How should I (GM) approach balancing a party with very different power levels?

[Jervis]

My party in a upcoming game is looking a little… lopsided. I don’t have a problem with high power games. I gave free LA, allow bloodlines, etc. I like a bit of mid tier power gaming. The issue is when the party power level is all over the place.

On one side of the spectrum we have a Dragonwroght Kobold Archivist based on a metamagic build posted on this site. On the other side we have someone who plans to go a Warlock 10/ Witch(pathfinder) 10, a wizard based Gish who doesn’t plan on using a prestige class, and a straight shadowcaster. It’s not even that the first player mentioned was a outlier because there are two players are going Warblade and a optimized skill monkey. So we have half characters that you would see in a practical optimization party, half characters that are weaker than a PHB only fighter, and one metamagic spammer. I’m very worried someone is gonna die entirely to them being too weak to handle a challenge for the other half and it’s hard to give challenges catered to them when the things they’re good at, are done better by characters that were optimized to do something completely different

[Doctor Despair]

Well, for starters, you could make SR common, or include enemies with miss chances often. Those tend to level the field a little.

[Jervis]

Well, for starters, you could make SR common, or include enemies with miss chances often. Those tend to level the field a little.

Temping but with SR specifically that hurts the weaker characters more since those are all casters who don’t have max caster level. So their odds of passing are vanishingly low. Same for miss chances because the stronger characters have more answers.

[icefractal]

An idea that should narrow the gap somewhat:

Give a "dual-class" option: You can be Gestalt if you're single-classed on both sides.

So for example, a gish could be a Wizard 20 // Ranger 20 or whatnot, but couldn't multiclass the individual sides or take PrCs. Given how useful PrCs can be when you're optimizing, this seems like a reasonable trade.

Two of your low-op players would be significantly helped by this, and the third (the Shadowcaster) would at least be improved.

[Doctor Despair]

On one side of the spectrum we have a Dragonwroght Kobold Archivist based on a metamagic build posted on this site. On the other side we have someone who plans to go a Warlock 10/ Witch(pathfinder) 10, a wizard based Gish who doesn’t plan on using a prestige class, and a straight shadowcaster. It’s not even that the first player mentioned was a outlier because there are two players are going Warblade and a optimized skill monkey. So we have half characters that you would see in a practical optimization party, half characters that are weaker than a PHB only fighter, and one metamagic spammer.

The Archivist will only be as good as the spells they can acquire. Just be careful with the divine scrolls they get. Don't do MagicMart for any scrolls they can afford; do percentiles, or select non-problematic spells.

SR will help the two mundanes bridge the gap to the casters. Casters can rely on conjurations, of course, but that still limits them.

Consider using higher-dex enemies with less armor. Most spells use ranged touch attacks, so making enemy touch AC higher without raising regular AC could be to the benefit of mundanes.

[Quertus]

And, at the extreme end of the spectrum…

So, I’ve played a Sentient Potted Plant. Which consisted things like “move under own power” and “manipulate environment (like ‘push buttons’ or such)” to be super powers beyond their kin.

In a game where someone else was *totally* not playing Thor.

And it was great!

So, IMO, the first question to ask is, “is it a problem?”.

Talk to your players. Explain to them your evaluation of the party. Ask if everyone is ok with that. If they say “yes” or “maybe”, run a sample session or two, unconnected to the campaign, to see if they move to “no”.

If they respond with, “yeah, this is great!”, you’re golden.

If they are at “no”, ask them to build characters in line with the encounters you expect to challenge them with.

[Malphegor]

Don’t. Balance is a fool’s errand. What I would do is talk to your most powerful character players secretly and tell them they should ‘Be the Merlin’ for the less powerful characters if they can. That is, empower the less powerful to have effectively more power so that they experience awesome stories.

Because when you can rearrange the cosmos, making the warblade the rightful king of the land, rejoiced by the masses, elevated to lower divinity, is merely a trifle, a hobby of an endeavour.

[Batcathat]

Don’t. Balance is a fool’s errand. What I would do is talk to your most powerful character players secretly and tell them they should ‘Be the Merlin’ for the less powerful characters if they can. That is, empower the less powerful to have effectively more power so that they experience awesome stories.

This could be a really good idea or a really bad idea, depending on the players. At best it's exactly what Malphegor says, at worst the players with less powerful characters feel like kids being allowed to "win" games against their parents. People worrying about outshining their party are frequently given either this advice or to intentionally limit what their character does and I'm sure that's great advice in some groups, but I also know that if I'm playing a less powerful character, I'd rather have other characters outshine mine honestly than feeling they're holding themselves back not to hurt my feelings.

Note that this only applies to players doing that specifically to avoid outshining another player, not when there are reasons (whether mechanical ones or roleplaying ones) for how they act.

Oh, and if the OP does use Malphegor's suggestion, I really don't think they should talk to the powerful players in secret. I suspect that'd only make the less powerful ones feel more annoyed and/or humiliated if they find out.

[icefractal]

Yeah, I think there's a big difference between "optimizing for a support role" and "only using 5% of my true power".

The former is fine, the latter won't help unless the less-optimized players are fine with being obviously less powerful. And it gets weird when the stakes are anything larger than personal glory.

Like, if the premise is - "You're venturing out for riches and glory!" then I'm fine with having Superman come along just to watch our exploits and only contribute to a limited, non-glory-stealing extent. It does reduce the tension, because we know Superman can bail us out if things get bad, but that's not always a bad thing, tension can be overrated.

But if the premise is - "Your entire city has been kidnapped by demons who plan to eat, torture, and/or enslave them over the next few weeks", then that's very different. I'm begging Superman to go full-out and rescue everyone, and I don't care if he overshadows the rest of us in doing so - do you think I'm such a psychotic glory-hound that I'd value that above their lives? And if Superman refuses, then screw that guy, he's not "helping" me, he's cruelly toying with me.

Incidentally, this is why "I'm a cosmic-level being who's operating at mortal scale just for fun / for research / to prove a point" doesn't work as a character concept unless the game is low stakes, IMO. Having the power to just solve a nasty crisis and refusing to because you want to see how the mortals would handle it? Don't expect said mortals to be your friends afterward.

[Jervis]

Yeah, I think there's a big difference between "optimizing for a support role" and "only using 5% of my true power".

The former is fine, the latter won't help unless the less-optimized players are fine with being obviously less powerful. And it gets weird when the stakes are anything larger than personal glory.

Like, if the premise is - "You're venturing out for riches and glory!" then I'm fine with having Superman come along just to watch our exploits and only contribute to a limited, non-glory-stealing extent. It does reduce the tension, because we know Superman can bail us out if things get bad, but that's not always a bad thing, tension can be overrated.

