DM with new books: help me with the cheese?

[Forks]

Ive recently gotten my hands on the 4 Complete XX books, and I want to allow them in my campaigns. I am, however, afraid of introducing too much cheese to my otherwise healthy diet.

Im trying to figure out which PrCs, spells, and so on shouldnt be allowed or should be watched carefully. So far I've gotten:

Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil, the higher-level polymorphs, gate, and divine metamagic: persist.

Players are only pulling from core + the completes, so stuff from those books is what Im most concerned about. I DO have the books for Eberron and Forgotten Realms, so any cheesy highlights from those would be handy as well.

If we get a lot of info here, it could serve as an intro primer for people like me trying to avoid cheese. Though I suppose there's always a chance the knowledge could be put to bad uses...

[Ninja Chocobo]

Uhh...4? There's 6. At least.
CAdv, CArc, CDiv, CSco, CWar, CPsi.
Plus more. I think.

[Hamster_Ninja]

Well discounting the book that should have never been and the two newest ones, he probobly has Complete: Adventurer, Warrior, Divine, and Arcane. Don't know much about the cheese outside of what you've already listed, Mage of the Arcane order can be kinda meh.

[Ramza00]

Hulking Hurler can be insane.

Divine Metamagic can be broken if combine with quicken or persist. It is good with chain but not "cheese" just a very good option. I would allow DMM if you allow no higher than a +3 and no nightsticks.

[Ramza00]

Also don't allow Devote Tracker, Beastmaster, and Halfling Outrider to be combined. It doesn't get cheesy until you allow the draconomicon to finish off this "4 string combo".

[ClericofPhwarrr]

Also don't allow Devote Tracker, Beastmaster, and Halfling Outrider to be combined. It doesn't get cheesy until you allow the draconomicon to finish off this "4 string combo".

Which does what, exactly?

[Ramza00]

Which does what, exactly?

Devoted Tracker is a Ranger/Paladin combination feat that makes your mount your animal companion and thus it gains bonus hd and stuff like an animal companion does which stacks with its paladin benefits.

Beastmaster is a prestige class who specializes in animal companions. Its 1st lvl ability gives it an animal companion equal to its druid lvls+beastmaster lvls+3. If you don't have an animal companion you gain one as a druid would plus the 3 lvl boost beastmaster gives. Beastmaster also gives you wild empathy which you need for devoted tracker. Now you don't need ranger lvls for devoted tracker.

Halfling Outrider progresses animal companion and mount abilities at the same time, but only for one animal. But due to the fact Devoted tracker makes your mount also your animal companion it progress both.

Thus a Paladin 5/Beastmaster 1/Halfling Outrider 10/X 4 with the natural bond feat (+3 druid lvls to animal companion)
will have a mount that has the benefits of a 15+X lvl mount, and 17th lvl animal companion. That means it gets a total of 20 bonus hd, 22 bonus NA, Str adjustment of +10, Dex Adjustment of +6, 7 tricks, multiattack, command creatures of the same kind, improved evasion, share spells, etc.

If you have access to the Planar Handbook, you make sure you get at least the 6th lvl of Paladin so your mount also gets the celestial template and thus gets SR that is based off its HD and not your paladin level.

[Ramza00]

Okay this doesn't apply to the original poster for he doesn't have access to the Draconomicon. But the above combo gets really obscene if you have access to the Draconomicon. Inside the Draconomicon there is a feat called Draconic Mount which allows you to make a Dragon your mount. At lvl 12 you can get a Gold Wyrmling (Medium size, can carry a small rider). Dragon HD is different than animal or magical beast hd, its just so much better, and thus you get an insane character due to the fact you are adding 18 bonus hd (not 20 though you lose some paladin mount hd to pick that specific creature). Dragon Hd gives 6 skill points, d12, full bab (even after it surpasses 20 HD, dragon hd is different for epic rules it doesn't get epic bab but full bab) good saves, 3 inherent feats due to its 9 previous "non mount/animal companion" hd (you don't get more feats due mount/animal companion "bonus hd"), and 1 bite, 2 claws, and 2 wings attacks for this size dragon.

Remember you get 3 inherent feats for your dragon which you get to pick (for hds 1, 3, and 6). Pick power attack as one of those 3 feats. Also get a wizard to cast heroics in a ring of spell storing, its duration is long so it last a good portion of the day. Due to share spells whenever you cast the spell in the ring, your dragon gets the same fighter bonus feat you pick for a total of 4 feats.

