How to deal with an overpowered character? [Archive] - Wizards Community

How to deal with an overpowered character? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Radijs
11-16-05, 04:08 AM Its one of the guys in my party who is seriously overpowered.
Its me.
We're playing in a level 10 campaign (soon to be lvl 11) and with the exception of 1 other party member everybody besides me is playing races or templates with +2 or +3 LA. On top of that I'm playing a well-built druid.
With these three strikes in my advantage I've outshone the party in the first session of the campaign and I don't really want to do that. Its no fun for the rest of the players so I want to play him less powerful but without making it look too much like I'm fudging. Because I've got a feeling that if they find out about that they will like it even less because they might say that I'm underestimaing them or something.

Do you guys have some advice for me that will help me in my plight?
Koji
11-16-05, 04:14 AM Talk to the DM and make sure he kills you dead in the next game. The level and constitution loss should even things out.

Failing that, try sticking to healing for a while, or passing on treasure (A DRUID NEEDS NOT GOLD!). Eventually the others will catch up. You could even try helping them along in their builds.
Beware of Kobold
11-16-05, 04:14 AM i would keep playing him exactly the same as you have been, except in battles go straight after the biggest monster in the fight and let the rest of the party think they are accomplishing something by killing the lesser monsters
Jenny With The Lantern
11-16-05, 04:20 AM It was the first session of a new campaign?
My first advice would be: just wait a session or two. Maybe the session was more suited for your character, maybe the other players haven't really got the feel for their strengths and weaknesses yet.

A few points I'd like to know about:
Have you discussed this with your fellow players? What did the DM say?
If you haven't brought it up yet, after you wait a while and nothing changes, see how they feel. Maybe it's just glaring obvious to you but they didn't even notice it or aren't bothered by it (yet :P)
Are the other players new to the game or been playing a while now? On a related note: did they know what the LA would do? Are they playing their abilities to the fullest (what are they playing?)
Just assuming here, but if they know what their characters special abilities are, maybe they just haven't used them yet or are figuring out what the best way would be?
Radijs
11-16-05, 04:38 AM Jenny:
All the players are veterans of the game and I assume they know the penalties of level adjustment.

I've talked to one of the other players (who plays the winged monk) who indeed agreed that I was shining a lot more then the other characters. He also said that he and the shadowdancer had been rolling miserably bad that session. I haven't talked to the shadowdancer yet, He left before I could ask him about and I havent seen him on any instant messengers yet. I did see that he was annoyed because in the CR 17 battle only 1 or 2 of his arrows hit the mark. I've already made a note to cast cats grace on him in/before the next battle.
The druid's player isn't upset at all as far as I can tell. Maybe because he's been profiting heavy from my animal growth spell which made his constrictor even more painful.
The DM has only mentioned it during combat when I was rolling an attack or spell damage or something that he was going to fudge his rolls upwards because I was powerplaying.

Koji: I'd prefer not to die out of a very selfish reason. I've prepared all my wildshape forms in advance and dieing would mean that I'd have to rewrite all those cards including skills, saves, BAB etc.
Passing up on treasure sounds like a good plan. My character has been afflicted by a gluttony curse he might blow it all on food or a girlde of liposuction.
I've already helped most of them with their builds and for the most of them it has helped a lot. The monk has an AC of 30 thanks to some good math and the ninja has some wicked shurikens (+1 distance, returning, brilliant energy).
The only build I wasn't really able to help with properly was the rogue/shadowdancer because the player insisted on a wicked good bow which in the end became a +2 thundering composite longbow which took most of his starting gold away leaving very little for other boosting items.

The ranger is afflicted by the curse of greed and so far seems to be the one suffering the worst. Maybe my character could pay a little less attention to his treasure sometime in the future.... He has 13 ranks in sleight of hand...
DarknessEternal
11-16-05, 11:01 AM the ninja has some wicked shurikens (+1 distance, returning, brilliant energy).

Wow, that's one of the biggest wastes of money I've ever read. Shuriken, being ammunition, are destroyed after they are thrown (whether they hit or not). Being magical or Returning doesn't change that.

If a Shuriken leaves your hand in an attack, it is destroyed.
trollbill
11-16-05, 11:37 AM First, I applaud you for showing concern about the other players in your group and not just going with the usual rebutal of, "its not my fault they chose to play suboptimal characters."

