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Mo_the_Hawked
2008-10-23, 12:43 AM
Ok, I have a group of players at level 7.(3.5e)

The first has a Cleric3/Ranger3/Order of the Bow.
He's a good player but has played 1e and 2e. Very new to 3/3.5 has No idea how to use his character, all in all i can work with him

The second has a Rouge7.
He is incredibly impulsive and wants to steal anything with no regard for the consquences(i.e. He stabbed an orphan for lifting a copper piece, so he had a bounty on his head). Part of the propblem is quite funny most of the time, but still fustrating.

Now here is the is the BIG problem the Third guy has a Half-Black Dragon Lizardfolk Half-Dragon Paragon with 38 AC.

I have no idea how build a balanced encounter. I can either Neutralize him or have a monster that can go toe to toe with him. Then either the other two have nothing to do or they end the encounter some other fashion with in the first round.

MeklorIlavator
2008-10-23, 12:51 AM
Can you tell us how he got AC 38? As in, what items/class features he's using.

Besides that, try an NPC caster with a bodygaurd. Have the caster use dispel magic to neutralize all of the Half dragon's magic items, so that his AC should drop a bit. Then the bodygaurd starts swinging blows with the Half Dragon and the Cleric and Rogue should take on the caster.

BobVosh
2008-10-23, 01:26 AM
Thats a lot o template + HD.

Anyway, I bet most of his armor is Natural and Regular. What is his touch ac looking like? The other two guys are pretty dexy, so you can just touch his tra-la-la with wraithstrike, through a bit of con poison in and his only redeeming way to get hp is gone.

However, you will have to tell us how he got the ac for more indetailed analysis.

Better thing to do is the typical DM fix of power gear the other two.

Biffoniacus_Furiou
2008-10-23, 01:46 AM
First of all, Lizardfolk has 2 HD and +1 LA, for ECL 3 right from the start, no racial Dex bonus but +5 natural armor. Half-Dragon has another +3 LA and gives another +4 natural armor. That leaves him one more level to spend at ECL 7, so he'd only have one level in Half-Dragon Paragon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/racialParagonClasses.htm#halfDragonParagon), which wouldn't get him the extra +1 natural armor bonus. Keep in mind, those two racial HD from Lizardfolk are not optional, he must spend two levels on them. He does not have wings from Half-Dragon, because he's not big enough, so he can't fly naturally.

He has no armor proficiencies, but he is proficient in light and heavy shields. He currently has +2 BAB and base saves of +2/+2/+2. He gets quite a few skill points for his two Lizardfolk HD thanks to Half-Dragon, with a rather large list of class skills. He currently only has a total of three Hit Dice, two from Lizardfolk and one from his single level of Half-Dragon Paragon. He probably has an insane Str and above-average Con, and probably no higher Dex than what he can get for his armor.

Even if he skipped the racial HD for more HDP levels, that would be +10 natural armor, maybe a +1 heavy shield for +3, +1 mithril full plate? for another +9, max dex +3, ring of protection +1 and amulet of natural armor +1, which only gets an AC 37. First of all, he can't skip the racial HD for more Half-Dragon Paragon levels, they aren't optional, so that takes it down by one until he gains another level. Second, a 7th level character only gets 19,000 gp to start out with, no more than half of which should be spent on a single item. Finally, his appearance alone would probably get him into trouble in town.

My advice would be to first carefully look over his character sheet, you could even post it online (scan it and post it as an image if necessary) and we could check it for you. Pay close attention to how he spent his money, what bonuses he's giving to things like AC and attacks, and his ability scores. Half-Dragon Lizardfolk gives +10 Str, +4 Con, and +2 Cha, and he doesn't have enough levels/HD to get his 4th level bonus point. Also make sure he has no more than two feats, four if you're allowing flaws which you shouldn't. He probably has four feats and two flaws and a trait (UA) if you didn't say whether or not you're allowing them, if so tell him they aren't allowed for that game and he needs to fix it.

Once you're sure everything is legit, make it very difficult for him to interact with civilization. Any time he goes into town, shopkeepers should refuse to do business with him, and a riotous mob could assemble with torches and pitchforks. A torch can be used to make a touch attack for 1 point of fire damage, and forces a DC 15 Reflex save to avoid catching on fire, see page 303 of the DMG. Someone could throw a flask of oil at him, which would probably make him automatically fail the save and force him to jump into water or wrap in a cloak and roll to even have a chance of putting it out, plus take an additional 1d3 per round while on fire. That will easily get past all of his armor, shield, and natural armor bonuses.

