PDA

View Full Version : How can I counter myself, without playing like a moron?



theMycon
2008-02-12, 02:49 AM
My roommate's best friend is DMing the campaign I'm in. He's a very fun, reasonably talented man, but his girlfriend is playing a fighter (her second game, the first one which didn't collapse within three sessions), and the rest of the party has made her totally irrelevant, and I'm the most dangerous.

In brief, I want to know what encounters can make a super-powerful bear irrelevant, but not a fighter.

We're all level 7, for reference
Rest of party- Cleric (first time roleplayer of any sort, but the DM & I collaborated on her, and taught her about our favorite spells.)
Druid (Myself- with the Natural Bond feat)
DMNPC x4 (Wizard, some other arcane magic user, and the others haven't had a chance to do much)


My problems are twofold- first, my wis is obscene, my int's okay, and my skills synergize, so I have more skills to higher levels than the other PC's. This makes the rolls I try for incredible, and I generally don't put myself in a situation where I make a roll I can't do.

Second, Natural Bond with a brownbear animal companion. I haven't yet managed to do damage in combat myself, despite trying quite a bit, but the bear does more damage than the rest of the party combined. When he hit 8HD, I put the one point into Str, and being an animal companion he has evasion and +1 str/dex, +2HD/Nat Armor. I haven't really got much choice in his build- the thing has a 28 or 29 Str as a minimum. Plus, after the first time it hit, the cleric decided to devote herself to buffing him- the strength gets obscene.

I do nothing but cast "barkskin" on him, and stand back as it clawclawbites, grapples, and clawclawbite again, single handedly taking out an encounter (in two rounds, without being damaged), in two rounds, that was supposed to matter to the entire (seven person) party. So he throws an arcane caster at the bear, who (evasion, one lucky roll) charges, gets the free grapple, and again kills it in two rounds without sustaining any damage.


So... DM & I working together, how can we restrain the raging beast without making it obvious we're trying to make his girlfriend feel better?

Tengu
2008-02-12, 02:54 AM
How about an urban scenario? The bear would have to stay in the forest.

Chronos
2008-02-12, 02:55 AM
Is your bear male or female?

Here's a hint: There's no correct answer to that question.

JeminiZero
2008-02-12, 03:01 AM
Some quick ideas off the to of my head:
-Flying enemies with ranged attacks, making all melee useless. Remeber to give the fighter a solid bow.
-Enemies which have retaliation damage for using natural weapons/unarmed atttacks, but not manufactured weapons. There are a few spells/abilities that do this, but I can't remember off the top of my head.
-Enemies who have DR/whatever, and only fighter has Whatever (could be cold iron or alchemical silver or something else)

Edit: Oh, one more possibility. Give some enemies the feats/weapons which grant them favored enemy / bane of enemy / death of enemy: Bear

Hario
2008-02-12, 03:04 AM
Here's an idea on how to be balanced with he fighter, put on some metal armor. Greatest, not making sense solution ever!:smallwink:

Adumbration
2008-02-12, 03:06 AM
You could try to overrun them with mooks. Sooner or later that bear will run out of buffs, and even if he doesn't, the fighter is BOUND to get at least some kills.

And I could swear that there's a prestige class that gives ability to separate animal companions and their masters... Give that to the BBEG. Bye-bye, bear.

Tempest Fennac
2008-02-12, 03:09 AM
What are the Fighter's feats and stats? Also, does the Wizard regularly use buff spells wich benefit the Fighter? It could be that the Fighter is really unoptimised.

Serpent
2008-02-12, 03:11 AM
You could try to overrun them with mooks. Sooner or later that bear will run out of buffs, and even if he doesn't, the fighter is BOUND to get at least some kills.

And I could swear that there's a prestige class that gives ability to separate animal companions and their masters... Give that to the BBEG. Bye-bye, bear.

Yeah, and then the bear can just kill the party and they can all roll new characters.

theMycon
2008-02-12, 03:11 AM
How about an urban scenario? The bear would have to stay in the forest.
Blindingly fast response, blindingly obvious, and simple to act on. That was so perfect as to make me feel inadequate as a DM's right hand man.