But if the premise is - "Your entire city has been kidnapped by demons who plan to eat, torture, and/or enslave them over the next few weeks", then that's very different. I'm begging Superman to go full-out and rescue everyone, and I don't care if he overshadows the rest of us in doing so - do you think I'm such a psychotic glory-hound that I'd value that above their lives? And if Superman refuses, then screw that guy, he's not "helping" me, he's cruelly toying with me.

Incidentally, this is why "I'm a cosmic-level being who's operating at mortal scale just for fun / for research / to prove a point" doesn't work as a character concept unless the game is low stakes, IMO. Having the power to just solve a nasty crisis and refusing to because you want to see how the mortals would handle it? Don't expect said mortals to be your friends afterward.

Granted Superman in this case is a buff/utility mage with single digit hit points at level 3. Though that is helpful, this game is mostly going to be a tomb raiderish game where the players are hunting for magical do dads for fun and profit. I’m not worried for the other two decently built PCs either since they have a defined roll and are pretty good at it. My worries are the other three casters just not doing anything impactful since anything I do to nerf more powerful characters hits them worse.

[Telonius]

So, IMO, the first question to ask is, “is it a problem?”.

Talk to your players. Explain to them your evaluation of the party. Ask if everyone is ok with that. If they say “yes” or “maybe”, run a sample session or two, unconnected to the campaign, to see if they move to “no”.

If they respond with, “yeah, this is great!”, you’re golden.

If they are at “no”, ask them to build characters in line with the encounters you expect to challenge them with.

Best advice of the thread so far. Communicate; if it ain't broke, don't fix it; and be willing to put some work in if it needs fixing. If it does need fixing, you need to either bring up the low-performers, or nerf the high-performers, or both. Whichever one of those you end up doing, make sure everybody knows that you're doing it and why you're doing it.

[King of Nowhere]

my approach is twofold. first, help the weaker party members to optimize better.
Don't give them a build from the forum, they won't know what to do with it. rather, help suggest some options that would let them play their character concepts and do their things better. do it in small increments, you'll be surprised how much those add up. allow free retraining, in a "we'll pretend your character has always been built like this" way.
Perhaps drop some personalized loot at them, maybe use the story to give them some custom unique abilities to help.

on the other hand of the spectrum, nerf some of the crazier stuff of the strongest party members. I know "nerf" is considered a dirty word by some here, almost as bad as "ban", but it's necessary for a coherent game. unless everyone at the table is happy with the party effortlessly crushing anything they meet, the power level of the game should be consistent.
My dividing line is generally "would the players call bs if I sent against them an npc with those powers?" if the answer is yes, then the players are generally ameneable to banning content. on edge cases, i often give them the choice "you can have this stuff, but then your enemies will also have this stuff. or, we can have it banned for everyone".

there's the option of asking the stronger players to nerf themselves, some consider it more acceptable, i consider it a lie. It's the difference between executing an underling who failed a mission, and leaving said underling alone with a gun after telling them to "do the honorable thing": you want the same result, you are just trying to keep your hands clean.

the important things to a good banning police is to discuss stuff with your players. Establish some solid guidelines, make your rulings based on those. discuss those rulings with the players; "I think X is too strong for Y reason, what do you think?". Be fair: if they can't take X, the villain can't either. Don't mangle the player's builds, but try to reach a compromise; try to work with the players to offer some nerfed version of their build who achieves the same flavor and is effective without being too game-breaking.

[SimonMoon6]

Here are some options:

(1) Do the weak PCs have any abilities, skills, or useful advantages that the other PCs do not have? If so, play to their strengths. For example, if one of the weak PCs knows a language that nobody else in the group knows, then make that language super important. Major clues are written only in that language. Important NPCs speak only in that language. Etc. That helps to make them feel that they're making an important contribution, even if they can't fight their way out of a paper sack.

It doesn't matter what the skill or ability is. Find some way to make it important. If they're great at diplomacy, make diplomacy important. If they're great at Profession (seamstress), make that important. If they're great at Craft (sculpture), make that important.

(2) Have the plot revolve around the weaker PCs. Maybe not everything all the time, but make it so that the PCs feel important. It's like how Harry Potter isn't the best wizard in his group of friends but still everything revolves around him. Write the stories so that whatever background the weak PCs have created for themselves ties into the plot at every opportunity. Again, this makes them feel relevant to what's going on, even if they can't make any contributions in combat.

(3) Feel free to split the party. Put the weak characters in one group, the strong characters in another group. Have them fight their own challenges. While one group struggles to beat a single kobold, the other group can be smashing a draco-lich. And even if you're not willing to force a split like this, you can still create combats where everybody has something to do. "You enter the room and see a draco-lich and his ally, a kobold!"

[Fizban]

On one side of the spectrum we have a Dragonwroght Kobold Archivist based on a metamagic build posted on this site.
Do you normally allow forum char-op builds?

On the other side we have someone who plans to go a Warlock 10/ Witch(pathfinder) 10,
I've read a campaign journal here where a character that had a build which sounded similarly bad was actually one of the most important in the party. But that was because they took and used specific things for specific reasons as the game progressed. A plan to take X 10/Y 10 does sound more like someone who doesn't know what they're doing.

a wizard based Gish who doesn’t plan on using a prestige class,
This is how the previously mentioned build started, but again, is probably a bad idea with no context.

and a straight shadowcaster.
And this is objectively less powerful to the point that most people expect the class to be buffed.

there are two players are going Warblade
Usually fine as long as you're not comparing to vanilla PHB mundanes.

and a optimized skill monkey.
Which is entirely dependent on the DM's use of the skill system (but then also what sort of combat power is being tacitly accepted alongside that without comment).


So we have half characters that you would see in a practical optimization party, half characters that are weaker than a PHB only fighter, and one metamagic spammer. I’m very worried someone is gonna die entirely to them being too weak to handle a challenge for the other half and it’s hard to give challenges catered to them when the things they’re good at, are done better by characters that were optimized to do something completely different
And you have now encountered the part of the DM's job that the forum often fails to acknowledge because they're focused on theoretical DMs who are maximally permissive and don't actually do their jobs. The answer is that you're the one responsible for accepting or rejecting every one of those characters, so none of them make it to the table to become a problem until you say they do. If you let a group of characters that are obviously not going to play well together happen because you abdicated that responsibility, it's on you. Some have suggested wildly unbalanced parties can be fun and sure, obviously they can, if everyone is informed and amenable to that sort of game. The fact that you have not stated this upfront makes it pretty clear that the players are not so informed and have not consented as a group to such a game. Since the game hasn't started you still have time to say no, and you probably should.

