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 Posted: Mon Nov 27, 2006 10:36 pm
Okay, I'm running a D&D 3.5 game online through the program "OpenRPG". The players have to write up/snail mail/scan everything they do to their character sheet so that I know exactly what they are doing.
Now I have a problem that's slightly concerning me, one of my players, is playing an illuminin Cleric woshiping a goddess out of self made pantheon. Now I don't mind the race/class combo, what I am slightly concerned about is the player has her character's levels and actions planned out to 18th level. This is a long term running game and I do plan on running for that long, as long as my players are interested in continueing.
The problem is this Cleric plans on prestige classing into two different prestige classes (Which she can easily make the requirements for) and the combo of these prestige classes, by the time she would hit 20th level (I want to run this campagin into epic levels) her character would have something like this...
Base Attack Bonus: +18/+13/+8/+3 (Nearly a fighter's BAB)
Base Saves: Fort +13, Ref: +8, Will:+13 (This is only base, no modifiers added)
Spell casting: Effectively 19th level caster on the Cleric chart
Special abilities:
-4 domains (Sun, Destiny, Protection, and Travel)
-A familar (which can cause attacks of oppurtunity on enemies, ditract enemies, she'll be able to see through the familars eyes and be able to deliver spells through the raven)
-Evasion
-Armored ease +4 (the ability to completely ignore up to 4points of armor check penelity (aka can run around in mithril fullplate without an armor check penelty))
- Ability to smite undead 5/day
- Effectively completely ignore/remove negitive levels whenever she wants
- Remove negitive levels from party members be using a turning check
- Two bonus feats
- Illuminin Sigil power words
- Low-light vision/dark vision
I know in one aspect this isn't much for a 20th level character but the girl playing this character is also an absolutely amazingly brillent player, now I don't like to penelize my players for their creativity and quick thinking, but I'm really afraid of her character dominating the game.
Between having a character that can heal, hit things as well as the fighter, jump out of the way of a fireballs, will probably have an AC close to 50 (and still keep up with the average party speed of 30'), is it a bit too much? Or am I just being overly concerned?
What's eveyone elses opinions here? If there's something that's not clear, I'll be more then happy to explain the rest of whatever is missing...
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Posted: Mon Nov 27, 2006 10:37 pm
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Posted: Fri Dec 22, 2006 9:55 pm
If this character is going to twentieth level, and she has all this planned out, she deserves to get it, mostly. But if your characters have exceedingly powerful characters, you're going to have to raise the challenge to meet them. If she ends up much more powerful than your other characters, that will pose a problem for them.
In my opinion, the best way to add some balance to this character is to add a stipulation, a complication to her character. She plan on wielding a greatsword? Give her a cursed weapon. Perhaps a deity in opposition to hers is upset with the power their competitor's follower wields, and curses her with lycanthropy, or vampirism.
I particularly like the vampirism idea. It works well for people of good alignment, in my opinion, since they develop a moral abhorrence of themselves, cannot proceed easily in daylight, and the disease contrasts their bonuses - not being able to move in daylight very well makes Travel difficult, and there's a taste of irony in the Sun domain for a vampire, not to mention the alignment change that I seem to recall from the transformation will pose a hindrance to her progress towards this goal.
Alternatively, give the other characters a boon. If you think your good player would be hugely upset to have her plans altered or complicated, grant the other characters bonuses - maybe another member of the party is credited with a great deed in a town on the road at some point, and gains a treasure from the town... I don't particularly like this one, since it becomes very obvious that others recieve preferential treatment.
I'd stay with the idea that power attracts attention - positive and negative. Make sure she's aware of this, and the more powerful she gets, the more people become interested in her. Prudent players will understand that greater stakes mean that there will be complications.
My two bits.
(Please note: I've only DMed twice, and neither time worked particularly well, and I don't have my manuals handy, I may have erred on a couple points of regulation.)
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Posted: Tue Dec 26, 2006 9:50 pm
This is a HUGE problem. It's why none of the people I play with like going into epic levels. Even at tenth level one of the other players dominated a game. While this particular person had a blast the rest of us got almost no chance to partake in the action. Towards the end we cut the game short because we were fed up with not being able to get the amount we were supposed to out of the game.
One interesting thing you could do is create an NPC, say an aprentice cleric, that could prevent her power from being so dominant. Perhaps the NPC is a great spellcaster for his low level, but every spell decreases the character's spells by one, or perhaps he is clumsy and ends up messing up something she is doing. As long as you keep the balencing subtle, nomatter how you do it it should be fine.
Another idea is to make the game in the roleplaying extreme and do very little hack and slash(combat). This way the stats won't effect the game as much. If you haven't already then talk to the player, she might not realize how much she is going to dominate and frustrate the other players.
You could also make things interesting by giving the character a weapon that has a personality. Lets say every once in a while it decides it just doesn't want to fight, and refuses to hit anything. It is not cursed, and usually works fine, but has a personality and concience of it's own. Maybe it get's angry and comlains if she doesn't use her. As long as you make it a comic element, this idea probably won't anger anyone, and can ad an element of fun and unpredictability to the game. Make the weapon an NPC.
Those are all of the ideas I can think of. Good luck.
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Posted: Mon May 07, 2007 1:43 pm
The best advice I could give you is to try to make your party as even as possible. Either find a way to bring her powers down (not cheaply, because that would be really frustrating), or just find a way to beef up your other players.
I'm DMing with two PCs... A half-dragon and a Skull Crusher Ogre (both level adjustments of +3). Both are sooo over-powered, and they kill everything. They were around 10th level, and they took out a yound adult Silver Dragon like it was a bug. All my bosses are Humans and Elves, so I have to make everyone over-powered to match them. What I'm trying to get at is, maybe you can throw in some divine aspects to improve some other stats. It's a very handy (and easy) trick.
Hope I'm somewhat helpful...
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