Flying enemies with ranged attacks, making all melee useless. Remeber to give the fighter a solid bow.
-Enemies which have retaliation damage for using natural weapons/unarmed atttacks, but not manufactured weapons. There are a few spells/abilities that do this, but I can't remember off the top of my head.
-Enemies who have DR/whatever, and only fighter has Whatever (could be cold iron or alchemical silver or something else)
-My first recommendation, and I think a decent one;
-Would work wonderfully if I knew of any; and
-can you find a way to make this obvious that the fighter's doing more damage?

Serpent
2008-02-12, 03:14 AM
Just drop the fighter an alchemical silver sword at some point and try to fenagle her into hanging on to it, then maybe one or two sessions later have the DM throw some lycanthropes at you.

Talic
2008-02-12, 03:17 AM
Also, bear in mind, the goal is for the fighter to contribute, not outshine you.

As a bear, you have improved grab. If an encounter involved a large nasty foe, and several others, and you tie up and engage the big guy, he may be out of the picture... But so are you.

In the meanwhile, who's gonna protect the glass cannons from those other two threats coming in from the left?

JeminiZero
2008-02-12, 03:20 AM
-Would work wonderfully if I knew of any; and

The examples I can think of do retaliation damage in melee, regardless of weapon used.
Energy shield Draconic Aura (available to the Dragon Shaman), can be overcome with a reach weapon.
Dragonfire Adepts have an invocation Aura of Flame invocation.



-can you find a way to make this obvious that the fighter's doing more damage?


The Bear hits the Vampire: The strike is true, but the monster merely laughs it off.
The Fighter hits vampire with a Silver Blade: The monster screams in agony as its flesh splits open and a GEYSER of black blood pours from the wound.

Basically, it should be pretty obvious with anything that can scream in pain and bleed.

Edit: Might also work for damage types. E.g. Piercing / Slashing / Bludgeoning

tyckspoon
2008-02-12, 03:21 AM
Stop using single enemies? Honestly, even without the bear a seven-man party should be able to crush almost any single opponent that is anywhere near the appropriate CR. You just have too much of an advantage in the number of actions you can take.

Your animal companion is completely unable to attack at range; the fighter could do worse than going into ranged support, although it'd obviously be better if she had been doing that from the start. Unfortunately, she has a magic-heavy party to compete with in that.

You're hitting the levels where your party is pretty much going to overshadow the fighter anyway, even if you didn't have the bear.. four full spellcasters will make any Fighter-type class feel pretty pointless. If she's been a straight-classed Fighter so far, it's probably time to find (or homebrew) a good PrC for her or suggest some beneficial multiclasses.

Of course, you could just transfer your buff routine to the Fighter. She'll benefit from Barkskin and whatever the Cleric is casting the same as the bear does; she'll just be less dominating about it. Which is probably a good thing, since I imagine your DM is kind of frustrated about having all his encounters ended by bearhug too.

its_all_ogre
2008-02-12, 03:32 AM
harpies armed with bows. even better gargoyles flying around and swooping in. these guys can avoid the bear and also have dr magic.
golems!
but really the problem is with the single enemies you are facing, instead of one gribbly make it 3, the bear tackles one and that leaves 2 for the rest of you.
behirs are awesome for this and if you guys are level 7 then 3 of them would not be undefeatable (my group narrowly defeated 4 of them at level 6 with no bear) they would probably beat a bears grapple though so you might have a swallowed or at least constricted and raked bear.

Crow
2008-02-12, 03:35 AM
Of course, you could just transfer your buff routine to the Fighter. She'll benefit from Barkskin and whatever the Cleric is casting the same as the bear does; she'll just be less dominating about it. Which is probably a good thing, since I imagine your DM is kind of frustrated about having all his encounters ended by bearhug too.

This is a good solution for just about any group who has spellcasters "taking over" other party members' roles.

Shademan
2008-02-12, 03:39 AM
make a evil ranger that hates bear more than anything stalk your party. oh, and he have a evil vampire cleric or death and general destruction buddy.
OR: underwater hassle!!!

theMycon
2008-02-12, 03:51 AM
What are the Fighter's feats and stats? Also, does the Wizard regularly use buff spells wich benefit the Fighter? It could be that the Fighter is really unoptimised.