You also have secondary problems of an oversized party, four of which are arcanists, and no one playing a Cleric or similar class*. It is harder to challenge (as in survive and threaten) the party when the game expects four characters, only one of which is an arcanist, and you instead have an unknown range of 2-4 of them, and when the sort of instant disabling and cripplying effects you need to use to achieve that are meant to be recovered by a character that no one is playing. Having some of them be of unknown amounts of underpowered means the game will start out very easy, but eventually reach a point where you would essentially just ignore them.

*There may be an "archivist," but that class does not innately have all the required spells, and if they're a forum-based metamagic spammer their player's focus is very obviously not going to be on the basics of preventing and restoring.

I also advise caution against the popular attitude that char-op'd support isn't disruptive. People aren't stupid, and they can tell when a giant pile of numbers someone else is telling them to add is both not part of their own character, and is necessary to beat the foes they fight, meaning their character isn't good enough to do anything on their own. But if you don't increase the monsters to combat a char-op buffer, the party is unlikely to be challenged by any but the most bogus of published monsters. I've been saying this around for a while now, but 3.5 is not actually built with any significant amount of numerical buffs in mind: there is no "buffer" role, there are only dozens of splatbooks each printing a spell they thought was fine and then mashing them all together.


I would recommend nixing the forum-based metamagic spammer build entirely for what should be obvious reasons (and also Dragonwrought Kobold on principle but anyway). Depending on your previous reaction and their personality, this could be the easiest or the hardest to deal with. I would also recommend that if the rest of the party is full of new or lower-op players, the Cleric role should be performed by a normal Cleric so that they can see how it's done (even a Druid not abusing animals and shapeshifting is short and delayed on quite a few spells), and they can use a normal build while maintaining the ability to pull out better tricks to match the party if needed without a rebuild.

The Shadowcaster I recommend my fix, the central point of which is very simple: give them an extra mystery known at every even level, which increases both daily uses and opportunity for versatility without being drastic. Since you barely mention the Warblade and Rogue, I assume you know the rest of their builds and it meets your usual expectations.

For the warlock/witch and gish with no PrC, their intended builds should be similarly rejected (the fact that they've announced this/you've asked for this beforehand is quite useful since otherwise you'd have to deal with this mid-game as they continued to make bad individual level choices). Ask them what it is they actually want to do and why they think those builds will hold up, and figure out where to go from there. It's possible they've come from other games where those builds worked. It's possible they've never actually played at a high enough level to find out they don't. It's possible they're simply unaware of prestige classes or that there are those to do what they're trying to do.

If I had to guess, the warlock/witch likes the PF Witch's "Hexes," which I'm given to understand are nearly an entire separate reduced action cost magic system that people love, which is basically the main thing that warlock lacks (Edit: but a cursory glance shows that they're apparently supposed to be standard action, and don't seem to have a use pool limit). The fix here would be either an Eldritch Theurge with continued Hex support instead of mixing spells with blasts, or given your apparent expectations, quite possibly just slapping the entire class feature onto the Warlock.

The gish without a PrC is quite simple of course, you get them to do so with a PrC. There's basically no reason not to, the only reasons I can think of are actual ignorance or deliberate de-optimization, the later of which the player would presumably have already discussed with you. The amount of char-op you expect here is probably a good indication of where you'll need to get the rest of the group to match- if you just tell them to take Eldritch Knight, a mildly buffed Shadowcaster will be fine, but if you expect Abjurant Champion and extra BAB preserving tricks, you may need to lower your expectations.

Shadowcaster

d8 HD, 3/4 BAB, proficiency and cast in light armor, +1 mystery known at every even level. Spell-like and Supernatural mysteries recover automatically each day without rest or preparation, and use a DC of 10+1/2 level+ ability modifier.
A shadowcaster requires both Int and Cha, but the lines blur between them. One score is used to determine the highest level of mysteries they can learn (or use), and the other is used to determine their saving throw DCs, but they can choose which is which each time they ready their spells, allowing them to utilize different items or mitigate penalties.
Their bonus feat list now includes all available magic item crafting feats.
Shadowcasters qualify for PrCs that require arcane spells, because they cast arcane spells.
Mysteries have full transparency with equivalent arcane items: Pearls of Power and Orbs of Shadow are interchangable, items that trigger or expend arcane spells function with mysteries, etc.
Homebrew mystery sources are welcome: just like Warlocks and their invocations, there is little 1st party but much room for addition. I have a couple bookmarked, but won't be going through them one by one. This is an "ask for it" class.

[Quertus]

And now, let's talk about human interaction, and how it can go horribly wrong.

For example, here's some really good ideas, that could absolutely make a game:



Here are some options:

(1) Do the weak PCs have any abilities, skills, or useful advantages that the other PCs do not have? If so, play to their strengths. For example, if one of the weak PCs knows a language that nobody else in the group knows, then make that language super important. Major clues are written only in that language. Important NPCs speak only in that language. Etc. That helps to make them feel that they're making an important contribution, even if they can't fight their way out of a paper sack.

It doesn't matter what the skill or ability is. Find some way to make it important. If they're great at diplomacy, make diplomacy important. If they're great at Profession (seamstress), make that important. If they're great at Craft (sculpture), make that important.

(2) Have the plot revolve around the weaker PCs. Maybe not everything all the time, but make it so that the PCs feel important. It's like how Harry Potter isn't the best wizard in his group of friends but still everything revolves around him. Write the stories so that whatever background the weak PCs have created for themselves ties into the plot at every opportunity. Again, this makes them feel relevant to what's going on, even if they can't make any contributions in combat.

Unless the players start to get jealous, feel like you're playing favorites, etc.

Even then, it *can* be salvageable, if you have the skills.

But it might be better to talk to the group, get their buy-in, test the PCs, and only *then* think about giving some of them special status, if you're not certain of your group's disposition, and your relevant skills.



(3) Feel free to split the party. Put the weak characters in one group, the strong characters in another group. Have them fight their own challenges. While one group struggles to beat a single kobold, the other group can be smashing a draco-lich. And even if you're not willing to force a split like this, you can still create combats where everybody has something to do. "You enter the room and see a draco-lich and his ally, a kobold!"

"You handled a wet paper bag while we punched out gods" is kinda the epitome of "places you'd best be *absolutely certain* you want to go".

I've played a Sentient Potted Plant, I'm happy with "I *lost* to a wet paper bag while you punched out gods", but that's not everyone's bag.


