Post/Author/DateTime	Post
psilontech 11-06-07, 02:48 PM	I normally run a DnD Campaign every Saturday, primarily comprised of newbies, and recently, one of my players expressed an interest in DM'ing. I obviously supported this, and on Monday night, he and the players he could get to play showed up in my dorm room and asked if I wanted to play. I joined in, interested in seeing what he could do, and he pulled out a pre-fab campaign. Perfectly reasonable for a first-time DM. He seemed a little worried that we wouldn't survive very long (In a very sadistic way, he seemed hell bent on killing my character), and the other two players, being fair newbs, I decided to play a kind of optimized fighter. Stone Goliath = LA +2, With a single level of Fighter. Right off the bat, he threw me against two Bugbears and some random CR7 creature in a room with limited manuvering room. My ECL 3 fighter soundly beats this group into the ground without taking a scratch that didn't exceed my DR. The rest of the party was comprised of a TWF Ranger and a Ranged Halfling Rogue. I tried for the most part to not outperform the rest of the group unless need be, but of course, the competitive nature of Goliaths can only be lmited so much... ;) I only ended up killing one thing with my Goliath Warhammer while the group was with me, the rest of the time going about causing non-leathal damage with my fists, or doing damage with rediculous improvised weapons like my dire rat flail (just three rats tied to the end of a large stick) or simply using fallen foes as my improvised weapons. Dispite mine having the worst Charisma and Intelligence (Both 10), I usually ended up being the 'face' of the group when confronted with someone with whom we had to work for or didn't want to provoke into killing us. The problem is, nothing in this pre-fab campaign (I think it had something to do with the sunless temple) could even hurt me without putting the rest of the party in danger... And believe me, the DM did try to kill me for all the crazy **** he seemed to think I did to him in my campaign.;) CR8 battles aren't supposed to come out of nowhere during a lvl3 campaign with the expectation that there isn't going to be a tpk if the party doesn't retreat... So, guys, do you think I should just Goroth sit out the rest of the campaign and make a caster to make up for the fact that the rest of the party is distinctively lacking a caster? The DM hasn't asked me to get rid of him, but I still feel that my first time playing a PC in a long time was more than a little unbalancing for the game. As a side note, from a DM's perspective, I think I'm going to have a bunch of Goliaths running around now that all of my players want to try to replicate poor Goroth. Good think I have the Underdark book banned in my campaign, eh? :P I loved roleplaying him, as well. I've never really played a Fighter before, and the competitive nature of the Goliaths was really fun to go with!:D
Shiftkitty 11-06-07, 03:46 PM	I think your DM broke it by not making sure the party was balanced at the beginning. New campaign, new DM, should have been all new PCs. Also, he shouldn't be using the game to take revenge on you. If you can count on him to be fair, try to work something out that levels everything out. If he's not going to be fair, rip him a new one. Just try not to spoil it for the others. Hold back with a "You guys can handle this!" attitude, and only step in when needed.
Phrennzy 11-06-07, 04:28 PM	You sound awfully proud of yourself. I'm not familiar with the Stone Goliath, but that DR must be 10 or more to shrug off bugbear attacks, not to mention that a CR 7 creature should be able to do some serious harm to a 3rd level PC. How much is your DM fudging? Something is broken here. Dump the Stone Goliath and remake your fighter as Core only.
ff6shadow 11-06-07, 04:59 PM	Or at very least, lose the Stone template thing. SOunds like the Dr is the actual problem.
PhaedrusXY 11-06-07, 05:40 PM	Are you talking about a mineral warrior goliath? That template is largely considered to be overpowered at LA +1, and goliaths are pretty strong LAs +1 themselves. I'm not surprized that you got an overpowered character by combining the two. I'm also pretty sure you knew you would, if you're an experienced DM. This character would be incredibly tough vs. melee monsters, but he still should have relatively crappy hit points, since he only has one hit die, and spell damage ignores damage reduction (which is this character's main "trick"). A 3+ level mage with Levitate and some kind of damaging spell should be able to take him out handily, and still be a reasonable challenge for the party. Add in Protection from Arrows and/or Mirror Image if the mage needs more defenses. Color Spray would probably give him a hard time, too, or any other spell that requires a Will save and works on him. Basically, it was a problem of a newb DM using a boxed set which might not have been a decent challenge for your character, and also your character being a bit overpowered and you being alot more experienced.