Two weapon everything, any rapier buff she can get, run, and some save bonuses. Stats are unknown (only DM can directly ask things, and most rolls only he sees- he has a copy of all char sheets and I've watched him nudge a die if she gives him the puppy eyes- and I don't blame him), but she's high dex, above-avg str, nothing else noticably different from average.

The non-me magic users don't do much. The wizard gets in some token damage (otherwise the party'd be entirely me in battle), and the other NPCs make a lot of tactical talk & manuvering & then noticing the battle's almost over. One of the DM's unique features (having known him almost 4 years) is that, despite having him DM 2 campaigns and 30-some sessions, I can't remember a single combat lasting more than 3 rounds. He's killed a few players, never a TPK, but the enemy goes down fast.

I suspect that the fighter's biggest weakness is being defense oriented- complicated explanation of their relationship run short, they never dated and don't actually know eachother much. So she failed to realize his Blitzkrieg-like mindset. She has a +1 weapon and put everything else into mundane items & defense, and can't be hit, but the only times she's landed a blow are when he's fudged a roll.

Animefunkmaster
2008-02-12, 03:56 AM
First: Natural Bond: "This bonus can never make your effective druid level exceed your character level" -CAdv

Second: Urban encounters are good idea (animals need to be kept out of the bar, ect, ect), how about someone giving a tip of some levels in rogue + swash buckler, daring outlaw. Otherwise the fighter needs to beg for buffs or simply have better magical gear than the bear.

theMycon
2008-02-12, 04:25 AM
First: Natural Bond: "This bonus can never make your effective druid level exceed your character level" -CAdv
Oh. What a difference a line makes. He'll still be deadlier, but now in-line with sanity.



Thanks, all, for the many suggestions in this short time. I think I've learned enough to get me through 'til the girl's learned how to take care of herself.

leperkhaun
2008-02-12, 04:47 AM
enlarge, bull str, haste on the fighter. Have the wizards stop buffing the bear....you can do that.

Eventually maybe poly the fighter for the big encounters.

Then add in stoneskin on the fighter. That will let them do big damage and with her already bieng hard to hit, the DR will further negate the hits that do land.

anyway casters are going to start to outshine most melee characters.

Perhaps suggest that she be able to revamp her character into a tripper or a charger build.

It sounds like most of the problem is that her character isnt very optimized when it should be (for that group).

I also second having more monsters per encounter as single targets die really quick with a party of 7

Irreverent Fool
2008-02-12, 04:57 AM
Golems. They have DR which is usually easily overcome by one of the many pointy things fighters carry around, but not so by natural weapons, and they are immune to most spells.

Citizen Jenkins
2008-02-12, 05:12 AM
Does the Fighter have any ranks in Ride?
Have you seen "the Golden Compass"?

Instead of trying to tone down your power gaming, presuming everyone is okay with it, include her in it. Bear charging is nasty, bear charging with rider is even nastier. You're much less likely to accidentally offend her and you all won't have to change your established bleitzkreig pattern.

Roderick_BR
2008-02-12, 05:18 AM
Having the casters buff the fighter, as people suggested, is the first and better option. 2nd, throw more mooks, that need to be taken care, instead of one single strong enemy. Use larger creatures that can't be easily grappled (I bet the fighter doesn't do that, so it'll put her side to side to the bear).
Homebrew-wise, ask the DM to allow the fighter to attack once with each weapon when walking and attacking, since it's her greatest weakness.
Alteranively, you could see if the DM allows her to change the fighter for a warblade from Tome of Battle. Since both classes are about melee combat, it'll be mostly a change of crunch, the concept will be the same. Show her how the class works to see if she likes the idea.

Sebastian
2008-02-12, 05:37 AM
Well, my first reaction would : Fire, companion or not the bear is an animal and it should be afraid of fire, but then I remember it is D&D and common sense have a limited part in it, so, what about using some creature that damage when you touch them? The bear could not use its attack without being hurt, while the fighter would have no problems using a weapon.