I would recommend nixing the forum-based metamagic spammer build entirely for what should be obvious reasons (and also Dragonwrought Kobold on principle but anyway). Depending on your previous reaction and their personality, this could be the easiest or the hardest to deal with. I would also recommend that if the rest of the party is full of new or lower-op players, the Cleric role should be performed by a normal Cleric so that they can see how it's done (even a Druid not abusing animals and shapeshifting is short and delayed on quite a few spells), and they can use a normal build while maintaining the ability to pull out better tricks to match the party if needed without a rebuild.

The Shadowcaster I recommend my fix, the central point of which is very simple: give them an extra mystery known at every even level, which increases both daily uses and opportunity for versatility without being drastic. Since you barely mention the Warblade and Rogue, I assume you know the rest of their builds and it meets your usual expectations.

Shadowcaster

d8 HD, 3/4 BAB, proficiency and cast in light armor, +1 mystery known at every even level. Spell-like and Supernatural mysteries recover automatically each day without rest or preparation, and use a DC of 10+1/2 level+ ability modifier.
A shadowcaster requires both Int and Cha, but the lines blur between them. One score is used to determine the highest level of mysteries they can learn (or use), and the other is used to determine their saving throw DCs, but they can choose which is which each time they ready their spells, allowing them to utilize different items or mitigate penalties.
Their bonus feat list now includes all available magic item crafting feats.
Shadowcasters qualify for PrCs that require arcane spells, because they cast arcane spells.
Mysteries have full transparency with equivalent arcane items: Pearls of Power and Orbs of Shadow are interchangable, items that trigger or expend arcane spells function with mysteries, etc.
Homebrew mystery sources are welcome: just like Warlocks and their invocations, there is little 1st party but much room for addition. I have a couple bookmarked, but won't be going through them one by one. This is an "ask for it" class.


And then this? Banning one character entirely while changing the rules to buff another? While those might not be unreasonable choices, they can certainly breed resentment, from either party. "My character wasn't worth your time to fix?" "You trust him to completely rebuild from scratch, while I need your pity?"

Humans are complicated.

My advice is, don't go making any unilateral decisions like these without group buy-in, unless you know how they'll respond, and you know you've got the skills to avoid catastrophic group implosion.

[Fizban]

And then this? Banning one character entirely while changing the rules to buff another? While those might not be unreasonable choices, they can certainly breed resentment, from either party. "My character wasn't worth your time to fix?" "You trust him to completely rebuild from scratch, while I need your pity?"
If they had mentioned in detail what the "metamagic spam" build was, I could offer more specific nerfs. As it is, the best I can guess from Archivist is dipping Sacred Exorcist to power Divine Metamagic, which is basically up to how much they're going to push their use of DMM. Generally the only reason to mention Dragonwrought Kobold if you're not using it to meet a "dragon" requirement is because you're using it as a +3 to all mental stats. The forum tends to exalt Archivists for having the Cleric list plus whatever arbitrary spells they want from any domain ever printed. The fact that it is directly admitted as a build they got off a forum rather than actually made for this game with any regard for the other players is merely the final straw confirming that they are almost certainly intending to push each of the individually problematic elements as far as. . . whoever wrote the build on the forum.

Yes, I am perfectly willing to tell someone their build is completely inappropriate, even if I would allow certain elements on their own, and if they don't like it I don't need them in my game. Particularly if I already had too many players. No one else in this party pool brought anything close, it's pretty clear who the outlier is.

It takes me almost zero time to mention my pre-existing fix which boils down to one significant line, and even less time for someone else to point and say "that." Meanwhile I should think someone who just had a char-op build rejected is pretty obviously not being trusted to rebuild from scratch, their last build got rejected so why would you think the next one would escape evaluation?- and if someone can't understand (or be instructed in how) this game can require editing to make it work, then it's probably not the game for them and once again I'd rather not be running it for them.


My advice is, don't go making any unilateral decisions like these without group buy-in, unless you know how they'll respond, and you know you've got the skills to avoid catastrophic group implosion.
Yes, the DM making unilateral decisions, as if making unilateral decisions wasn't specifically part of their job :smallsigh: If the players actually can't buy in to the DM moderating the game then I suggest they get rid of the DM entirely and move to a random dungeon generator or a video game (or even board game) that will do the DMing for them. Popup Dungeon or Gloomhaven or who knows how many others.

Letting people run whatever "legal" character they want to cobble together out of "1st party material" etc, is just as much or more likely to result in catastrophic group implosion. Except instead of getting it over with at the start of the game, you delay it until partway through after people have invested tons of time and effort so it's even worse when things fall apart and harder to stop it from happening. It's not "banning someone's entire character," it's realizing that you shouldn't have told people they could make anything they wanted out of anything printed in the first place because gee, look what happens? You can't ban something that wasn't allowed to begin with, and pretending that DMs must allow or be held to their initial openness to "everything" or else be dirty rotten banners is blatant me-first manipulative stonewalling

Unless what actually happened was the DM asked everyone to submit characters for evaluation (because that's far, far easier than writing a comprehensive list of fixes and bans that will never address every possibility anyway), and now having seen the characters, has recognized a potential problem and happens to have asked the forum for help. To which a response of "don't risk telling anyone to do anything unless you're sure you can keep the game from falling apart" when they're literally doing the first and most effective thing that is needed to prevent the game from falling apart, which involves deciding and telling who to do what about their characters, is remarkably unhelpful.

The OP is clearly accustomed to allowing more things and running a higher power game. Just as clearly, at least by their given intended build details, half their players are not ready for that. This game has not even started. There is no better time for this discussion than right now. You can't magically rush someone into being a better power gamer, but most power gamers did start out somewhere and should be capable of playing something weaker if they desire. If the person who brought a char-op forum build can't handle changing it, then they aren't ready to play with the rest of this group. If the people who submitted underpowered characters won't budge, then they aren't ready to play with the rest of the group either. No one who is unwilling to compromise is ready to play a game that relies on compromise and trust (which is DnD).

And yes, obviously that applies to the DM as well, if the char-op build can actually show they're going to use it in a way that isn't disruptive, somehow (which would require a mighty level of de-optimized spell choice and tactical failure).

Actually, I want to go back to this-

And then this? Banning one character entirely while changing the rules to buff another? While those might not be unreasonable choices, they can certainly breed resentment, from either party. "My character wasn't worth your time to fix?" "You trust him to completely rebuild from scratch, while I need your pity?"
The correct response is, "We agreed to play in your game and trust that you know what you're doing.", or at the very least "We're willing to accept it for now because you're the DM and that's your job even if we're skeptical." You've also assumed that this is being done without explanation, even though my post was full of explanations for everything but the most basic of how DMM and Dragonwrought Kobold work (as if someone using them doesn't know why they're doing it- and if they don't that's even more reason they shouldn't be using it).

