Oops... PCs too strong.

Alright, I've been trying for a long time to fix one of my biggest mistakes ever... I made my little brother Halfling Cleric WAAAY too strong. I wanted him to start playing, so I got him to have a go and to sweeten the deal I started him out a level above the rest of the group, and I made for unique items that only clerics can use... check them out:

Warhammer of Light +5.
Attack Bonus: +5
Damage Bonus: +3
Abilities:
Can cast Searing Light 5/day (as per the spell) at Character level.
Usable only by Clerics.

Scalemail of Valiance
AC Bonus: + 4
Armor Penalty: +0
Abilities:
Immune to Light/Good and Dark/Evil spells.
25% Resistance to Fire/Cold/Acid/Electric damage.
Can cast "Light" 10/day.

So you see my dilemma, and to make matters worse, I also gave him a helmet (this was before I chalked up his strength to his equipment and thought it was just that he was stronger than everyone else... remember Halfling Cleric. he dealt more damage than a Half-Orc Fighter of the same level. Anyways, I've thrown everything against him, even resorting to ahving him fight the Tarrasque. I would've killed him with Tarra, but my older brother told him to run, so he did. Anwyays, I need a good idea for an encounter with a creature that he'll either not win, or he'll be so mortally wounded that even if he heals himself he'd have to retire from the wound. PLEASE???

I was skeptical as I started to read this but I figured I'd give the poster the benefit of the doubt. That ended when I got to the Tarrasque. I smell troll.

Even if he's not a troll

That situation is just too 'strange' to comment on :\

You guys are evil... Vampire Spawn. The main attempt in the games he uses his damn Halfling Cleric are ALL centered on KILLING HIM. You guys don't get it. He can beat nearly ANYTHING to death... oh well, I guess I'm just glad I didn't get him to be a fighter. Anyways, I found a logical way to put the Tarrasque in too - it wakes up, starts eating things and voila! But yeah... I've put him up against nearly everything, the Tarrasque would've killed him but my older brother convinced him to run away.

Cartigan Mrryl said:

You guys are evil... Vampire Spawn. The main attempt in the games he uses his damn Halfling Cleric are ALL centered on KILLING HIM. You guys don't get it. He can beat nearly ANYTHING to death... oh well, I guess I'm just glad I didn't get him to be a fighter. Anyways, I found a logical way to put the Tarrasque in too - it wakes up, starts eating things and voila! But yeah... I've put him up against nearly everything, the Tarrasque would've killed him but my older brother convinced him to run away.

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If he can beat anything to death, you as a DM should be tickled pink. I personally worry about having to send in weaker monsters, or accidentally perform a TPK. Mind you, I get the feeling that your encounters might be a little different from mine.

Nevertheless, I suggest that the fact that your party owns all comers is VERY GOOD, because it frees you to concentrate on the plot.

While you have some valid points, I don't EVER need to worry about the plot. I'm VERY manipulative in my DMing. If I think that this whole gaming session is going to end with "You meet the Evil Sorceror" You're GOING to meet the Evil Sorceror... if it KILLS me.

For instance, I was having a game were the same idea happened, the group had to save a Damsel in Distress from an Evil Sorceror. But half way through the session, one of the newer players decided he didn't want to do that, he wanted to go on some kind of treasure-hunting thing (I think he was playing more to make fun of DnD than to actually play it) so I figured, "Sure, if you can convince the other players to go on a treasure hunt and ditch the princess, go right ahead," Well... he did. So now I had to make up some of the session on the fly. I wasn't all too hard, they (obviously) didn't find anything, and then they found a small packet of diamonds. They went to the village to sell said diamonds when "LO-AND-BEHOLD" they are ambushed by a group (*cough*army*cough*) of orcs. These orcs wear the colors of *Cue: Dun-dun-dun music-thing* the Evil Sorceror. They lose the diamonds and NOW the new player, who by this time is actually ENJOYING the game, decides that "Nobody steals HIS diamons," so now they head off to the Evil Sorceror, this time to get their diamonds back...