Tempest Fennac
2008-02-12, 05:59 AM
If she's too defence orientated, it may be a good idea to ask the DM if she could swap some items she's got for more effective items.

Shademan
2008-02-12, 06:13 AM
a large friggin ooze! let us see the bear grapple a ooze! >8D
or "persuade" the DM into making a encounter where lasting long is important. the big bad ... thing... will have a hard time taking the fighter down then.
SHINE!

valadil
2008-02-12, 09:05 AM
An evil ringmaster with a pointy mustache kidnaps the bear for use in a traveling circus. Over the course of tracking down the circus and reclaiming Da Bear, you guys gain 2-4 levels which somehow puts the fighter ahead of the bear.

Annarrkkii
2008-02-12, 09:16 AM
Multiclass yourself a few levels into a PrC—you can continue to gain levels and grow, but the bear will fall off some. Assuming you ditch Natural Bond.

Similar to the Urban Encounter suggestion, it can be effective to have some combats against numerous badguys in complicated situations. Take a page straight from the DMG and have a dramatic battle on narrow catwalks, or with cracking rock over lava, requiring precise movement to maneuver and engage. Even a heavily-armored fighter is going to manage much better than a freakin' huge bear.

That and, you know, following the rules with regards to the feat.

FlyMolo
2008-02-12, 10:12 AM
Does the Fighter have any ranks in Ride?
Have you seen "the Golden Compass"?

Instead of trying to tone down your power gaming, presuming everyone is okay with it, include her in it. Bear charging is nasty, bear charging with rider is even nastier. You're much less likely to accidentally offend her and you all won't have to change your established bleitzkreig pattern.

I like this. I think mounted combat is seriously neglected around here. Because with a few feats, you're like god. Especially with splatbook mounts like raptors.

warmachine
2008-02-12, 10:56 AM
The trouble is, the encounters should not appear contrived to be anti-bear. Why would a BBEG specifically defend against a bear? Tell the DM's girlfriend that her character was badly built and change it all out for spiked chain, Combat Reflexes, Improved Trip, good DEX and high STR. As someone wrote before, use lots of low level mooks, especially small size. The bear can whack one really hard but only the Fighter has the skill to disrupt enemy mob attacks against the spellcasters. More, the enemy uses feints and hit-and-run attacks, forcing the spellcasters to conserve their battlefield control spells and relying on the fighter.

Convincing people that the BBEG employs lots of low level mooks? Easy sell.

theMycon
2008-02-12, 01:48 PM
*notes things down*

Unfortunately, buffing her isn't exactly an option- as a character, mine doesn't like her- our initial meeting involved her driving a truck through my house to hide her stolen loot, once the other character had negotiated a peac between us, the first time I shapechanged she pulled out the manacles and announced her intentions to sell me to the circus. The cleric's the stereotypical first-time player who spends five minutes staring at her spell list before asking what the same spell does, every single round, and then deciding to either heal herself and hide, or buff whoever's doing the most damage and hide. The DM NPCs... should help her, because she's their player's girlfriend; but, again, everyone but the wizard sits back, orders the others around*, and occasionally casts a spell I can't figure out.

Revamping the character would be the best, but... not my place.

Multiple enemies & aerial enemies would probably make the NPC casters shine, but it's a step in the right direction.

Riding the bear has the same "I don't like her" problem, though I've been trying, for the past two sessions, to manuver my character into a situation where she helps me out instead of doing me harm or threatening to.


*yes, all four NPCs try to order the other three around. This leads to them doing nothing, very actively, and remaining near full power as we gradually get weaker. I'd assume they were setting up an ambush for when we're weak, except our cleric's only losing first level spells because the rest are "too complicated" and their wizard's laying some token-but-nearly-relevant smackdown, using more spells than our party combined.

Yakk
2008-02-12, 02:00 PM
First, ask to drop the bear +str and add it to +con. No reason to make the bear's problem worse.

You could mechanically buff the fighter class up. Here is one:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47220
that grants the fighter the ability to have more than 1 build by level 7.

Many mooks is a good choice of bad guys.