The choice of words here, "pity," is particularly odd since it implies a reaction to things that have not transpired. A character who sucks is given a special snowflake item, that could be condemned as "pity," giving someone bunch of random bonuses in the hopes that things will even out because the DM doesn't really know how to fix the problem can definitely read as "pity," but fixing an underpowered class or build isn't "pity." Its fixing the problem. A player that has attached their ego to the effectiveness of their character's build as written by them and only them is going to be a problem whether they're under or over-powered.




I think the most likely problem right now is that the OP is accustomed to higher power games to the point that a "metamagic spammer" Dragonwrought Kobold apparently occasioned no comment beyond "practical optimization" until the split builds and shadowcaster showed up, and as such half the players are likely to be pressured into a higher powered game than they're ready for in order to match the rest. That's what the DM is used to, it's what the forum usually supports, etc. The initial problem is phrased as underpowered PCs being unable to participate in challenges assigned based on the more powerful ones, and the inability to protect special niches for them, with no questioning of the expectation that higher powered characters should be allowed as-is and challenges would be based upon their power.

Which is why my advice must continue to include nerfing the top end, because the sort of power where an extra +3 ability score and "metamagic spam" is standard is going to have a seriously hard time including characters designed for people that were planning on completely even class splits with no PrCs.

[Quertus]

@Fizban, I have no doubt that *you* would use lots of words and lots of communication when dealing with *your* players - like me, such verbosity is clearly a well-loved tool in your toolkit. :smallcool:

However, can you imagine a GM who lacks our skills, attempting to implement your advice in near-silence, and failing the way that I described?

My intention was simply to indicate how yours was not inherently a "one size fits all" solution, and the GM should consider both the disposition of the table and their own skill set when evaluating the suitability of that technique (or the juxtaposition of those two techniques) to their scenario.

[Mordante]

Someone mentioned that a PC Cleric is needed in the party. I would replace this with non-PC. None one ever want to play a heal-bot in DnD. Cleric to me is mostly a NPC class.

[Doctor Despair]

Someone mentioned that a PC Cleric is needed in the party. I would replace this with non-PC. None one ever want to play a heal-bot in DnD. Cleric to me is mostly a NPC class.

Yeah... I'm definitely not playing a healbot right now in my level 2 campaign... :smalleek:

[Kitsuneymg]

Witch 10/warlock 10 is tier 5. Do not let them play that. Make them commit to warlock (perhaps 2 levels of chameleon as well?) or witch. Witch starts to suck hard when they multiclass. The witch multiclass guide is super simple at two words: “do not.”

Hexes are the most important thing for that class, and multiclassing quickly destroys their ability to stick. With 3.5 feat progression, they’re gonna be behind on things like split hex anyway. They don’t need a nerf to DCs and hex acquisition too.

[Railak]

I actually deal with this a lot, having a party balance that is completely all over the place. Like my current party, we've got a pretty optimized human barbarian who put literally everything into strength and constitution, and uses a maul, and we have a shifter bard, who isn't optimized at all, and doesn't seem to really want to, oh yeah and uses a longsword and has the lowest AC in the party. The way I'm dealing with it is actually sending lots of little things. The barbarian gets to feel powerful because they drop enemies in one hit, and the bard doesn't just die, and feel like they're actually contributing. I'm also giving them plenty of opportunities to roleplay and stuff.

[Jervis]

Since people are asking about the build it’s a Archivist that uses Tainted Sorcerer along with a binder dip and a small amount of DMM. Mostly it’s 1 persist a day and a bunch of miscellaneous buffs. Like I said I don’t mind optimized characters. Actually I’ve ran so many games for 3.5 westmartch servers with rules about as generous as the assumed rules for char op builds that it’s hard for me to run “normal” games any more.

[ngilop]

I am going to go against the popular opinion in this thread and state:

This is something that needs to be dealt with out of character with the actual real-life player themselves.

Tell the optimizer to not render the rest of the group useless

tell the sub-par guys a couple hints that could get their characters performing a little bit better


I think trying to handle this in game with in game consequences is the most wrong way you could go about dealing with this situation.

[Asmotherion]

I would balance the encounter around the average power level of the party, and include a deadlyer enemy that is meant to fight the optimiser. This way the optimiser gets a good challenge, and the rest are relativelly safe. Win-Win situation.

[King of Nowhere]

Yes, the DM making unilateral decisions, as if making unilateral decisions wasn't specifically part of their job :smallsigh: If the players actually can't buy in to the DM moderating the game then I suggest they get rid of the DM entirely and move to a random dungeon generator or a video game (or even board game) that will do the DMing for them. Popup Dungeon or Gloomhaven or who knows how many others.


there is a vast gulf between moderating a game and being oppositive.
a good dm will moderate the game, which includes making decisions and taking responsibility, and sometimes telling "no" to stuff.
however, a good dm will try to ensure that everyone have fun. which is unlikely to happen if you take away all the cool toys and make punitive rulings.

which is why you should talk to your players and try to reach decisions by agreement. offer them alternative. instead of just telling "no, you can't play metamagic spam" or "you will play a heavily nerfed version of it", you can offer the player meaningful choices there. "those two abilities together are too strong, you can only have one. pick which one" is already a lot better. or "help me find a way to keep the character concept without being game-breaker", where you ask player input.

making the unilateral decision that the suggested build is too strong is part of your job, and you did it. how to fix that? that's not just your decision, and here's where you want to talk and work with the player

[Elves]

Use the author errata for shadowcaster, helps a smidge. Point the witch/warlock at the eldritch theurge PRC. Have the enemies focus on the stronger characters. Don't have "the talk" with anyone until it's apparent there's actually a problem.

[Fizban]

@Fizban, I have no doubt that *you* would use lots of words and lots of communication when dealing with *your* players - like me, such verbosity is clearly a well-loved tool in your toolkit. :smallcool:

However, can you imagine a GM who lacks our skills, attempting to implement your advice in near-silence, and failing the way that I described?

My intention was simply to indicate how yours was not inherently a "one size fits all" solution, and the GM should consider both the disposition of the table and their own skill set when evaluating the suitability of that technique (or the juxtaposition of those two techniques) to their scenario.
On the one hand I want to say that no one telegraphed a lack of communication and thus it is effectively a straw man, but the OP is lacking enough in details and focuses on DM response enough that it could be read that way. The lot of us have more than sufficiently addressed any such tight-lipped behavior (ah, that one campaign journal of RHoD where the players didn't even know what the campaign was about and managed to fail more spectacularly than would seem possible, that was a ride).


