Defeating my powergamer Glave master

[Spatula]

My mistake, I thought an OA was a reaction not an interrupt. In any case, Polearm Gamble says, "When a nonadjacent enemy enters a square a adjacent to you, you can make an OA..." The enemy is already in the square adjacent when the OA happens.

It's metagaming to start arming your NPCs with bows in a different proportion because of the feat choice of a PC.

I'm not saying every encounter should be 100% ranged. I'm saying that the counter to melee beasts is to hit them from range - not just by the rules (the melee beast is not very effective at range), but also in real life. A smart person doesn't engage the master swordsman wielding two scimitars in melee, he shoots the swordsman with his revolver. If the party is facing only melee opponents all the time, that to me is artificial and metagamey (unless they're all unintelligent creatures). And it has nothing to do with the feat!

 

[Arivendel]

Get an Oni Souleater, keep blasting the Fighter and leave him immobilized with Soul Grasp/Harvest Soul (Ranged 10 and Harvest Soul allows for three Soul Grasp attacks and with recharge 4-5-6 you are likely to use it often), meanwhile design the rest of the encounter with the rest of the part in mind, and done you have defeated the Glaive Master by effectively removing him from combat

 

[RyvenCedrylle]

I think maybe 'defeating' is the wrong word and not the real intent of the OP - though correct me if I'm wrong, mshea. I think the point is to challenge, not frustrate or kill. "Eight archers attack from range 10" - while certainly effective against a polearm fighter - wouldn't feel challenging to me, just DM vindictive. You could it once, maybe twice, but after that it's going to be obvious that you're telling your player he's having badwrongfun. If I wanted to give this guy something to think about, I'd use controllers and difficult terrain, or maybe walls. If what you have is a lot of flat, featureless land, your glaive master gets to do whatever the heck he likes to any foe he likes. If on the other hand his ability to move and shift is limited, he's going to have to think a lot harder about where he's going.

Completely shutting down any player's build strengths repeatedly is borderline insulting in my book. Once or twice for the panic effect, sure. But overall, I believe a good GM will respect the player's "fun payout" and create situations that require the character to do his schtick correctly or face defeat.

 

[SlyFlourish]

The player himself has complained to me that he doesn't feel like any creature we've faced so far is a challenge. It seems every time I put out a big baddie, there's some cheesy way to get around whatever it is that makes the baddie really bad.

The example was my other post where a Hospitaler Paladin all but negated all the damage done by a Beholder Death Orb - every time the Death Orb targeted someone (which it does at the beginning of everyone's turn), they gained 9 hitpoints in health back. He only did 7 to 11 usually, and when he missed, they GAINED hitpoints. They ended up with full health and only one person bloodied in the whole fight. Granted the cleric turned to stone, though.

 

[Arivendel]

Well if the Party is composed in such a way that damage output is proven to be a very difficult way to kill the party, then you simply have to start considering the other ways available to monsters to kill the party, such as my previous example with the Oni Souleater's they have a power Consume Essence which can be used only on an Immobolized foe (interestingly enough it has no range limit, so you can theoretically use it from Range 11+ as long as one of the party members are immobilized) which deals damage as well as stealing healing surges and when they eat all the surges its instant death for the party member.

In the same vein you can use controlers or leaders which have power that leave players unconcious on a failed save, and then have brutes and soldiers simply move in an Coup de Grace

Petrification is also another fun way to kill players, theres more options than just plain combat so if your players are already arranged in such a way that they can soak and recover damage easily per turn then perhaps its time to start hitting them in the surges/conditions tabs.

 

[kerbarian]

I've worked on a similar build, and I don't think there's much you can do against it with reach-1 melee monsters. For encounter design, I think the main adjustments would be:

1) Ranged attackers
2) Monsters with reach

When you do have reach-1 melee attackers in the encounter (and they make up a lot of the MM), have them avoid the fighter as much as possible. That can be difficult, since he'll probably be blocking a 3x3 area with the rest of the party behind him.