If you feel you are outshining the other players because you did a good job optimizing your character, and that this is causing the group problems, then play in an suboptimal manner. Don't use that killer combo you developed unless you really need to. There are plenty of ways you can let the other players shine even if you do have a more powerful character. Build these into your character's personality so that you make up for your loss of fun by not shining in the powergaming department by shining in the RP one. This way you still get to use your powergaming skills to increase your survivability (when it is necessary) and allow others to shine as well. On top of that, it won't increase the other players sub-optimal chances of dying because the DM won't see a need to increase monster toughness in order to compensate for your overpowered character.
Joe Khol
11-16-05, 11:57 AM Do you guys have some advice for me that will help me in my plight?

1) Tell you DM that you are worried. He can make sure he balances the challenges to give the other players the chance to make use of the strengths of their LA races. He might even tell you you're worrying too much.

2) Play the team game. Be generous with the buff and healing spells and take your turn playing the decoy/support role in combat (for which both spells and wild shape can be of great use).

3) Make sure you're following the rules - spell durations and casting times, items merging in wild shape, creatures available for wild shape - make sure you're following the rules and don't encourage or allow your DM to rule-zero too much to your benefit.

4) Give it time. The LA should loose some of its bite as the levels go up and players get used to their characters.
Lincoln Hills
11-16-05, 03:59 PM Don't be subtle about your character's weaknesses. Druids are super-powerful in the wilderness, and solid in a stand-up fight - but be sure, whenever you enter the area of expertise for another character, to turn to them and ask for help. Even if you think you COULD handle the situation, if another PC could handle it BETTER, rely on 'em. - example: if the situation calls for the party to climb a 100' cliff, there are any number of ways you COULD use a druid's resources (especially wild shape) to overcome the obstacle, but you should probably just ask the winged monk to carry a rope up. Also, unless your character is urban in background, you ought to let them take the front line when your group goes into town - even if you have no statistical weakness, your character is probably going to let the shadowdancer do the talking/scouting/etc.
Moon-Lancer
11-16-05, 04:24 PM I had this happen to me. I was and am playing a vop druid. The other characters are a spell warped wizard (+3 level adjustment ouch) and a fighter that couldn’t make up his mind on what weapon he wanted, so he wanted about 3 feats.

The good part is that I think the fighter believes he is pretty powerful because he rarely misses. However he never power attacks, so that’s why he almost always hits. He also has good luck with dice and crits allot.

The wizard i think knows now that he has made a mistake and secretly wishes to die, but is still going to play his character.

I find my self at first trying to powergame, then I realized i didn’t need to and i could play my druid on my own terms and he was still pretty good. I got rid of most of my attack spells and replaced it with buff spells for the fighter. I also find myself not needing to wildshape as much.

The up side of this is if the party is in MAJOR trouble, I can turn on a world of hurt in just one round (with fast wildshape) and at level 9, a druid gets wall of thorns.

we were fighting a swarm (dm likes them because she can never hit the wizards and my druids ac) and right after that a group of 7 or so paladins showed up on horses.

If i didn’t do anything we probably would have died (the fighter had zero dex)
bam!!! wall of thorns.

basically what i am trying to say is relax, and keep it light, and when the dm puts the heat on you, and your party, you can turn up the heat as well.

Don’t go running around a full power attacking encounters that the party members can handle. only play your hand when the party actually needs you. I find that is the best thing to do.

The funniest part is that the other pc’s are almost double their wealth level
Radijs
11-16-05, 05:10 PM DarknessEternal: The DM has allowed the shuriken to return instead of being destroyed. Those Shuriken are the only thing keeping that ninja useful. Still thanks for your concern.

Trollbill: I've been hanging around these forums and I know its all about enjoyment of the game. If the other players aren't enjoying themselves because of me then its my responsibility to do something about it. These people are my friends after all.
I'm probably going to drop that extended empowered creeping cold from my spell list for a while.

Lincoln hills: I'm already letting the party members take their specific talents in an optimal way. Its mostly in combat that I outshine them. Still thanks for the advice.

Moon-Lancer: Wall of thorns... *looks it up* Yea Thats a good last resort method. I'm going to charge up on buff spells and keep that one and maybe a call lightning in my back pocket as "inn-sewer-ants".
solbergb
11-16-05, 06:03 PM Yeah....buff spells are the great equalizer of the divine casters. Using your actions to help others means the latent power is not noticed.

