How can I counter myself, without playing like a moron?

[theMycon]

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]

How about an urban scenario? The bear would have to stay in the forest.

[Chronos]

Is your bear male or female?

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

[JeminiZero]

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]

Here's an idea on how to be balanced with he fighter, put on some metal armor. Greatest, not making sense solution ever!

[Adumbration]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

-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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.