psilontech 11-06-07, 07:01 PM	Yeah, I admit, I'm a cheap son of a B****, but he wanted me to make a powerful character, ;) And well, I kind of wanted to flex optimizing muscle and see how well he could adapt. Two of the more powerful +1 LA's added together is just a recipe for bad, and I should have given my DM a little more consideration before I attempted it. I apologized, and it's all good.:cool: After the end of the session, I recommended to him that he, in the future, throw casters against me. I explained it that my character's kind of like a dragon in the respect that I'm easy to touch, but outside of that, fairly hard to cause damage to. A single scorching Ray could potentially kill me in one hit, and it would be pretty hard to miss, too :D He expressed his frustration at my character, and I agreed to play another character. If I where in his shoes, I would have done the exact same thing immediately after I took out the CR7. I'm going to roll up a Gnome Illusionist now, and see how much everyone enjoys creative uses for cantrips :P
Shadowhowler 11-07-07, 01:59 PM	Yeah, I admit, I'm a cheap son of a B****, but he wanted me to make a powerful character, ;) And well, I kind of wanted to flex optimizing muscle and see how well he could adapt. No offense, but I think your character is a poor example of 'optimization'. Anyone can take a +1LA creature and slap one of the three (Mineral Warrior, Feral Creature, Lolth Blessed) cheesiest templats onto it and have a seemingly butch character. However, as pointed out by PhaedrusXY, your character has a LOT of weeknesss as well. A crap will save, low HP, and so on. Any DM worth his salt can chalenge your character without specificly screwing over the rest of the party... just do somthing other then direct weapon damage to him. Most optimizers *I* have delt with shy away from too much LA... unless they are constructing a high level melee monster. Otherwise, it is normaly not worth it. Thats why the Stonechild (from the same book your Goliath is found) LOOKS great in theory, but in play is actualy pretty sub-par. Also, as mentioned, the mineral warrior template (which is still 3.0 right, I have not seen an update for savage species) is largely considered 'broken' along with the other two above I mentioned... and most optimizers I know prefer a chalenge, making a bad-a$$ character without resorting to cheep tricks ANYNE could use by just slaping on a template. They get creative... come up with combos most might not have thought of and put them into play. So... your character would only SEEM really powerful in a game with players that don't know how to optimize and a DM that is very inexperinced.
PhaedrusXY 11-07-07, 02:58 PM	Mineral warrior is from the Underdark book, not Savage Species. So it is 3.5. Feral is from Savage Species, though. His character sounds quite optimized, IMO. He does have some weaknesses, but most characters do, even optimized characters.
Phrennzy 11-07-07, 05:27 PM	I REALLY want to know what the CR 7 creature was. If only so I never use it. Any CR 7 creature that can't kill a 3rd level PC, especially with back up, needs to be retired.
Shadowhowler 11-07-07, 10:35 PM	Mineral warrior is from the Underdark book, not Savage Species. So it is 3.5. Feral is from Savage Species, though. His character sounds quite optimized, IMO. He does have some weaknesses, but most characters do, even optimized characters. My bad, your right, mineral warrior is the underdark. I gotta disagree about the character being all that ptimized, tho. The guys I now who ptimize are VERY proud of it... they see it as an intelectual exersise. They would find the dubble LA character to be a sloppy slaped together brute. I've been privy to discussion they had about LA and Template heavy melee creations... and invaribly such builds have recived VERY little respect and have been 'picked apart'. For the most part, they see such builds as something anyone can make. Any play can look at a race and a template and go 'gosh, that would be really powerful' and at first glance it may seem so... it it takes some insight and skill to build an optimized character that grows well and REALLY kicks some a$$ without having some of the glaring weaknesses that the OP's build has. To each their own. I withhold the term 'optimized' from a character for the ones that really impress me. :)