Since people are asking about the build it’s a Archivist that uses Tainted Sorcerer along with a binder dip and a small amount of DMM. Mostly it’s 1 persist a day and a bunch of miscellaneous buffs. Like I said I don’t mind optimized characters. Actually I’ve ran so many games for 3.5 westmartch servers with rules about as generous as the assumed rules for char op builds that it’s hard for me to run “normal” games any more.

Tainted Scholar, or OA Maho-Tsukai, or some other I'm not aware of? Either way, I have to make the usual ask of whether you're actually using taint in any capacity for the rest of the game 'cause it's real weird to "exist" just for one taint-leveraging character in the party. Which I still don't find appropriate to have around with the sort of players those underpowered builds suggest. One free persist per day is theoretically not too bad, but the number of wide-flung moving parts there are the sort that, going back to the "human reactions" problem, I would expect to inflame the less complicated players the moment they step out of line. I also notice that while you started calling out this one as the most optimized, you still downplay whatever exactly it's doing as "1 persist and a bunch of miscellaneous buffs," as if a bunch of miscellaneous buffs isn't still a bunch of buffs (stat buffs in particular* seem to get treated with Schrodinger's Significance, it's "just a few stat points" which happen to stack with everything to reach heights no normal character could reach).

So if you're not going to do anything about the top end but recognize that some characters are far lower in power and freely admit that you might not be able to run "normal" games and know that trying to pretend it's fine by perfectly tailoring every challenge (and "AI") won't work, you've already made your decision. You want the underpowered characters to be more powerful. Which means it's still the simple matter of telling them your game runs at a higher power level, asking them what they're trying to do, and then re-writing and/or building for them to make it work.

*Such as from Dragonwrought Kobold, wacky stat generation, LA "buyoff" and free LA, taint manipulation, and of course certain persistent buffs.

Use the author errata for shadowcaster, helps a smidge.
Which is exactly why I pre-emptively presented mine, since the class's own creator apparently thought it would be better to abandon half the point of their own class. Although considering the power level the DM seems set on, it might be better to go with the higher powered popular fix and make all mysteries per encounter.

[sreservoir]

Tainted Scholar, or OA Maho-Tsukai, or some other I'm not aware of?

Judging by the name and the archivist base, I'd have guessed UA Tainted Sorcerer (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/campaigns/taint.htm#taintedSorcerer), which frankly still falls firmly in the "how did this get past the drawing board" category.

[Jervis]

Judging by the name and the archivist base, I'd have guessed UA Tainted Sorcerer (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/campaigns/taint.htm#taintedSorcerer), which frankly still falls firmly in the "how did this get past the drawing board" category.

Like I said I like my games crazy and I already said no to any and all tricks that give arbitrary DCs and spells per day. For one thing i’m capping taint for undead and fully intend to have a cleric cast greater restoration in the middle of a fight to reduce his casting stat to 10 exactly once. I’m also letting him do this in part because he agreed to let me play a Chameleon with bloodline level early entry and spell slot cap breaking shenanigans to get 9th level spells in one of his games so this is kind of a shenanigan exchange between the two of us. We both have a gentleman’s agreement not to use anything we wouldn’t want the other using. The others are friends who joined without experience in optimancy.

Like I said I’ve talked to him about his build plans and how he intends to play it so i’m not worried about him. It’s very much a case of “this could be so much more broken than it actually will be in practice”. I’m just worried about the weaker players having something to do, as is they’re weaker than a character who intentionally sabotaged himself at most of the challenges the game can pose so others can do something. The Gish has literally lower AC than a Kobold with 16 Dex and no armor as an example. As is I think I might just need to suggest some of the build suggestions I’ve got here.

[Quertus]

fully intend to have a cleric cast greater restoration in the middle of a fight to reduce his casting stat to 10 exactly once.

Care to explain exactly how that works?

Also… at that point, he won’t qualify for his Prestige Class, right? So… what happens then?

[Jervis]

Care to explain exactly how that works?

Also… at that point, he won’t qualify for his Prestige Class, right? So… what happens then?

Tainted Sorcerer uses taint score + 10 for their spellcasting, greater restoration sets that to 0, so their effective casting stat reverts to effectively 10. As for qualifications I’d run it as them needing to build taint up again by casting cantrips and failing the save so they can start using leveled spells to fill it up again, a process that should take a few days of downtime at that level.

As for casting time, I’ll figure out some way. If nothing else I’ll just have another Kobold with a greater restoration trap.

[InvisibleBison]

Tainted Sorcerer uses taint score + 10 for their spellcasting, greater restoration sets that to 0, so their effective casting stat reverts to effectively 10.

The section on cleansing taint says (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/campaigns/taint.htm#cleansingTaint) "Taint cannot be removed unless the tainted character wants to be cleansed." Are you intentionally changing that, or did you just miss it?

Also, greater restoration doesn't set taint to 0; it reduces it by the caster's caster level.

[Jervis]

The section on cleansing taint says (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/campaigns/taint.htm#cleansingTaint) "Taint cannot be removed unless the tainted character wants to be cleansed." Are you intentionally changing that, or did you just miss it?

Also, greater restoration doesn't set taint to 0; it reduces it by the caster's caster level.

Oh I missed that. I might still include a CL 198 GR trap made by a Ur Priest as a joke but I won’t pull it in combat. Worst case scenario he has to spend a day casting spells to go back up to the cap I set.

[Quertus]

Tainted Sorcerer uses taint score + 10 for their spellcasting, greater restoration sets that to 0, so their effective casting stat reverts to effectively 10. As for qualifications I’d run it as them needing to build taint up again by casting cantrips and failing the save so they can start using leveled spells to fill it up again, a process that should take a few days of downtime at that level.

As for casting time, I’ll figure out some way. If nothing else I’ll just have another Kobold with a greater restoration trap.

In what book does it detail that Greater Restoration sets Taint to 0? (And how did I miss that?)

If they’re no longer a Tainted Sorcerer, and they have a Taint score of 0, how do they build up Taint? Or… are they still a Tainted Sorcerer (at your table, or by RAW) even if they don’t meet the prerequisites?

On a completely different note, are we talking CoDzilla buffing himself, or buffing the party? And are the other players likely to be content playing second fiddle to the GMs bestie, if it comes to that? Oh, and one more question: would you or your group freak out if the PC who was planning the horrifically suboptimal “X 10 / Y 10” build were allowed to gestalt X 20 // Y 20, if the power level were balanced with the group?

(Those last two questions are part of a theme of, “do you know how your group will react to things?”.)

[Mordante]

Use the author errata for shadowcaster, helps a smidge. Point the witch/warlock at the eldritch theurge PRC. Have the enemies focus on the stronger characters. Don't have "the talk" with anyone until it's apparent there's actually a problem.