Another way to go, easy for druids, is battlefield control. Divide up the battlefield and stand back while your friends rip up the enemy one at a time. Sure you can pitch in when you are sure the bad guys are suppressed, but by then the other folks have enough licks in they feel useful. Given that shuriken-boy is a ranged attacker, he'll likely appreciate this, and your flying monk can also avoid most of the nasty terrain stuff (wall of thorns, etc) that you put up, it seems like a natural fit for your party.

One other thing. If you wildshape a lot, remember that you can't talk. That alone seems to mitigate some of the power. People like to talk :) Wanting to talk is a great excuse for why you need an action to wildshape most combats...
allenchan
11-16-05, 06:33 PM You're a druid. You built a solid, mechanicly sound character. Honestly, if you've already tried to help out everyone else to build decent characters and they are fully aware of how terrible LA is in most cases, Im not sure we can suggest much else besides make a new character, especially if the DM insists your powergaming, though to me it sounds like you're just using common sense and happen to be one of the naturally best classes in the game.
Radijs
11-16-05, 06:54 PM The character is a persistant wildshaper but also a ghostwise halfling. That race has a natural telepathy which is why I chose it. And one other character whose player hasn't been able to play with us yet is the brother of my character.
solbergb
11-16-05, 07:02 PM The character is a persistant wildshaper but also a ghostwise halfling. That race has a natural telepathy which is why I chose it. And one other character whose player hasn't been able to play with us yet is the brother of my character.

Uh...when wildshaped (ie polymorphed) you lose racial abilities.

Incuding your telepathy.

It is stupid that a elf druid wildshaped into a bear (both with low light vision) loses low light vision, but that is in fact what happens.

Now...like the shuriken your DM may have ignored this rule, and that's cool, but normally communication is a big limit on wildshape, so he shouldn't be surprised if you are an animal 24x7 after allowing it. One thing you could do is point the rule out to your DM and voluntarily accept a bigger restriction, to bring yourself more in line with the other players.
Radijs
11-16-05, 08:14 PM The speak without sound ability that ghostwise halflings have does remain in wildshape. Its a supernatural ability.

Supernatural Ability: Supernatural abilities are magical but not spell-like. Some supernatural abilities depend on specific parts of the user's body, but most are derived from a creature's essential self. When polymorphing, you retain most of your own supernatural abilities, but you don't gain the assumed form's supernatural abilities unless you're using the shape change spell.

When a supernatural ability depends on part of your body that your assumed form does not have, such as a mouth for a breath weapon or eyes for a gaze attack, you lose that supernatural ability when in the assumed form.
Moon-Lancer
11-17-05, 02:59 AM by raw, you might loose it, i am unsure. the real thing is that you shouldent loose it. Humans have to much of advantage in wildshape as it is.
Corinthians
11-17-05, 04:49 AM Have your DM kill off the fleshraker, then take an owl as your animal companion.
Radijs
11-17-05, 06:51 AM Moon-Lancer: I've looked over the polymorph and alter self entry in the PhB.

You retain all supernatural and spell-like special attacks and qualities of your normal form, except for those requiring a body part that the new form does not have (such as a mouth for a breath weapon or eyes for a gaze attack).
http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/spellsPtoR.html#polymorph

This spell functions like alter self, except that you change the willing subject into another form of living creature.
http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/spellsAtoB.html#alter-self
It looks like RAW that I keep supernatural abilities.

Corinthians: Fleshraker? I assume you mean the dire tortoise. *whines* I don't want Sheldon to die! :p I'll consider that too.
Cauthon
11-17-05, 07:35 AM Take Create Wondrous Items and spend your xp on making stuff instead of lvling until the other guys catch up.
solbergb
11-17-05, 12:43 PM Yeah, if it is SU or SP, then you keep the telepathy.

Which means you're not just a druid, you're one who has plugged one of the few druid weaknesses. Playing with a bunch of characters that shot themselves in the foot optomization-wise.

Stick to the buffing and battlefield control :)
green_yawgmoth
11-17-05, 12:50 PM Your buddies blew it by taking LA +2/+3 races; the WotC LAs aren't worth the ink used to print them. I'd suggest talking to your DM and getting those adjusted to something more reasonable (depending on what the races are); a straight druid is good, but not broken by any means.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v91/yawgmoth/kittyjig.gif
Murrdox
11-17-05, 01:39 PM Level Adjusted Races and Templates are always going to be slightly less powerful than a character with a 0 level adjustment.

