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McClintock
2008-04-30, 02:04 PM
Ok, here's the long of it:

All players are level 1

Player 1: Hu Warblade (me)
Player 2: Hu Warlock
Player 3: Hu Monk (VoP)
Player 4: Hu Paladin (Also going to multi into Dragon Shaman)
Player 5: Hu Cleric of Kord (Also going to multi to Rogue)

Sunday night we fought some thugs beating on a priest. I rolled a poor initiative. Everyone went before me. Cleric ran to the mouth of the alley and cast light. Monk ran up and hit thug 1, 9 damage, no death. Paladin ran up hit thug 2, 6 damage, no death. Priest casts bless. Thugs 1 & 2 swing, do some damage, but nothing serious. Thug 3 runs. Warlock goes and uses blast to finish off thug 1. I get to go; using punishing stance & sapphire nightmare blade with a bastard sword I swing for 16 [d10(5)+d6(4)+d6(4)+3str=16] damage and kill the last remaining thug.

Now the short of it:

This is our group's first foray into the ToB & I feel that was a pretty hard hit. Is this what I should expect for the rest of this module? Should I worry about overshadowing the rest of the party? Am I just concerned about nothing?

I really enjoy this character. I have been working on his background for sometime, and I picked his feats and manuevers very carefully. We have a pretty cohesive group, with not a lot of overlap. Everyone has their place and they know how to do it well, but three of the PCs (Mine, the warlock and the VoP Monk) are playing characters well away from what has been played before. I just wanted some other opinions now before we got to far into this and it became difficult to change if change is needed.

Solo
2008-04-30, 02:11 PM
It will be hard not to overshadow the rest of the party, seeing as their classes and projected builds are rather weak.

MeklorIlavator
2008-04-30, 02:17 PM
Solo's right. You have an extremely unoptimized party, and thus most semi-competently built characters will be overshadowing, and the ToB is known for being pre-competently made. If this is the usual level of character builds, I would say that the ToB is a tad bit too powerful unless your party starts making better character builds(from the power perspective, not the roleplaying one).

McClintock
2008-04-30, 02:20 PM
Well that just bites it. I am generally the one everyone comes to to help optimize their characters. I knew going into this that the Warblade was going to sting the DM. I was not sure how much until the other night.

Although, with the paladin planning on ultimately becoming a support character, I will be the front line, so maybe its not such a bad thing.

SamTheCleric
2008-04-30, 02:22 PM
Nothing's stopping them from getting help with their builds... it's still early on and Martial Adepts tend to be a bit stronger "right out of the box", as it were.

Work with them... and maybe they can become 1/4th as strong as you... :smallwink:

Ascension
2008-04-30, 02:32 PM
Work with them... and maybe they can become 1/4th as strong as you... :smallwink:

Don't say that, he might take you seriously.

ToB isn't overpowered. Not really. Don't let people tell you that. It's just... well, there's a lot of stuff in D&D that's underpowered, and some of your party members fall into this inauspicious category. This could be a problem.

Also, just out of curiosity... Why would a cleric of KORD multiclass to rogue? Clerics of Kord become barbarians! Olidamarra is the rogue's deity of choice. I'd recommend against any sort of multiclassing and go cleric if he's trying to keep up with you in terms of power level. If he really wants to be a cleric/rogue, though, I'd suggest the Shadowbane Stalker prestige class from Complete Adventurer. It's not that bad, though it's certainly weaker than cleric all the way.

leperkhaun
2008-05-01, 12:14 AM
I agree, its not that the ToB was overpowered or that you cheesed it.

Its that your fellows are playing whats considered the weakest classes in the game, and you are playing one of the not weak classes.

With the exception of the cleric, it takes some heavy heavy optimization for the other characters to get to your level, but thats a fault of the class, not the players.

Also why is a cleric of kord going rogue?

Cuddly
2008-05-01, 12:30 AM
ToB is naturally more powerful than unoptimized base classes. What keeps ToB from doing totally absurd damage (for the most part) is that most of their moves are limited to standard actions. So at early levels, yeah, using your move action to make a single attack that does extra damage is great. At higher levels, though, a standard action to do a single high damage attack isn't going to compare to a well made TWF rogue or charger, in terms of damage. but then, you're going to have a hell of a lot more versatility going for you (like walking on air and stuff).

Cuddly
2008-05-01, 12:31 AM
I agree, its not that the ToB was overpowered or that you cheesed it.

Its that your fellows are playing whats considered the weakest classes in the game, and you are playing one of the not weak classes.

With the exception of the cleric, it takes some heavy heavy optimization for the other characters to get to your level, but thats a fault of the class, not the players.

Also why is a cleric of kord going rogue?

So he can hurt his opponents better with gruesome wrestling moves?

"This one I call 'death-spike eyegouge'!" *rolls handful of d6*

Tempest Fennac
2008-05-01, 01:53 AM
I don't know much about ToB, but wouldn't multiclassing as a Crusader be a better option for the Paladin? (I know that Dragon Shamans are underpowered in a lot of ways). In regards to Rogues, it would make more sense for the Warlock to multiclass as one once his got "Decieve Item" (alternatively, the Monk multiclassing would also be a reasonably good idea).

McClintock
2008-05-01, 08:44 AM
On the paladin: He has a nice character background for the PC and likes the dragon shaman class. We talked about it the capabilities of the class and he's really interested in it.

On the warlock: He just came off playing a huge high damage barbarian and wanted to try a spell caster, but was not sure about actual spells. His non-melee combatant skills are limited to playing a rogue once. He is looking to expand his character range, we suggested a warlock as a good starting point. All the fun of a blaster mage, with less paperwork to handle.

On the monk: I mostly trust in his builds, he knows how to make himself useful in lots of situations. I trust he will make the most of his monk, and if he finds he does not like the direction, I'm sure he will adjust it.

on the cleric: he didn't know what he wanted to play, but decided to take up the cleric mantle when no one else did. His original idea was to play a cleric rogue and become a temple raider, then drow got brought up, then all sorts of other things. When all was said and done, a heck of a lot more was said than done. He settle on a priest/rogue, but surprised us all by going Kord. He wants to be a sneaky back stabby rogue, of Kord.

Also, I've voiced my concerns with the DM. We're going to watch the next few sessions and see how things go. Depending on the party happiness level, we'll then decide if a change is needed.

The_Werebear
2008-05-01, 11:52 AM
Hrmm..

Well, to give them a little power boost to match you, you could always shift the monk into the unarmored swordsage variant and give the paladin a level of crusader to get him a maneuvering progression at all. If the cleric wants to play a heavily armored sneak, Ruby Knight Vindicator has some facets of the class that lean towards that.

So, it wouldn't take too much to bring the whole party up to ToBing without sacrificing flavor. The problem with that is it would leave your poor warlock in "sucktastic" territory, accentuated by the fact that both he and the TOB excel at fighting all day. However, they are good at other stuff that he isn't.

nargbop
2008-05-01, 03:33 PM
Maybe... rewrite your character as the same character and backstory, with Fighter instead.
Who's going to be more bored? You, doing standard fighter things, or the current case with everyone else being not very effective?

UserClone
2008-05-01, 04:04 PM
As ugly as it may sound, I think I agree with nargbop on this one. You are the one who, through no fault of anyone but the game designers, are the "odd man out" in terms of relative power here; I'd try something a little more tame, like Fighter or Knight.