I don't think a Witch/Warlock qualifies for eldritch theurge PRC. I presume the Witch is Dread Witch, since I cannot find any SRD Witch class.

Requirements
Skills: Knowledge (arcana) 8 ranks , Knowledge (the planes) 8 ranks

Spells: Ability to cast 2nd-level arcane spells.
Invocations: Ability to use least invocations.
Special: Eldritch blast +2d6.

A Warlock cannot cast arcane spells.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

I don't think a Witch/Warlock qualifies for eldritch theurge PRC. I presume the Witch is Dread Witch, since I cannot find any SRD Witch class.

Requirements
Skills: Knowledge (arcana) 8 ranks , Knowledge (the planes) 8 ranks

Spells: Ability to cast 2nd-level arcane spells.
Invocations: Ability to use least invocations.
Special: Eldritch blast +2d6.

A Warlock cannot cast arcane spells.

As was clearly stated in the OP, the player is using the Pathfinder Witch class, which is an arcane spellcaster.

[martixy]

Don’t. Balance is a fool’s errand. What I would do is talk to your most powerful character players secretly and tell them they should ‘Be the Merlin’ for the less powerful characters if they can. That is, empower the less powerful to have effectively more power so that they experience awesome stories.

Because when you can rearrange the cosmos, making the warblade the rightful king of the land, rejoiced by the masses, elevated to lower divinity, is merely a trifle, a hobby of an endeavour.


This could be a really good idea or a really bad idea, depending on the players. At best it's exactly what Malphegor says, at worst the players with less powerful characters feel like kids being allowed to "win" games against their parents. People worrying about outshining their party are frequently given either this advice or to intentionally limit what their character does and I'm sure that's great advice in some groups, but I also know that if I'm playing a less powerful character, I'd rather have other characters outshine mine honestly than feeling they're holding themselves back not to hurt my feelings.

Note that this only applies to players doing that specifically to avoid outshining another player, not when there are reasons (whether mechanical ones or roleplaying ones) for how they act.

Oh, and if the OP does use Malphegor's suggestion, I really don't think they should talk to the powerful players in secret. I suspect that'd only make the less powerful ones feel more annoyed and/or humiliated if they find out.

To combine both of these - you can't balance. It is a fool's errand.

But you might have players who expect balance. (Do you? Find out.) You can then explain that balancing the game is really hard and all the designers throughout the game's lifetime and thousands of players in the community failed, and it will be difficult for you, a single person to succeed where everyone else did not.

Even that's not the end though. Because your players might think they want balance, but they're actually looking for something else. They might be looking for engagement with the plot, they might be looking for fun things to do - you might have a mechanic that's underpowered, but very interactive - always a decision to make, can contribute to many problems without outright solving them, etc.

The point I'm trying to make is - power isn't the end-all be-all of having fun at the table. Try to find out how your players have fun and then deliver that. It might be power, it might be some character fantasy, it might be exploration, story, drama, or murderhoboism. DMG2's chapter on play styles and player incentives (page 7+) does a good job presenting this framework. Word of warning though, from personal experience: I've played with people who are highly intelligent, capable of critical and rational thought, who have difficulties articulating their incentives. That kind of introspection is also a form of skill I suppose.

[Jay R]

Attack unbalanced parties with unbalanced threats.

They need to face a powerful wizard with two lesser lieutenants and several warrior builds. Then make sure your villains engage the right PCs.

[InvisibleBison]

Attack unbalanced parties with unbalanced threats.

They need to face a powerful wizard with two lesser lieutenants and several warrior builds. Then make sure your villains engage the right PCs.

How does this work if the party doesn't cooperate? Say the PCs decide the wizard is the biggest threat and they all focus their attacks on her. If she's supposed to duel the high-op PC, her defenses would presumably be strong enough that the low-op PCs will be minimally effective or completely ineffective. So the high-op PC does most to all of the work fighting the wizard, and then is more effective than the other PCs against the lesser enemies, who are designed to be engaged by the less-optimized PCs. The result is that the high-op PC does a disproportionate amount of the work in the fight, exactly the scenario this approach is supposed to avoid.

[Jay R]

How does this work if the party doesn't cooperate? Say the PCs decide the wizard is the biggest threat and they all focus their attacks on her. If she's supposed to duel the high-op PC, her defenses would presumably be strong enough that the low-op PCs will be minimally effective or completely ineffective. So the high-op PC does most to all of the work fighting the wizard, and then is more effective than the other PCs against the lesser enemies, who are designed to be engaged by the less-optimized PCs. The result is that the high-op PC does a disproportionate amount of the work in the fight, exactly the scenario this approach is supposed to avoid.

If the low-op PCs choose to make "completely ineffective" attacks against somebody else instead of fighting the people currently hitting them with swords, there's not much I can do about it.

But I suspect that after one or two such encounters, most players will attack somebody they can hurt.

[Fizban]

Judging by the name and the archivist base, I'd have guessed UA Tainted Sorcerer (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/campaigns/taint.htm#taintedSorcerer), which frankly still falls firmly in the "how did this get past the drawing board" category.
Ah, I'd forgotten UA has a third version of the taint rules.


For one thing i’m capping taint for undead and fully intend to have a cleric cast greater restoration in the middle of a fight to reduce his casting stat to 10 exactly once.
Even ignoring how that may or may not interact with taint, you are aware the spell takes 3 full rounds to cast, right? Actually that's the lower two, Greater takes 10 minutes.


I’m also letting him do this in part because he agreed to let me play a Chameleon with bloodline level early entry and spell slot cap breaking shenanigans to get 9th level spells in one of his games so this is kind of a shenanigan exchange between the two of us.
See, this is the sort of context you really ought to disclose up front (to the thread and your players, if you haven't already).


We both have a gentleman’s agreement not to use anything we wouldn’t want the other using. The others are friends who joined without experience in optimancy.
Which continues to paint this game as more about your and the other shenanigan'er than the new no-op players. Which means they really, really need to be warned about what they're about to step in, and you need to get it together.

Allow me to tell you about the last major game I played in.

I had been DMing, but I wanted to play this cool homebrew class (very detailed, very balanced, for a certain idea of balance, with magic and supernatural abilities) and the group was a bit tired of what I'd been running so one of the other skilled 3.x'ers ran a new game. The group has three people of high 3.x skill, and two with little. The other skilled player has moved from optimizing wizards (and having less than perfect results) to optimizing "weaker" things, rogues and tanks. The remaining two players are fed the most optimized builds we can get them to take.