I think the best way to get past him would be: Attempt to move adjacent to the fighter. Eat the OA. If he hits and stops you 2 squares away, use your next action to charge someone else in the party, going right past the fighter. Since he's already taken an OA, he can't take another one and you get by.

Once the melee monsters are in the backfield, hopefully they can do some damage.

If he's using Heavy Blade Opportunity with Footwork Lure and Polearm Momentum, then things are uglier. Is that what he's doing?

In any case, I think it's a reasonable house rule (and probably RAI) that shifting adjacent to a fighter with Polearm Gamble doesn't provoke an OA. In that case, it's still very hard to attack the fighter, but you can at least try to force him back in a way that lets other monsters slip past.

 

[Alex319]

And don't forget: The fighter never needs to get a single OA or combat challenge attack unless you let him.

If you're next to the fighter, and you attack him, then you don't provoke a CC attack if he has you marked. (Yes you do have to attack him, but that's just what the mark is supposed to do. And don't forget that CC only works on adjacent targets, even with polearms.)

If you're not next to the fighter, you can move around and attack someone else. As long as you don't move adjacent to the fighter, he doesn't get any OAs, and doesn't get CC because CC only works on adjacent targets. The only way this wouldn't work is if the fighter is blocking a choke point 3 or fewer squares wide. In that case you could just avoid using that kind of terrain, or have the monsters go and hide somewhere else to force the players to come to them.

 

[NorthSaber]

The Trollhaunt is a pretty easy adventure, in my opinion, designed for standard, non-min-maxed characters.

I think that it's the DM's job to make sure encounters are appropriately challenging. If a single PC is unusually powerful, it's fine to put more challenging foes in the encounters - but not all of them. Suspension of disbelief shouldn't be wholly sacrificed.

It is always a smart move for the enemy to strike where it hurts the most, so perhaps you can have the enemy concentrate their efforts to the other PCs? Using ranged or area-attacks may be a good idea. Enemies with reach are also less troubled by his tactics.

If you want to tailor challenging attacks against your glaive fighter, use a large group of tough brutes to take most of the hits, and then have a lurker sneak in close and do some damage.

The gambit feat gives the fighter very good battleground control, so try to have the enemy take some of that advantage back. The use of terrain and obstacles has already been mentioned, but another important thing is to force the fighter into a spot where he no longer holds the advantage. Enemy powers that pull or slide can do this, but also using ranged attackers targeting the squishier PCs may do the trick, as it forces the defender to approach the enemy, instead of hunkering down in that bottleneck.

I emphasize once more that the most important thing is to keep the game fun for everyone, and that probably means more challenging fights for your group. Don't be afraid to use tailored encounters to really challenge the powergamer, but also make sure to provide encounters where he can really tear enemies up.

(As a DM I might be tempted to award the PCs less XP for encounters that weren't as challenging as they would've been for standard PCs...)

 

[Lauberfen]

How about a good mix of monsters?

artillery, lurkers and some skirmishers and controllers will simply never trigger his OA. All of these are interesting challenges for the whole party.

Many skirmishers simply ignore OAs, and a lurker who can charge out of cover will not provoke (it's probably impossible for the fighter to beat a ranked stealth check). Artillery are interesting- even if the fighter gets up close, then he'll not be getting OAs.

 

[Trebor62]

The player himself has complained to me that he doesn't feel like any creature we've faced so far is a challenge. It seems every time I put out a big baddie, there's some cheesy way to get around whatever it is that makes the baddie really bad.

The example was my other post where a Hospitaler Paladin all but negated all the damage done by a Beholder Death Orb - every time the Death Orb targeted someone (which it does at the beginning of everyone's turn), they gained 9 hitpoints in health back. He only did 7 to 11 usually, and when he missed, they GAINED hitpoints. They ended up with full health and only one person bloodied in the whole fight. Granted the cleric turned to stone, though.

If I recall correctly you have 6 characters playing in your group. WOTC adventures are usually designed for 5 characters. Are you upping the monsters to compensate? If not I would try adding or reinforcing the Controller, or Artillery monsters to bring the monsters to par for a party of 6. Good luck.