For adventures, focus more on opponents who use special abilities which require a saving throw or use a touch attack, rather than opponents who make physical attacks. He's probably heavily focused on melee attacks, so flying opponents would be great. One idea would be to throw a few class levels onto a typical opponent to make it more challenging, for example a Harpy a single level of Warlock could fly around singing and continually use Eldritch Blast to damage them. Chances are at least one of them will stay captivated by the song the entire fight, leaving the others to deal with the threat. Chances are the archer would be the only one to save or pose a viable threat, and if it couldn't keep up with him on damage it could pick up and carry away another of the PCs, using them as a human shield and then drop them for damage once it got away, then dive down to finish off and devour the unlucky victim. Another option would be to throw several Wight encounters, possibly a few at a time approaching across a rather large, dark room strewn with rubble. The first few wouldn't be able to hit him, so the ones after would simply touch attack him for level drains instead of trying to make slam attacks against his full AC. Encounters like this, with opponents who use tricks rather than standing toe-to-toe, or with attacks that punish such a high LA, will make him think twice about making such an abusively powerful yet prohibitively limited character.

Darrin
2008-10-23, 08:00 AM
The first has a Cleric3/Ranger3/Order of the Bow.
He's a good player but has played 1e and 2e. Very new to 3/3.5 has No idea how to use his character, all in all i can work with him


Try to steer him away from Order of the Bow Initiate. The 3.5 version is absolutely lousy. If you have to, use the 3.0 version.



The second has a Rouge7.
He is incredibly impulsive and wants to steal anything with no regard for the consquences(i.e. He stabbed an orphan for lifting a copper piece, so he had a bounty on his head). Part of the propblem is quite funny most of the time, but still fustrating.


Ok, bit of advice here... this player is trying to play the game in a particular way (to work out some kind of personality fetish... I don't know). Any attempt you make to force him to play another type of game is going to create anger and resentment. Roleplaying the whole "ok, the city guard arrests you, you try to break out of jail, you fail, trial comes up, can you afford a lawyer..." UGH. It's no fun, not for him or the rest of the players. Just let him steal whatever he wants, so long as it doesn't completely derail the plot. Play into his personality type, feed him a line of BS about how he's such a great thief, other burglers come to him to help plan a heist, etc. Then you can hook him with the "steal the macguffin" plotline, and drag him back towards what the rest of the party is doing.



Now here is the is the BIG problem the Third guy has a Half-Black Dragon Lizardfolk Half-Dragon Paragon with 38 AC.


Huh... that's at least a +4 Level Adjustment? The natural armor bonuses can't be that great, so something hinky is probably going on with his equipment. However, the point here is he's probably some kind of optimization expert... if you nail him on the AC, he'll find some other loophole to exploit. Again, this type of player wants to play a particular type of game, and if you don't let him do it, you'll just breed anger and resentment. The key question is if the player actually enjoys a tough challenge, or if he whines if he encounters anything he can't kill in a round or two.

If it's the second case, then hang him with his own rope. Create a powerful magic weapon that only he can use. Give it a powerful ability like ability drain or level drain. Every time he uses it, give him a little Wis or Cha damage. Then have him unlock a new, more powerful ability, and when he uses it, drain the rest of his Wis/Cha or whatever. Inform the player that the weapon has claimed his character's soul, and he's lost control of his character. Make him a BBEG, have him create a new character, and then kill his new character with the old one. Keep doing this until he makes a reasonable character or grows up.

If it's the first case and he enjoys a challenge, then you've got a tough but slightly more pleasant job. There are a lot of ways around high AC. If he relies too heavily on natural armor, his touch AC may be more reasonable. Ray/Orb spells, touch attacks, even nets and lassos can probably hit him. Area effects are also good, so long as he doesn't have evasion and a high Ref save. Look for some spells that do something even if a save is made. A gaggle of kobold sorcerers with multiple wands of magic missile could also take him down a few pegs. Worse comes to worse, throw a couple jovocs at him (any damage they take, all creatures within 30' take the same amount, save for half). Illusions are also good, make him waste a round attacking a creature that isn't there.

You may need to design your encounters a bit lop-sided, with one big boss monster that the half-dragon can chew on, and minions/flunkies/mooks the rest of the party can deal with. If his character is such a bad-ass, then word gets around that he's dangerous, and smart enemies will focus on neutralizing him first. If they know they can't touch his AC, they'll rely on area effects and battlefield control stuff like grease, wall of fire, etc.