Level Adjusted players are choosing to trade experience levels for special abilities. Those special abilities are nice, but they are definitely a trade-off. Sure, now you can FLY, but you won't get powerful spellcasting abilities for a couple more levels, and your to-hit modifiers are going to be less than those of your level.

It's a trade-off. The trade-off gets more severe with LA+2 and especially LA+3 races. A race with "Mirror Image" At Will as a free action might be a LA+3 ability, but it's not going to help you hit that Demon standing in front of you, and the LA+0 Human fighter is probably going to outshine you when doing so.

All the other players in your group opted to trade experience levels for special abilities... except you. You're the only one in the group who is a full level 10 character. Of COURSE you are going to be more powerful then everyone else.

You shouldn't feel bad about it, or the fact that you are "overpowered". You're not overpowered, it is simply that the other players are feeling the stinging bite of their choices.
Corinthians
11-17-05, 04:56 PM Corinthians: Fleshraker? I assume you mean the dire tortoise. *whines* I don't want Sheldon to die! :p I'll consider that too.

sorry, the comment was tongue-in-cheek.
Radijs
11-17-05, 05:44 PM I've just finished playing a session in wich I had swapped most of my spells from damage dishing to healing and buffing.
I did a lot less damage but allowed the other characters to shine more by comparison.
solbergb
11-18-05, 12:50 PM I've just finished playing a session in wich I had swapped most of my spells from damage dishing to healing and buffing.
I did a lot less damage but allowed the other characters to shine more by comparison.

Cool. Just save a couple spells and wildshape forms for when you're staring a TPK in the face and need save your buddies backsides.
Bellegante
11-18-05, 11:45 PM I think by this point your DM and the other players will all agree that those level adjustments were not worth it, especially when compared to the performance of your druid. You could request to gracefully retire your druid and make a new level adjusted character of your own.. or..

Convince your DM to use the level adjustment buyoff from Unearthed Arcana! It will allow the other players to catch up to a much more reasonable power level, possibly even challenging you at some point ;)