Learnedguy
2008-02-12, 02:13 PM
Does the Fighter have any ranks in Ride?
Have you seen "the Golden Compass"?

Instead of trying to tone down your power gaming, presuming everyone is okay with it, include her in it. Bear charging is nasty, bear charging with rider is even nastier. You're much less likely to accidentally offend her and you all won't have to change your established bleitzkreig pattern.

I second this.
Bearcharge for great justice:smallcool:

(if you want a RP reason to do this, persuade the wizard PC to say "Hey guys, I got an idea..." during your next session.

The DM and the girlfriend does not have to know:smallwink:

Also, maybe she should get a bonus modifier to ride when it's an animal companion? They are more docile, so I think it sounds perfectly reasonable)

Cormorant
2008-02-12, 02:28 PM
Hmm... I could think of a few ideas, although the urban scenario has already come up, and so has the more enemies thing.

True, the bear is a killing machine, but it doesn't do anything else. So what you need is an objective, something the bear can't do, but she can. Being a fighter, she can wade though masses of weak enemies with ease, and take massive amounts of attacks, and damage, while dealing damage. The bear can do this aswell, but what if you have something at the end that only a human can do?
It could be grabbing a magical item, and running with it, it could be activating said thing and beating someone to death with it.
Also, though the bear is loyal and helpful, there are things that a fighter can do better. Standing in a doorway, holding back a hoard of enemies (the bear would probably engage, and its way of fighting isn't staying still, its advancing and mauling), while the party complete the objective, skewering the council of the city, impaling the traitor-prince and nailing him to the ceiling (that takes time, belive me :P).
Climbing, thats another thing, just make sure the ladders don't support bears. The bear could make itself useful eating anyone that tries to go up the ladder, while the rest of you behead someone important.

There are of course other ways. Make a villain. Make him effective at countering exacly this party, he has the right spells, the right equipment, and is prepared for them. It may actually be a rather nice story idea, though not a new one.
Someone like that could for example cast a simple spell to disable the bear (even though its an animal companion, its an animal, I presume that mind-affecting spells work better on it than on humans, or other races), shield himself from the magic of the others, and then start beating the rest into a bloody pulp. This is where a fighter could stand, relate-ively unhindered against someone like that, especially if you happen to find some item that gives her a bit of a magic resistance.

Hope that helps :)

Riffington
2008-02-12, 07:37 PM
Seconding urban adventures and enemies with DR (to types the fighter can conceivably overcome).

But at higher levels, if you have a fighter and casters, you pretty much need to give the fighter an artifact sword or something.

Fizban
2008-02-13, 03:25 AM
Firstly, I disagree on the Natural Bond point: as cheesy as it is, the feat raises your effective level, while powerful companions like bears reduce it, the net result meaning it doesn't increase above your level.

Secondly, I agree with all points made above. The fighter is unoptimized in a large party of spellcasters (though come to think of it you're cleric isn't very useful..still, the two active characters are a druid with a suped up animal companion and a pair of wizards) fighting single enemies, there's really not much else to expect. She's going to need a major overhaul of her character, and you need an in character reason to tone it down a bit. I'd say to just get rid of the companion altogether, as it steps on the fighter's toes already, but if it's that effective and you've already sunk a feat into it then you can't justify it in character at all. I'd also suggest dropping the useless NPC's, it sounds like they're just slowing down the game, which makes it worse for everyone (if the DM needs a DMPC to have fun, then he'd probly be better off not DM'ing, since his whole mind isn't on it).

Suggestions for the fighter: Tome of Battle can give you some great rapier and TWF action, some sort of rogue build to make TWF useful, Swashbuckler with a riposte progression (a scout variant here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a)), and so on. That's just keeping within here established idea though, to be really effective, you're gonna need more than that.

And of course, varying encounter types: urban enviroments, bear-unfriendly terrain, informed enemies that are ready for the bear (but not the fighter), more mooks (though the bear does get 3 attacks/round...), longer fights and more fights per day (to make AC useful), and so on.