[Ramza00]

Note what is the best dragon depends on what lvl you are starting playing.
First mount you can use Draconic Mount with is the Dragonnel which is a mixture of a dragon and a horse but has the dragon type. You can get this at lvl 9. Large size, bite and 2 claws as natural attacks.
First "real" dragon (in my mind at least) you can get is at lvl 12 which is the gold wyrmling.
The bronze very young is better if you can wait to lvl 13 for you gain another hd and another feat for your dragon.
Finally the bronze young is available at lv 18, it gains another feat compared to the "very young" but loses "command creatures of the same kind" till epic lvls (command isn't based off the dragon age or size, but instead hd, and you can make an argument it works on all true dragons, not just gold/bronze/silver dragons based off the paladin mount description of "command creatures of the same kind").

Sorry about the hijack.

[Darkshade]

the druids animal companion is treated as a magicla beast not an animal even though it yadda yadda, no sane dm would ever allow the dragon as animal companion because even if the letter of the rules isnt totally against it the spirit of the rules is. also the halfling outrider levels stack for determining the bonus for a mount OR an animal companion. not just for one creature so you could increase its mount side or its animal companion side but not both. its animal companion OR mount, not one animal, i realize that the one animal is both, but it only progresses one of the powers.

[Ramza00]

Rules wise you are incorrect Darkshade, it does stack. Now spirit of the rules, is a completely different matter. And you are right any sane DM won't allow it, but the rules say you can do it.

Remember the original poster asks for cheese, I shown him some cheesy combos with his material, remember under the rules a 17th lvl cleric can persist any 9th lvl cleric spell, or 7th lvl non cleric spell by sacirificing 7 turn attempts. (with his books) Or A 1st lvl cleric can persist a 1st lvl spell. Its in the rules but no sane dm will allow it.

I am a firm believer as a DM of being perfectly clear on what the rules say you should do. I am also a firm believer that the DM should house rule to prevent cheese/abuses, just that the DM realizes and says to the players that these are houserules. Don't try to lie your way out of WOTC stupid bad writing/balancing decisions.

[Thomas]

Wait, what in that build allows you to combine the animal companion and paladin special mount? I don't see anything in the rules that would allow that; the default, certainly, is that your mount and companion have to be separate creatures.

[Ramza00]

The feat devoted tracker from Complete Adventurer it combines the two creatures.

[Tormsskull]

Dang Ramza, nice double and triple post on the first page of the same thread. hehe.

To the OP: Even after asking everyone what they think is cheese and so forth it is going to be very hard to eliminate everything that could become a big problem. I recommed telling your players that the new material is on probational status. That way, if someone is discovered to be totally game breaking, you can remove it from the game but credit the PCs that took it with their choice of something else.

That's usually the safest policy. And, even something that might be considered cheese can work out in a campaign if the player isn't trying to optimize it to its fullest. So if you have new players, or the books are pretty new to them, let everything in, and then remove stuff as problems occur.

[Darrin]

Im trying to figure out which PrCs, spells, and so on shouldnt be allowed or should be watched carefully. So far I've gotten:

Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil, the higher-level polymorphs, gate, and divine metamagic: persist.

Complete Warrior has Improved Bull Rush and Shock Trooper, which is generally considered the uber-wet-dream of the Power Attack/Two-Handed Fighting crowd. (PA + IBR + ST = you can dump your entire PA penalty into AC instead of your hit roll, which might suck slightly if whatever you just annihlated with massive damage is unlikely enough to survive.)

Someone remind me, what's wrong with Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil?

[Ramza00]

Someone remind me, what's wrong with Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil?

Full Spellcaster
+
The ability to do veils as an immediate action, thus causing more or less death for anybody that gets close to you or one of your allies.
+
The ability to do veils as an immediate action. Veils means spellcaster X doesn't have line of sight anymore thus defeating almost all spells for they require a target, or an effect which you now block/won't allow it to reach you.
+Kaleidoscopic Doom

That is why the IotSV is very good. This is just with Complete Arcane

It gets even better when you throw Complete Mage's Master Specialist (Abjuration) in (which the original poster doesn't have). You can do both prestige classes prior to lvl 20. The dispel bonus stacks making you a king at dispelling (grab chain spell for some fun ). Additionally Master Specialist feats requirement dovetail perfectly into IotSV.
Wizard 3/Master Specialist 6/IotSV 7/Master Specialist 4
Dispel Bonus

[Parlik]

Is another reason why you should never allow anyone to have more than one prestige class

[Renegade Paladin]

Uhh...4? There's 6. At least.
CAdv, CArc, CDiv, CSco, CWar, CPsi.
Plus more. I think.

I think he means the four base ones. And there's also Complete Mage. And Complete Champion coming out in June.

Is another reason why you should never allow anyone to have more than one prestige class

Doing that as a blanket ruling is just silly. There are plenty of reasons why someone might go into a second PrC (like multiclassing out of wizard but wanting to take archmage at high levels) that don't involve wanting to break the game.