My character is blatantly the most powerful, though no one directly blames it on the class- I have my limits, but my powers are varied and always sufficiently powerful (by design). I maintained to myself that I could replicate everything with a 1st party build, and even built the character years later, which clearly revealed how much optimization it took to do so (part of the problem also lies upon, as I often mention, free/reduced LA on myself and the tank and the rolled stats that left me just plain better). The tank however performs feats that my character couldn't dream of (also using homebrew prestige class, and some tricky building), and clearly owns their place in the party, though we clash over their dissatisfaction at the knowledge my character could probably kill them in a duel if I went all-out (which might have been less significant if we didn't also clash along in-character lines which may have been taken too seriously OOC, etc).

Player three starts with a bard/dirgesinger, but never uses the powerful dirgesinger abilities they were recommended the build for. Instead they want to use cool-sounding spells like Bonefiddle. Eventually they switch to a paladin for what ends up being the last session, and honestly I can't tell you anything the bard did in the time between. Their main contribution was most likely no more than Inspire Courage, multiplied by all three other characters to be sure, but leaving them entirely dissatisfied. They cared about their character's performance but were unable to fit in with the optimized characters on their own, nor was their apparently enough communication to get them a build they would actually use and like.

Player four runs a rogue. I recommended Deadeye Shot as an easy and reliable way to get sneak attack without jumping through hoops. They never use it. And yet, unlike the bard they got to do things. They had a whole scene of sneaking onto a ship and stealing something important, and (as I love bringing up whenever appropriate), their basic shortbow attacks with energy damage did in fact add up over combats and cause foes to drop earlier than they would have otherwise. Player four said they were fine, but unlike three they don't seem to be fussed with their performance, either very good at hiding it or honestly uncaring that they're clearly less effective.

This was, in hindsight, I think the classic split group. Half with significant char-op experience, the other half simply not up to scratch. And it did, inevitably, leave at least one player very dissatisfied. While it was not that player that caused the group's dissolution, I cannot help but be aware that the bar I set playing a homebrew class based on high-op concepts, was simply too high. For a year, year and half that game ran, and player three might as well have been an NPC. It was abundantly clear who the game was focused on: myself and the tank had homebrew classes, fought foes the other two couldn't handle, had backstories explaining our powers and goals resonating with the world, had the DM explicitly throw their attempt at NPC mirrors at us, etc. And it all comes back to the blatant power gap, despite the fact that with both explicitly provided all the char-op help we could. It didn't matter, because the other two players just weren't power gamers. Player three had previously rejected character abilities they found too strong, didn't use those they had, and then in the next game simply went w+m1 barbarian. They were our good friend who wanted to play DnD, but the natural mis-match was simply unfair. Even if they were just along for the ride and me and the tank were simply objectively more invested, that investment created power which feeback into more reason to be invested, while it was just bad form to have half the players knowing they were literally worth-less. Four may have been cool with it, but Three clearly wanted more.
So what's my point? That some players just aren't cut-out for high-op power levels. I could have "played down," I took steps with my next (also homebrew) character, though they were likely not significant enough. But I had wanted to to play X cool thing, and the tank had their build, and so the game was about us. We did what's supposed to be the perfectly reasonable thing and helped the other players make characters that should have been able to contribute alongside our own, and it didn't matter. Their expectations of the game could be easily seen through their mechanical expression, even after being given build advice, and the bar we had set was too high.


I’m just worried about the weaker players having something to do, as is they’re weaker than a character who intentionally sabotaged himself at most of the challenges the game can pose so others can do something.
And you can try to hand them better builds, but in the end there's only so much you can do. Frankly, the builds proposed show such a serious fundamental lack of char-op power that I don't expect they would be able to play whatever you gave them sufficiently, or if they did, it might very well repulse them on principle (unless by a lack of optimancy you mean "literally have never touched the game before and aren't aware of all the things," but having a warlock/PF witch suggests some familiarity). There is a certain mindset that 3.x attracts, a type of power gamer that puts the game at a different threshold, and people who aren't like that, aren't.

In short, if you're going to run a high power game, I would seriously consider whether these extra two players should be in it. You don't have to refuse them, but they need to know what type of game it's going to be and that their characters will underperform if they don't git gud, fast, and they might not like gitting gud.

In that respect, it might even be better to fully embrace your desired game, and not change anything at all. If the two weaker builds know that their characters are going to get wrecked until they git gud, and they choose to walk that path, then it's best to give them the game as it's going to be.


The Gish has literally lower AC than a Kobold with 16 Dex and no armor as an example. As is I think I might just need to suggest some of the build suggestions I’ve got here.
I'm not surprised, considering that kobolds have unnaturally high AC for a supposedly LA 0 race. They get +1 from size, +1 natural, and +1 from dex, which means this player has allotted an initial 14 dex. They've chosen to boost AC on an AC boosting race (unless of course the stats you've given them are so high it isn't much of a choice), and shockingly enough the "gish" (who I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't even know the term) won't have been able to match that. Not that anyone can match it at 1st level, since it takes a certain amount of gear and spells and negligence on the other party for a character to "catch up." A kobold basically always has +2-3 AC above an equivalent medium character. It's a textbook example, the same way an LA 0 orc will always have +2 attack and +2-3 damage.

[Seward]

This is more problematic in a long running campaign than convention or organized play.

There is character optimization and player system mastery. They don't always go together, and some players might surprise you with what they can accomplish with a weaker build, and others might astonish you with how poorly they play a finely tuned character.

3.5 also has the issue that player system mastery might only be in character design, or only in gameplay. So with a party like you described I'd take a hard look at each player and try to figure out what is up.....

Are they taking a highly optimized build they don't understand and won't use well? Might not be a problem unless they get a lot better at playing the game at your table.

Are they taking a highly optimized build and know how to use it? Do they have restraint and a sense of whether others at the table are having fun? It might still be ok, if they tone it down unless the party is about to TPK then step in and save the day.

Are they taking a crappy build and using it as a challenge because the game is frankly too easy normally for them? Also likely to be ok.

Are they trying to do something interesting but lack the system mastery to build a character that can do it? Helping them with character design to mechanically fit their vision could work out well. Especially if along with the help designing the class/level/feat build you help them learn how it works on each level up, to give them system mastery at playing that specific character. (I've seen this approach work very well with sorcerers, a parent teaching a 10 year old just how each spell works and what it is for, and them doing just fine finding effective actions in play. The lack of class features for the class is actually helpful.2)

Basically talk to each player about having fun and feeling like they're able to contribute. This is actually harder if you start at level 1 because the way D&D works, specialization doesn't really occur till about L6 (ie, until the iterative attack and L3 spells, a wizard crossbow bolt or cleric's mace still is meaningful in physical combat, and splash weapons, javelins and mundane gear let martials contribute some of the things a caster normally does)