Talic
2008-02-13, 03:32 AM
The trouble is, the encounters should not appear contrived to be anti-bear. Why would a BBEG specifically defend against a bear? Tell the DM's girlfriend that her character was badly built and change it all out for spiked chain, Combat Reflexes, Improved Trip, good DEX and high STR. As someone wrote before, use lots of low level mooks, especially small size. The bear can whack one really hard but only the Fighter has the skill to disrupt enemy mob attacks against the spellcasters. More, the enemy uses feints and hit-and-run attacks, forcing the spellcasters to conserve their battlefield control spells and relying on the fighter.

Convincing people that the BBEG employs lots of low level mooks? Easy sell.

Add in Stand Still, Abyssal Heritage, and Inhuman Reach, and you've got the makings of something beautiful. 20' reach without buff, 30' reach with 1 enlarge spell.

Kami2awa
2008-02-13, 03:45 AM
You could try to overrun them with mooks. Sooner or later that bear will run out of buffs, and even if he doesn't, the fighter is BOUND to get at least some kills.

And I could swear that there's a prestige class that gives ability to separate animal companions and their masters... Give that to the BBEG. Bye-bye, bear.

That sounds rather like the villains from Northern Lights...

theMycon
2008-02-13, 04:24 AM
I'd also suggest dropping the useless NPC's, it sounds like they're just slowing down the game, which makes it worse for everyone (if the DM needs a DMPC to have fun, then he'd probly be better off not DM'ing, since his whole mind isn't on it).


We were already laughing our asses off at the interaction between me & the fighter- we have fun out-of-battle still- and we occasionally snicker madly at the NPCs. The inactive three's collective turns tend to take about 5 seconds- they announce what they want the rest to do, take two or three steps in the direction they want everyone to go, and then the other two do the exact same thing in another direction, usually with a snide remark. One of them's basically patsy from Monty Python and the Holy Grail and hides* every time anything moves.

Out-of-game, I know they're there because he suspected (until our Cleric learns how to play) the party would be underpowered, and they stay around because the story's not far enough along for us to care whether we stay together. I also suspect they're gonna turn enemy soon- equal size (if we consider Patsy=bear), equal effectiveness party going to the same location, that says it was sent by a high priest of a goddess of death.



*He was, in fact, created the session after I told him about that "hide behind your own tower shield, which is then hidden" trick I learned about on these boards. He did it in the first encounter, which prompted one NPC to call him "like an ostrich, but dumber" and the next to hide "behind that invisible spot where Patsy used to be."

Fishy
2008-02-13, 07:43 AM
Firstly, I disagree on the Natural Bond point: as cheesy as it is, the feat raises your effective level, while powerful companions like bears reduce it, the net result meaning it doesn't increase above your level.

I really don't think that's how it works. A level 7 druid can get a level 7 badger or a level 1 bear. If Natural Bond worked the way you say it does, he'd be walking around with a level 4 bear- which is a companion that a level 10 druid can get, so his effective druid level is larger than his class levels.

On the other hand, if there's ambiguity, it's the DM's call, so if you're too powerful, just tell the DM to rule against you. :P

More mundane solutions: Ladders, ropes, and narrow staircases. You might have to 'forget' to prepare Spider Climb the day you are 'unexpectedly' required to assault a castle, but hey.

Cormorant
2008-02-13, 08:00 AM
More mundane solutions: Ladders, ropes, and narrow staircases. You might have to 'forget' to prepare Spider Climb the day you are 'unexpectedly' required to assault a castle, but hey.

That's one thing I've never actually figured out in high-magic campaigns, where every town has a wizard of sorts, or at least a crazy hermit.
Why are the castles so easy to scale?
Shouldn't they be protected from those spells? weave a little dispel magic into the walls, anti-magic fields, or something.... (Hmmm... actually, this could be a good encounter.... walking up the wall, with spell assistance, and then suddenly, the spell stops working, and the PC's are left to hang on for their lives, while the archer on the battlements commence target practice....)

In a world with so many casters, there should be ample ways for them to cancel each other out, and not just in spell duels.

I know this isn't very relevant, but I'm simply trying to make the point that you don't need to give the party all the tools for the job. Spells like fly, spider climb, and others give a mind boggling advantage to any outdoor encounter that doesn't fly itself...