[Fredricus]

Depends on prestigeclasses. I'm playing a pirate/sky captain. With levels of bard and swashbuckler and going for Dreadpirate and Windwright(ebberron). I don't think it has cheese. The character is purely flavour dependant(except 3rd level of swashbuckler).

[Sahegian]

Complete Scoundrel just came out this month too. Scoundrellyness sounds fun and the book might be interesting as far as flavor goes.

As to cheese I think Tormsskull gave about the best advice you are going to get. If something gets to gamebreaking at any point, then find some way to remove/nerf it.

[Forks]

Thanks for the info guys and gals. Another one that came to my attention was the Incantatrix from the faerun books.

The main reason Im trying to get this info now rather than later is because I know my players well enough to know that one of them in particular will try his best to break the game -- especially when it comes to caster-related cheese. Its easier if I can just say from the start "These are just too good, so no."

And yes, I only have CAdv, CDiv, CWar, and CArc

[Ramza00]

May I suggest posting this story on the Char Ops Board. Tell them what your books and ask them what to look out for. Make sure your post is detailed and respectful and they will gladly help out.



They know what is breaking the game, they know what is cheese.

[Forks]

Ahh good idea. I read about the twice-betrayer char build there, but I didnt think to ask em.

Cheers

[PinkysBrain]

Divine metamagic quicken is just as much of a problem as divine metamagic persistent.

[Mewtarthio]

Complete Warrior has Improved Bull Rush and Shock Trooper, which is generally considered the uber-wet-dream of the Power Attack/Two-Handed Fighting crowd. (PA + IBR + ST = you can dump your entire PA penalty into AC instead of your hit roll, which might suck slightly if whatever you just annihlated with massive damage is unlikely enough to survive.)

Yes, since Fighters are so overpowered.

[Ted_Stryker]

Complete Warrior has Improved Bull Rush and Shock Trooper, which is generally considered the uber-wet-dream of the Power Attack/Two-Handed Fighting crowd. (PA + IBR + ST = you can dump your entire PA penalty into AC instead of your hit roll, which might suck slightly if whatever you just annihlated with massive damage is unlikely enough to survive.)

This is one of the things that mooks are for, to slow down the crazy charge builds.

[Bosh]

Shock Trooper 9especially) and Elusive Target are fairly overpowered, other tactical feats mostly OK.

I'd allow DMM but only if players use it to cast spells that they could normally, not give metamagic powerups that let them cast metamagic versions of spells they couldn't normally cast (ie no metamagic quicken at lower leves and no metamagic quick of any high level spells pre-epic).

Be careful to the point of paranoia about things that strengthen CODzilla.

[iceman]

Don't forget Frenzied Berzerker from complete warrior. The forth level ability deathless frenzy is completely broken unless houseruled in some way and the fact that the character doesn't have total control of when he drops out of rage/frenzy and starts attacking other pc's can really put a damper on your game
The cavalier could get messy as the damage potential for that class is high but only if given enough room to charge on a mount.
Finally, the fatespinner from CA is pretty dangerous to allow as well even though it has been nerfed from its 3.0 version.

[Ramza00]

Shock Trooper 9especially) and Elusive Target are fairly overpowered, other tactical feats mostly OK.

I'd allow DMM but only if players use it to cast spells that they could normally, not give metamagic powerups that let them cast metamagic versions of spells they couldn't normally cast (ie no metamagic quicken at lower leves and no metamagic quick of any high level spells pre-epic).

Be careful to the point of paranoia about things that strengthen CODzilla.

So you just give clerics more high lvl spells per day.

Finally, the fatespinner from CA is pretty dangerous to allow as well even though it has been nerfed from its 3.0 version.

How is the fatespinner "pretty dangerous" its a good prc, but it isn't cheese. Its ability to adjust save dcs "spin fate" is limited by the fact he only has his class lvl worth of faith points. Its ability to reroll is similar to a domain's ability good but not overpowered.

If you are basing its "pretty dangerous" on the 5th lvl ability, remember he loses a lvl of spellcasting that lvl, and any wizard can do a similar effect with limited wish (-7 to a save instead of -10) without losing a spellcasting lvl. Additionally the target of seal fate must have his hd or less.

Fatespinner is good, I wouldn't put it in the chese catergory the original poster asked for.

[SpiderBrigade]

Don't forget Frenzied Berzerker from complete warrior. The forth level ability deathless frenzy is completely broken useless unless houseruled in some way

fixed.
It's obviously not intended to work this way, but as folks on this board love to point out, your frenzied berserker will rapidly fall unconscious from subdual damage.