sound right. My first instinct is to double-check he's actually following the rules correctly. I wouldn't assume he's cheating but in a complex game like 3.5 or PF it's easy to make mistakes or miss details.

Beyond that, I presume that being specialized in one element shouldn't be too hard to work around. Swap some enemies around for appropriate DR/ energy resistance, for example.

Disclaimer: I'm not super familiar with kineticist.

[Esquire]

Neither am I, that's part of the issue - checking up on the rules is part of the plan for the evening. Otherwise, I've got DR (he just throws rocks, not energy), walls of force from the wizard minor-BEG (for setting reasons Garrow is a wizard instead of a cleric), the actual-BBEG will have quite a bit of DR, and I'm modifying the spell/item selections of several minions to focus on Will over AC, Fort, etc.

[sleepyphoenixx]

You don't. Or at least not without being really obvious and heavy-handed.
Anything that's challenging the high-op player will go through the rest of the party like paper, so you'd basically have two seperate fights every time with the hard enemies only targeting the high-op guy and the weaker ones targetting the rest of the party. And that's only if the high-op player plays along and doesn't just kill the fodder on the way to the "real" opponent.

There's also the issue that it basically turns the other players into sidekicks, which is rarely fun for them. That's why you want your PCs to be roughly on the same level of optimization.

The common expectation is that the higher-op player adjusts to the others. Talk to him, explain your problem and ask him to tone it down a little.

[Troacctid]

Skimming the class with no knowledge of how to optimize it, 30 damage an attack seems pretty typical for a composite blast at like 7th level.

[MeimuHakurei]

What's the level of the party? Depending on that, 30-something damage may or may not be impressive (a 7th level Fireball deals ~24 damage on average at AoE, or ~31 if it's a Red Dragon Sorcerer casting it). Also, what AC does that character have that you consider "very high"?

[DeTess]

I assume this guy inflicts damage to a single target? The obvious answer would be lots of low-hp mooks. He'll kill them as well as anyone else in the party, and more attacks against him increase the chances of one of them hitting him.

I'd also take a moment to properly evaluate him side-by-side with the rest of the party (and check if he isn't accidentally breaking any rules). I've seen a couple of these threads where the final conclusion was that the guy wasn't actually OP, just seemed that way. It doesn't happen that often, but this is important to check.

[Gnaeus]

Bear in mind that in general, in PF, I would expect fighter and kineticist to be the weakest classes in the party. And that should only intensify as they go up in level. With any kind of decent spell selection the tier 1-2 casters should own the kineticist by 10 if not before. Having the most op player play kineticist could be beneficial.

That said, the kineticist rules are awful, so it isn’t impossible that mistakes were made, although I also don’t see 30 damage single attacks at 6 to be terribly unlikely.

[zlefin]

I second the general recommendation to ask the high op char to lower their optimization to be close to the rest of the party.


on other notes: how high is their CMD? as a basic rule; if someone is strong in one area, target something else.

[Peat]

*scratches ear* Go after Will Saves a lot? Most of the party should do fine, but he can't be all that strong there.

[Quertus]

So, how is the party balance overall vs the module?

And... it's a module. When they read it after the fact, they'll know what you changed, and know if you pulled a **** move.

So, is the one character really not at the module's level? Then don't allow that character in the module, plain and simple.

Is the rest of the party not at the module's level? Then don't allow the rest of the party in the module, plain and simple. Or... at least warn them that their characters might not be appropriate to the module.

Of course, if everyone is having fun, then there's no issue.

[Calthropstu]

Ok, there's a couple ways.

1: Give some enemies a couple one shot items designed to screw the kineticist.

2: Have someone fire at the party outside his range.

3: get him separated from the party somehow.

[MeimuHakurei]

We cannot know whether and/or how much the Kineticist needs to adjust downwards since we still have no info on the character levels or how the others are built. The DM may very well be making a mountain out of a molehill. The best idea is to let your other characters retrain, possibly with some input from the Kineticist player. The sorceress could easily hit much harder than the Kineticist, the cleric and druid will shine more with their defense and support and the Fighter may become a potent battlefield controller with a reach weapon and tripping or pummel enemies with really powerful charge attacks.

[Peat]

Gotta say, I'm kinda curious as to how the other players are running their characters, as you'd think one of them would make accidentally make those full spellcasters in a way that's equal to the Kinectist...