But I feel myself begin to ramble, so I will stop for now.

Cuddly
2008-02-13, 08:38 AM
Slippery surfaces negate spider climb. So, ice castles?

Squash Monster
2008-02-13, 11:17 AM
Druid's the second strongest class in D&D. Fighter is all the way down in the fourth tier, though at least it's one of the strongest there (for reference: full casters > tome of battle and psionics > half casters > everyone else). It is, of course, a natural problem.

However, I think the fact that her character build -- two weapon fighting without a gigantic source of bonus damage (which is pronounced Rogue) -- is weak is exasperating the problem. If you could convince her to rework her character's build, it would probably help a lot.

She seems to want to do an agile fighter kind of character. She can either keep the two weapon focus, and make the whole thing rogue (TWF Rogues are a pretty old standby, they're not bad at all), or drop one of the weapons and try something a bit odder: I recommend Bard. Take a look at the feat Snowflake Wardance (book is Frostburn), which lets you add Cha to hit under some very specific but still thoroughly usable circumstances. With that, good stats, and Inspire Courage (especially if she picks up Words of Creation to double that), she could get an insane attack bonus. With something like +20 possible at level 8, she could still have the agile rapier-Fighter idea, but also be the party's best bet against heavily armored opponents.

Failing that, you want her to get a copy of Tome Of Battle and work her way to qualifying for the feat that gives dex to damage... Gloom Razor, I believe. That will at least help her be more effective.

Once you've done that, pull this cheap trick: have the DM throw groups of monsters at you that include a big powerful thing that doesn't look too scary and a bunch of more impressive looking cannon fodder. The bear can spend the fight grappling with the real threat in the background, while the Fighter gets to feel important.

Fenix_of_Doom
2008-02-13, 11:50 AM
Second, Natural Bond with a brownbear animal companion. I haven't yet managed to do damage in combat myself, despite trying quite a bit, but the bear does more damage than the rest of the party combined. When he hit 8HD, I put the one point into Str, and being an animal companion he has evasion and +1 str/dex, +2HD/Nat Armor. I haven't really got much choice in his build- the thing has a 28 or 29 Str as a minimum. Plus, after the first time it hit, the cleric decided to devote herself to buffing him- the strength gets obscene.


In my quick scan of the topic, I don't think anyone pointed this out yet: animal companions don't get an ability increase every 4 HD, they just get the +str/dex bonus from your levels.

theMycon
2008-02-13, 05:36 PM
I really don't think that's how it works. A level 7 druid can get a level 7 badger or a level 1 bear. If Natural Bond worked the way you say it does, he'd be walking around with a level 4 bear- which is a companion that a level 10 druid can get, so his effective druid level is larger than his class levels.

You are correct- I was wrong, which is a big part of my problem. There's still the "bear will be far more powerful than the fighter unless we can convince the cleric/DMPCs to do nothing but buff her" problem, but it's no longer show-stoppingly deadly.




In my quick scan of the topic, I don't think anyone pointed this out yet: animal companions don't get an ability increase every 4 HD, they just get the +str/dex bonus from your levels.
While completely irrelevant (it brings the Str from 28 to 29)... Cite? The MM says that you advance monsters by giving them an ability boost every 4 (like all other characters), and despite a lot of searching I've found nothing to specifically discount this.

Megafly
2008-02-13, 08:07 PM
How does you bear know who to attack? It isn't psychic or intelligent. Are you ordering it to attack specific foes? did you teach it to charge? there are specific rules for training animals (including animal companions) It is sometimes easy to treat an animal companion as a free Monk you get for being a Druid but start playing it like a trained dumb animal that is your friend and not a specifically trained killing machine. More Grizzly Adams and less Grizzly Man.

Grug
2008-02-13, 08:27 PM
Simple spell: Invisibility to Animals. Drop down a Stinking Cloud or mundane item, like a peppermint bomb, and the bear can no longer use Sight or Smell.

Fight someone with a really, really high handle animal skill.