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Radijs 11-16-05, 04:08 AM	Its one of the guys in my party who is seriously overpowered. Its me. We're playing in a level 10 campaign (soon to be lvl 11) and with the exception of 1 other party member everybody besides me is playing races or templates with +2 or +3 LA. On top of that I'm playing a well-built druid. With these three strikes in my advantage I've outshone the party in the first session of the campaign and I don't really want to do that. Its no fun for the rest of the players so I want to play him less powerful but without making it look too much like I'm fudging. Because I've got a feeling that if they find out about that they will like it even less because they might say that I'm underestimaing them or something. Do you guys have some advice for me that will help me in my plight?
Koji 11-16-05, 04:14 AM	Talk to the DM and make sure he kills you dead in the next game. The level and constitution loss should even things out. Failing that, try sticking to healing for a while, or passing on treasure (A DRUID NEEDS NOT GOLD!). Eventually the others will catch up. You could even try helping them along in their builds.
Beware of Kobold 11-16-05, 04:14 AM	i would keep playing him exactly the same as you have been, except in battles go straight after the biggest monster in the fight and let the rest of the party think they are accomplishing something by killing the lesser monsters
Jenny With The Lantern 11-16-05, 04:20 AM	It was the first session of a new campaign? My first advice would be: just wait a session or two. Maybe the session was more suited for your character, maybe the other players haven't really got the feel for their strengths and weaknesses yet. A few points I'd like to know about: Have you discussed this with your fellow players? What did the DM say? If you haven't brought it up yet, after you wait a while and nothing changes, see how they feel. Maybe it's just glaring obvious to you but they didn't even notice it or aren't bothered by it (yet :P) Are the other players new to the game or been playing a while now? On a related note: did they know what the LA would do? Are they playing their abilities to the fullest (what are they playing?) Just assuming here, but if they know what their characters special abilities are, maybe they just haven't used them yet or are figuring out what the best way would be?
Radijs 11-16-05, 04:38 AM	Jenny: All the players are veterans of the game and I assume they know the penalties of level adjustment. I've talked to one of the other players (who plays the winged monk) who indeed agreed that I was shining a lot more then the other characters. He also said that he and the shadowdancer had been rolling miserably bad that session. I haven't talked to the shadowdancer yet, He left before I could ask him about and I havent seen him on any instant messengers yet. I did see that he was annoyed because in the CR 17 battle only 1 or 2 of his arrows hit the mark. I've already made a note to cast cats grace on him in/before the next battle. The druid's player isn't upset at all as far as I can tell. Maybe because he's been profiting heavy from my animal growth spell which made his constrictor even more painful. The DM has only mentioned it during combat when I was rolling an attack or spell damage or something that he was going to fudge his rolls upwards because I was powerplaying. Koji: I'd prefer not to die out of a very selfish reason. I've prepared all my wildshape forms in advance and dieing would mean that I'd have to rewrite all those cards including skills, saves, BAB etc. Passing up on treasure sounds like a good plan. My character has been afflicted by a gluttony curse he might blow it all on food or a girlde of liposuction. I've already helped most of them with their builds and for the most of them it has helped a lot. The monk has an AC of 30 thanks to some good math and the ninja has some wicked shurikens (+1 distance, returning, brilliant energy). The only build I wasn't really able to help with properly was the rogue/shadowdancer because the player insisted on a wicked good bow which in the end became a +2 thundering composite longbow which took most of his starting gold away leaving very little for other boosting items. The ranger is afflicted by the curse of greed and so far seems to be the one suffering the worst. Maybe my character could pay a little less attention to his treasure sometime in the future.... He has 13 ranks in sleight of hand...
DarknessEternal 11-16-05, 11:01 AM	the ninja has some wicked shurikens (+1 distance, returning, brilliant energy). Wow, that's one of the biggest wastes of money I've ever read. Shuriken, being ammunition, are destroyed after they are thrown (whether they hit or not). Being magical or Returning doesn't change that. If a Shuriken leaves your hand in an attack, it is destroyed.
trollbill 11-16-05, 11:37 AM	First, I applaud you for showing concern about the other players in your group and not just going with the usual rebutal of, "its not my fault they chose to play suboptimal characters." If you feel you are outshining the other players because you did a good job optimizing your character, and that this is causing the group problems, then play in an suboptimal manner. Don't use that killer combo you developed unless you really need to. There are plenty of ways you can let the other players shine even if you do have a more powerful character. Build these into your character's personality so that you make up for your loss of fun by not shining in the powergaming department by shining in the RP one. This way you still get to use your powergaming skills to increase your survivability (when it is necessary) and allow others to shine as well. On top of that, it won't increase the other players sub-optimal chances of dying because the DM won't see a need to increase monster toughness in order to compensate for your overpowered character.