AKA_Bait
2008-10-23, 09:29 AM
First of all, Lizardfolk has 2 HD and +1 LA, for ECL 3 right from the start, no racial Dex bonus but +5 natural armor. Half-Dragon has another +3 LA and gives another +4 natural armor. That leaves him one more level to spend at ECL 7, so he'd only have one level in Half-Dragon Paragon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/racialParagonClasses.htm#halfDragonParagon), which wouldn't get him the extra +1 natural armor bonus.

I'm pretty sure that the Lizarfolk NA and the Halfdragon NA don't stack with eachother. The paragon +1 would stack with the higher, giving a total NA bonus of +6 (rather than +10).

valadil
2008-10-23, 09:34 AM
Have you considered asking the half dragon player to play a less cheesy character so that the others can keep up? It's not unreasonable. I've seen GMs make similar requests in the past when challenging one player would kill off the others.

only1doug
2008-10-23, 10:00 AM
Mr. Halfdragon won't have a huge number of hitpoints compared to the other two players, (due to lots of +LA) so anything that can hit him can hurt him relatively badly.

so what can hit a halfdragon?

Touch attacks: as has been mentioned touch attacks will bypass most of his AC
Ability drain touch attacks are your friend, several undead types will hurt him badly.


Spells: most spells will completely ignore his AC, saves are the key to surviving. His saves are crippled by several levels of (+LA)

Traps: any trap that involves a save to avoid damage will hurt your 1/2drag, his saves will be worse than the other players.


Future reference: Characters by GM approval;

If the GM doesn't approve it it doesn't play. Generate a few spare PC's you can hand out. Don't be scared to make them sub-par. If the Players generate a PC that seems broken to you then take a week to think it over, then hand them one of your pre-generated PCs for that week. This is motivation to make reasonable character in future.

Keep the reject PC, he can be a future BBEG (yet more motivation to avoid cheese)

Tengu_temp
2008-10-23, 10:11 AM
I find the typo in the thread name amusing (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Seme).

Anyway, the first player doesn't realize the PrC he's taking is a trap. As long as he can contribute to the game, however, it should be fine.

The second player looks like one of those who think that rogue = Chaotic Stupid kleptomaniac. Make him suffer consequences of his actions when his antics stop being amusing and start to be annoying.

I am 99% sure the third player has such a powerful character because you didn't count the LA.

kladams707
2008-10-23, 10:58 AM
If it's a prestige he wants to play, by all means, let him. Of course, if you feel it isn't "appropriate" and don't feel he wiould be completely ineffective later on, then work w/ him and maybe even homebrew a prestige.




The second has a Rouge7.
He is incredibly impulsive and wants to steal anything with no regard for the consquences(i.e. He stabbed an orphan for lifting a copper piece, so he had a bounty on his head). Part of the propblem is quite funny most of the time, but still fustrating.

Hey, that orphan would've killed him if given the chance. Seriously though, at least he didn't try to backstab the innkeeper...or did he?

Actually though, having a bounty could make things interesting, esp. if there's a potential for in-party. So long as there are "fun" consequences, it should be fine.



Now here is the is the BIG problem the Third guy has a Half-Black Dragon Lizardfolk Half-Dragon Paragon with 38 AC.

I have no idea how build a balanced encounter. I can either Neutralize him or have a monster that can go toe to toe with him. Then either the other two have nothing to do or they end the encounter some other fashion with in the first round.

I like the idea of touch attacks. Maybe you can have a baddie wizard could have a personal vendetta against reptilian-like creatures. Again though, if it's b/c he wants a challenge, make sure the challenge =/= punishment.

Mo_the_Hawked
2008-10-23, 11:34 AM
First of all, thanks for all the help.

Lizard boy spent like two weeks making that damn guy, but I think he goofed He was playing the guy as a 4th level character, so that will help some. another question regarding NA and its stackability he is also wearing a Amulet of NA, but I am getting the impression that that doesn't work.

He has an 18 Dex wearing +2 Studded Leather and has a +1 Buckler, and I believe a Ring of protection +2. Other than that his gear is +1 Greathammer (and rolls so many 20s I swear to god he has loaded dice)

Again thanks for all the help, I think ill make up nasty wizard for them...




Oh yea the orphan, he never saw the kid, I told him some one had picked his pocket(The kid wasn't a rouge or anything 1st level commoner, was just really hungry) and he responded by saying "I stab him"
I said "Your not even gonna look?"
"No, I attack"
"Your sure?"
"Yes"
"Ok roll for attack" He then rolls a 16 or so. Ok roll for damage he did like 25 points, he has flick of the wrist so he got his sneak attack in. I say "Ok your sword is now buried in the neck of a six year old orphan."