Prometheus
2008-02-13, 08:58 PM
Simply have the DM stop advancing the bear until everyone else catches up. You don't have to make a big deal about it, just make it clear that it would be better if the bear-party ratio was lower.

Leewei
2008-02-13, 11:27 PM
The druid should be using Handle Animal checks as well as Tricks to control the bear's actions. Keep in mind that an animal needs two Attack Tricks in order to willingly attack anything unnatural such as Aberrations, Undead, etc.

Yakk
2008-02-14, 12:35 AM
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/druid.htm


A 1st-level druid’s companion is completely typical for its kind except as noted below. As a druid advances in level, the animal’s power increases as shown on the table.

So you have a pet Brown Bear with:
1 Bonus Trick
and Link:

A druid can handle her animal companion as a free action, or push it as a move action, even if she doesn’t have any ranks in the Handle Animal skill. The druid gains a +4 circumstance bonus on all wild empathy checks and Handle Animal checks made regarding an animal companion.

And a base brown bear:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/bearBrown.htm

It has an int of 2.


If the animal is wounded or has taken any nonlethal damage or ability score damage, the DC increases by 2.

However, at DC 12, if you have max handle animal, with your +4 from your link, you have a handle animal of +15 with your companion. Ie, impossible to fail.

"Push"ing your animal, however, requires a roll of a 10+ on a d20, and a move action. (Push means get it to do a trick that it doesn't know).


an animal with an Intelligence score of 2 can learn a maximum of six tricks.

And you get +1 bonus trick. It is the only one that doesn't require a handle animal check each time you use it.

For violence, you'll probably want:
attack, attack strange things, down, stay, defend, guard, heel, come

But that's 8 tricks, and you only have a max of 7. So let's drop guard.

Now you can get your animal to defend you (ie, it automatically attacks whatever attacks you), follow you into strange areas, stay when you tell it and hang around, come when you call it.

You can also order it to attack and back off a target.

In order to get it to do anything else, you need to roll a 10+ on a d20 (12+ if the animal is damaged), and burn a move action.

Teaching the animal the above tricks takes 6 weeks of time. Assuming that you have had 6 weeks to spend on a project like this, especially on a fresh pet (you only got the pet at level 7), seems unreasonable.

Half the tricks, plus the bonus one, seems like a good middle ground.

You don't want to have to burn move actions in combat, so...
Heel, Attack, Down, Defend
is a decent set of 4 tricks, all of which you can do with a free action. That doesn't include attacking things that are "unnatural", which requires a move action and a DC 25(+2 if wounded) handle animal check.

Not having stay is rather crippling -- you can get the animal to stay for a round with a DC 25 check, but I'm not sure how long it will stick.

You could also go for more practical tricks:
Heal, Stay, Down, Defend
which is more keeping with the animal staying alive, and less with slaughtering NPCs. Now ordering your pet to attack is a move action unless it is directly defending you, and it takes 2 actions to get it to attack an unnatural target!

GutterRunner
2008-02-14, 12:12 PM
Personally, I'd take the opportunity that you made the bear too powerfull to actually make it worse than it's ment to be.

Tell your DM you're doing this, then say to the rest of the group "Hey I found out I messed up on the stats of my bear, it's not actually the show stopping monster I thought it was". Then reduce it's strength and con by 2-4, it's HD by 1-2, and maybe make it's bite a bit weaker. It'll still be pretty good at grappling, which is useful, but won't be the damage dealing powerhouse it used to be. It sounds like the other two players are fairly inexperienced, so shouldn't notice this.

Krusty Kobold
2008-02-14, 08:43 PM
some don't like this tactic but high strength fliers can grapple and carry, splitting the party up. in that split, have the fighter and mage off to themselves and the druid and cleric be taken another way if the encounter takes 4-5 rounds after landing the bear may still be unable to catch up until late in the fight... either way he'll follow you and save your butts, causing the fighter to shine as she defends master blaster in the corner. some rounds after combat ends bear crashes through the trees followed by the cleric and the you and find the situation handily resolved. you "had to be" saved but not the other group. fighter feels boss.

its only good once or twice a campaign as enemies realize... ok bad tactic but it'll be a fun encounter so enjoy it, she probably will.