Joe Khol 11-16-05, 11:57 AM	Do you guys have some advice for me that will help me in my plight? 1) Tell you DM that you are worried. He can make sure he balances the challenges to give the other players the chance to make use of the strengths of their LA races. He might even tell you you're worrying too much. 2) Play the team game. Be generous with the buff and healing spells and take your turn playing the decoy/support role in combat (for which both spells and wild shape can be of great use). 3) Make sure you're following the rules - spell durations and casting times, items merging in wild shape, creatures available for wild shape - make sure you're following the rules and don't encourage or allow your DM to rule-zero too much to your benefit. 4) Give it time. The LA should loose some of its bite as the levels go up and players get used to their characters.
Lincoln Hills 11-16-05, 03:59 PM	Don't be subtle about your character's weaknesses. Druids are super-powerful in the wilderness, and solid in a stand-up fight - but be sure, whenever you enter the area of expertise for another character, to turn to them and ask for help. Even if you think you COULD handle the situation, if another PC could handle it BETTER, rely on 'em. - example: if the situation calls for the party to climb a 100' cliff, there are any number of ways you COULD use a druid's resources (especially wild shape) to overcome the obstacle, but you should probably just ask the winged monk to carry a rope up. Also, unless your character is urban in background, you ought to let them take the front line when your group goes into town - even if you have no statistical weakness, your character is probably going to let the shadowdancer do the talking/scouting/etc.
Moon-Lancer 11-16-05, 04:24 PM	I had this happen to me. I was and am playing a vop druid. The other characters are a spell warped wizard (+3 level adjustment ouch) and a fighter that couldn’t make up his mind on what weapon he wanted, so he wanted about 3 feats. The good part is that I think the fighter believes he is pretty powerful because he rarely misses. However he never power attacks, so that’s why he almost always hits. He also has good luck with dice and crits allot. The wizard i think knows now that he has made a mistake and secretly wishes to die, but is still going to play his character. I find my self at first trying to powergame, then I realized i didn’t need to and i could play my druid on my own terms and he was still pretty good. I got rid of most of my attack spells and replaced it with buff spells for the fighter. I also find myself not needing to wildshape as much. The up side of this is if the party is in MAJOR trouble, I can turn on a world of hurt in just one round (with fast wildshape) and at level 9, a druid gets wall of thorns. we were fighting a swarm (dm likes them because she can never hit the wizards and my druids ac) and right after that a group of 7 or so paladins showed up on horses. If i didn’t do anything we probably would have died (the fighter had zero dex) bam!!! wall of thorns. basically what i am trying to say is relax, and keep it light, and when the dm puts the heat on you, and your party, you can turn up the heat as well. Don’t go running around a full power attacking encounters that the party members can handle. only play your hand when the party actually needs you. I find that is the best thing to do. The funniest part is that the other pc’s are almost double their wealth level
Radijs 11-16-05, 05:10 PM	DarknessEternal: The DM has allowed the shuriken to return instead of being destroyed. Those Shuriken are the only thing keeping that ninja useful. Still thanks for your concern. Trollbill: I've been hanging around these forums and I know its all about enjoyment of the game. If the other players aren't enjoying themselves because of me then its my responsibility to do something about it. These people are my friends after all. I'm probably going to drop that extended empowered creeping cold from my spell list for a while. Lincoln hills: I'm already letting the party members take their specific talents in an optimal way. Its mostly in combat that I outshine them. Still thanks for the advice. Moon-Lancer: Wall of thorns... looks it up Yea Thats a good last resort method. I'm going to charge up on buff spells and keep that one and maybe a call lightning in my back pocket as "inn-sewer-ants".
solbergb 11-16-05, 06:03 PM	Yeah....buff spells are the great equalizer of the divine casters. Using your actions to help others means the latent power is not noticed. Another way to go, easy for druids, is battlefield control. Divide up the battlefield and stand back while your friends rip up the enemy one at a time. Sure you can pitch in when you are sure the bad guys are suppressed, but by then the other folks have enough licks in they feel useful. Given that shuriken-boy is a ranged attacker, he'll likely appreciate this, and your flying monk can also avoid most of the nasty terrain stuff (wall of thorns, etc) that you put up, it seems like a natural fit for your party. One other thing. If you wildshape a lot, remember that you can't talk. That alone seems to mitigate some of the power. People like to talk :) Wanting to talk is a great excuse for why you need an action to wildshape most combats...
allenchan 11-16-05, 06:33 PM	You're a druid. You built a solid, mechanicly sound character. Honestly, if you've already tried to help out everyone else to build decent characters and they are fully aware of how terrible LA is in most cases, Im not sure we can suggest much else besides make a new character, especially if the DM insists your powergaming, though to me it sounds like you're just using common sense and happen to be one of the naturally best classes in the game.
Radijs 11-16-05, 06:54 PM	The character is a persistant wildshaper but also a ghostwise halfling. That race has a natural telepathy which is why I chose it. And one other character whose player hasn't been able to play with us yet is the brother of my character.