Lemur
2008-10-23, 12:02 PM
I'm pretty sure that the Lizarfolk NA and the Halfdragon NA don't stack with eachother. The paragon +1 would stack with the higher, giving a total NA bonus of +6 (rather than +10).

Natural AC from half dragon is added to existing NA, so yes, it stacks.

On the flipside, a high AC is probably the only thing that cab keep this guy alive, and it's not even that good at it. Area of Effect attacks will hit him pretty hard, especially considering his reflex save probably isn't too hot. A single enervation spell stands a chance of killing him outright. So even if his character is mostly legit he's got weaknesses. Monsters with breath weapons, energy-draining touch attacks, or the like will present a significant threat to him.



As for your rogue, I think he's in the right. What he did may not have been good, but it wasn't evil either. He just lay down some old fashioned medieval justice to a thief. Even if he had looked, there was no way for him to know the circumstances of the action- it could have been an orphan, or a more criminal element. There may have been a better way to deal with the situation, but he should have the right to protect his own person and property.

hamishspence
2008-10-23, 12:08 PM
Yes, but D&D alignment doesn't follow "old fashioned medieval justice" at least in Exalted Deeds. Self-defence is designed to protect your life, doesn't justify killing to protect your property. Using violence, maybe, but not killing.

A good example is Jon Shannow in Wolf in Shadow. In a town, being attacked by gunmen, he's hair-trigger. He hears a sound behind him, spins and fires without looking. Child collapses dead. He's haunted by it for rest of his life.

kladams707
2008-10-23, 12:24 PM
I still maintain that orphan would've killed the rogue if given the chance.

Wyvern_55
2008-10-23, 01:30 PM
First of all, thanks for all the help.

Lizard boy spent like two weeks making that damn guy, but I think he goofed He was playing the guy as a 4th level character, so that will help some. another question regarding NA and its stackability he is also wearing a Amulet of NA, but I am getting the impression that that doesn't work.

He has an 18 Dex wearing +2 Studded Leather and has a +1 Buckler, and I believe a Ring of protection +2. Other than that his gear is +1 Greathammer (and rolls so many 20s I swear to god he has loaded dice)

Yeah the natural armour amulet won't stack with his natural armour from the Lizardman or halfdragon. The halfdragon natural armour is a bonus to Natural AC so it will stack, I was thinking at first he probably had magic full plate or somesuch in which case all you would need to do to make him worried is introduce a rust monster. (I'm assuming his dex is also in the realm of ridiculous?) keep in mind that he should have 2 levels of 'humanoid' and an additional level adjustment of +4 to be an equivalent of 6th level if he has no PC class yet. (if he doesn't have a pc class yet, then he isn't even proficient in the armour he's wearing right now)


So far, this is looking like you have a number of characters who want to play the game quite differently from one another, while this is not impossible to resolve, it does take a bit of effort though, I could guess what each player is looking for specifically, but you should probably try to determine that yourself as you know them better. If combat is a major focus, you could go a few routes, make a lot of foes of lower power that use better tactics, so that your lizardman can have his day but risks more natural 20s from the increased hordes, or attack something other than his AC, use poison, spells with will saves, environmental hazards, poisons.

Of course, a character with a high AC can be a blessing at some points, if you don't feel like killing them off(just yet) but still want to scare them, spells like disintegrate and things like siege engines are always fun to aim at the tank.

MeklorIlavator
2008-10-23, 02:31 PM
First off, the amulet would stack, as if gives an enhancement bonus to his NA. Of course, that still doesn't explain his AC, as using your numbers I only get the following: 4 dex+ 5 armor+ 2 Shield+ 2 Deflection+ 9 Natural Armor= +22, so 32 AC overall.
Now, his gear costs the following amounts(only counting thousands of Gp): 4000 for the armor+ 1000 for the sheild+8000 for the ring+ 2000 for the Hammer, which gives us a total of 15,000 gp spent. Whit this much spent he can only afford the +1 NA Amulet, so if he has that it should bump up his AC to 33.

Temp.
2008-10-23, 03:54 PM
I'm not sure I see why the AC is such a big proplem.

He probably has about 30 HP at level 7--Probably even less than the Rogue.

He probably has a low-ish damage output (maybe 26 strength and 2 BA? That would make about 25 damage per hit; ridiculously low for a 7th level character). He probably has mediocre saves and low Touch AC.

Really, he should probably be suffering from Monk/Duelist-syndrome: He might be hard to hit (if enemies for some reason don't have access to touch attacks or save-based effects), but he shouldn't be a threat to a level-appropriate encounter. Enemies should just walk around him to eat the Rogue and Cleric's faces.

I don't see why you'd try to screw the player for his decision to play what sounds like a poorly-built character.