Empirate
First Post
[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]: That's not exactly what I'm advocating, no. I'd opt to make the player feel useful as much as everybody else, but also challenge him from time to time with stuff his high AC doesn't help him with. The combination ought to serve in communicating: 'you made a choice, and it's having consequences - good ones occasionally, but also bad ones from time to time'.
Nowhere am I "suggesting that the game proceed with the player suffering with a poor build, and the GM having headaches working around it". The OP was complaining that a PC with very high AC is causing him problems because he felt he couldn't challenge him enough (as in, make sure mooks and standard melee opponents could reliably hit him). What I tried to say to the OP was that he misunderstood the 'problem' his player was causing him: the problem is not that the PC's AC is unhittable, but that the player has pigeonholed his PC so much that he requires a firm understanding of the situation and certain measured DM responses to keep the game fun for everybody.
I am generally opposed to changing parts of the very core of D&D's mechanics (like the stacking rules) in response to a situation that might just call for a slightly more flexible approach in-game. The rules change you advocate takes a certain amount of choice away from the players (choice which might, admittedly, lead to hyperspecialization) for no gain that couldn't be had through a flexible DM.
"Something's not going the way I like it in my game so I'm changing the rules" is a knee-jerk reaction that is unwarranted. In such a complex game as D&D, I almost invariably find it best not to change the rules or apply the nerfbat. You can almost always get better results (better as in, resulting in a more fun game for everybody) by adapting the way you play, or what you expect.
Nowhere am I "suggesting that the game proceed with the player suffering with a poor build, and the GM having headaches working around it". The OP was complaining that a PC with very high AC is causing him problems because he felt he couldn't challenge him enough (as in, make sure mooks and standard melee opponents could reliably hit him). What I tried to say to the OP was that he misunderstood the 'problem' his player was causing him: the problem is not that the PC's AC is unhittable, but that the player has pigeonholed his PC so much that he requires a firm understanding of the situation and certain measured DM responses to keep the game fun for everybody.
I am generally opposed to changing parts of the very core of D&D's mechanics (like the stacking rules) in response to a situation that might just call for a slightly more flexible approach in-game. The rules change you advocate takes a certain amount of choice away from the players (choice which might, admittedly, lead to hyperspecialization) for no gain that couldn't be had through a flexible DM.
"Something's not going the way I like it in my game so I'm changing the rules" is a knee-jerk reaction that is unwarranted. In such a complex game as D&D, I almost invariably find it best not to change the rules or apply the nerfbat. You can almost always get better results (better as in, resulting in a more fun game for everybody) by adapting the way you play, or what you expect.
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