solbergb 11-16-05, 07:02 PM	The character is a persistant wildshaper but also a ghostwise halfling. That race has a natural telepathy which is why I chose it. And one other character whose player hasn't been able to play with us yet is the brother of my character. Uh...when wildshaped (ie polymorphed) you lose racial abilities. Incuding your telepathy. It is stupid that a elf druid wildshaped into a bear (both with low light vision) loses low light vision, but that is in fact what happens. Now...like the shuriken your DM may have ignored this rule, and that's cool, but normally communication is a big limit on wildshape, so he shouldn't be surprised if you are an animal 24x7 after allowing it. One thing you could do is point the rule out to your DM and voluntarily accept a bigger restriction, to bring yourself more in line with the other players.
Radijs 11-16-05, 08:14 PM	The speak without sound ability that ghostwise halflings have does remain in wildshape. Its a supernatural ability. Supernatural Ability: Supernatural abilities are magical but not spell-like. Some supernatural abilities depend on specific parts of the user's body, but most are derived from a creature's essential self. When polymorphing, you retain most of your own supernatural abilities, but you don't gain the assumed form's supernatural abilities unless you're using the shape change spell. When a supernatural ability depends on part of your body that your assumed form does not have, such as a mouth for a breath weapon or eyes for a gaze attack, you lose that supernatural ability when in the assumed form.
Moon-Lancer 11-17-05, 02:59 AM	by raw, you might loose it, i am unsure. the real thing is that you shouldent loose it. Humans have to much of advantage in wildshape as it is.
Corinthians 11-17-05, 04:49 AM	Have your DM kill off the fleshraker, then take an owl as your animal companion.
Radijs 11-17-05, 06:51 AM	Moon-Lancer: I've looked over the polymorph and alter self entry in the PhB. You retain all supernatural and spell-like special attacks and qualities of your normal form, except for those requiring a body part that the new form does not have (such as a mouth for a breath weapon or eyes for a gaze attack). http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/spellsPtoR.html#polymorph This spell functions like alter self, except that you change the willing subject into another form of living creature. http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/spellsAtoB.html#alter-self It looks like RAW that I keep supernatural abilities. Corinthians: Fleshraker? I assume you mean the dire tortoise. whines I don't want Sheldon to die! :p I'll consider that too.
Cauthon 11-17-05, 07:35 AM	Take Create Wondrous Items and spend your xp on making stuff instead of lvling until the other guys catch up.
solbergb 11-17-05, 12:43 PM	Yeah, if it is SU or SP, then you keep the telepathy. Which means you're not just a druid, you're one who has plugged one of the few druid weaknesses. Playing with a bunch of characters that shot themselves in the foot optomization-wise. Stick to the buffing and battlefield control :)
green_yawgmoth 11-17-05, 12:50 PM	Your buddies blew it by taking LA +2/+3 races; the WotC LAs aren't worth the ink used to print them. I'd suggest talking to your DM and getting those adjusted to something more reasonable (depending on what the races are); a straight druid is good, but not broken by any means. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v91/yawgmoth/kittyjig.gif
Murrdox 11-17-05, 01:39 PM	Level Adjusted Races and Templates are always going to be slightly less powerful than a character with a 0 level adjustment. Level Adjusted players are choosing to trade experience levels for special abilities. Those special abilities are nice, but they are definitely a trade-off. Sure, now you can FLY, but you won't get powerful spellcasting abilities for a couple more levels, and your to-hit modifiers are going to be less than those of your level. It's a trade-off. The trade-off gets more severe with LA+2 and especially LA+3 races. A race with "Mirror Image" At Will as a free action might be a LA+3 ability, but it's not going to help you hit that Demon standing in front of you, and the LA+0 Human fighter is probably going to outshine you when doing so. All the other players in your group opted to trade experience levels for special abilities... except you. You're the only one in the group who is a full level 10 character. Of COURSE you are going to be more powerful then everyone else. You shouldn't feel bad about it, or the fact that you are "overpowered". You're not overpowered, it is simply that the other players are feeling the stinging bite of their choices.
Corinthians 11-17-05, 04:56 PM	Corinthians: Fleshraker? I assume you mean the dire tortoise. whines I don't want Sheldon to die! :p I'll consider that too. sorry, the comment was tongue-in-cheek.
Radijs 11-17-05, 05:44 PM	I've just finished playing a session in wich I had swapped most of my spells from damage dishing to healing and buffing. I did a lot less damage but allowed the other characters to shine more by comparison.
solbergb 11-18-05, 12:50 PM	I've just finished playing a session in wich I had swapped most of my spells from damage dishing to healing and buffing. I did a lot less damage but allowed the other characters to shine more by comparison. Cool. Just save a couple spells and wildshape forms for when you're staring a TPK in the face and need save your buddies backsides.
Bellegante 11-18-05, 11:45 PM	I think by this point your DM and the other players will all agree that those level adjustments were not worth it, especially when compared to the performance of your druid. You could request to gracefully retire your druid and make a new level adjusted character of your own.. or.. Convince your DM to use the level adjustment buyoff from Unearthed Arcana! It will allow the other players to catch up to a much more reasonable power level, possibly even challenging you at some point ;)