... so you see, manipulation WORKS. Anyways, back to your point about how you have to worry about using "weaker monsters" (I mean this in the nicest way possible, please keep that in mind if I sound too harsh) you should use the whoel CR thing, if you DO, then you might want to cheat in the XP category... do you reward the characters for completing mini-quests? Or for finding new, inventive ways to get out of a situation?

For instance, my players were in this aquatic castle and they fell into a trap, one of those death-traps were the doors lock and the ceiling falls like a trash compactor. One of my friends wa a rogue and tried working on the locks, my other friend was bashing at the door they came through, my younger brother (at this time a level 15 Cleric) was using Divine Favor(His fav cantrip) and whatnot to help out the rogue in unlocking the door. The door where a high-grade adamantium, as the room was made FOR the deathtrap, so fighter had no luck, and the locks were magical in nature, so no luck to the rogue. My older brother (whom I had FINALLY talked into making his Sorceror, who he was playing at the time, learn Fireball) ended up casting Fireball at the floor, water started to fill the room and they left through the floor. I rewarded him because I had originally intended to get him to BLOW UP the ceiling... not the floor. But yeah... what do you do with thewhole XP thing?

In conclusion, I'd like to say that having the characters able to crush ANYTHING is quite boring....
ADIOS

I stand on the other side of the fence here, I like my players to feel a real sense of freedom in the world i put them in.

But as for the nothing can beat them thing, I simply cant belive that. Maybe you already have, but you need to use more than just something 'tough', use something 'tricky' that is safe from their main strengths and can pick on their weaknesses. There is Always a bigger vampric half fiend demigod fish in the sea.

Sorry I havent put much efort into this since im sure I read one of these just last week.


(ps - just to be anoying and pedantic, unless im mistaken fireball doesn't give much explosive force. Since that fireball wouldnt be able to blast through, it would have had to disintingrate the floor. sorry)

Wow, I don't even know what level they're playing, but those are overpowered items. You seem to have more issues with the character than the items, but if you remove the items you might have an easier time of it.

Advanced destrachans, rust monsters of legend, a treant with fighter levels and a focus on sundering. Take his stuff and smash it into a million pieces.

Cartigan Mrryl said:

Anwyays, I need a good idea for an encounter with a creature that he'll either not win, or he'll be so mortally wounded that even if he heals himself he'd have to retire from the wound. PLEASE???

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To a good extent it looks like a horde of rust monsters will solve the problem pretty easily really. Unless the character itself is broken beyond these items, turning the equipment into dust should clean things up.

I'd need to know what level we're talking about, though I suppose I should assume high since you did throw a tarraque at them.

No matter what level we're talking, narrow tunnels, and dread wraiths in quantity can make just about anyone learn fear.

buzzard

Cartigan Mrryl said:

Anyways, I've thrown everything against him, even resorting to ahving him fight the Tarrasque. I would've killed him with Tarra, but my older brother told him to run, so he did.

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How did he run away? A halfling has a base speed of 20ft (assuming encumbrance doesn't slow him down to 15ft) and a Tarrasque also has a base speed of 20ft. Unless the halfling has some means of increasing his speed, he shouldn't have been able to open up the distance if the Tarrasque gave chase and if he was encumbered any, he should be slower than the Tarrasque. There might be other factors of magic involved, but those weren't mentioned so I thought I'd ask.

Generally, I find it's easier to put the hurt on someone with quantity rather than quality. The Tarrasque is really tough, but its a single thing that they can gang up on and it only gets a few attacks per round. Instead, use larger numbers of less powerful critters -- preferably ones with ranged attacks. What you want to do is make it so you're rolling as many hits as possible against him and spreading out the targets as much as you can. More dice means more chances to do damage even if it is less damage per hit. If they're spread out and using ranged attacks, area of effect spells become less effective and he has to use extra rounds getting from target to target while getting shot at. If he's tough enough to be fighting a Tarrasque, there are some excellent demons and devils that can be used for this. I'm especially fond of the ones like the Babau and the Bebelith that can damage their opponent's weapons or armor. Those seem like just the ticket for taking someone like your halfling down a peg or two.