Help with balancing gameplay?

[dragonfriend7738]

I'm running a campaign with some pretty decent players in it, and the game has lasted pretty long. Recently one of the player's original characters died (Phantasmal Killer backlash and he failed his own will and fort saves against his spell.)

Rather than have the party spend the 10k on reviving him, he used the opportunity to relieve his itch of character ADD and brought in a sniper based Scout. Gnome crossbow specialist with an optomized build for max skirmish capabilities.

I've got no issues with his build- everything is legit. My issue is that he is able to completely dominate any area of space (thanks to the increased range capabilities of the gnomish sight plus farshot feat.) He's brining more damage to the field than anyone other than our blast-happy caster, and causing my melee combatants to feel useless in any encounter that isn't swarming with undead. (The rogue has deathstrike bracers, which is the only slightly balancing thing he has against the sniper.)

Any suggestions on how to make the game enjoyable for a mostly melee based party with a ranged combatant who can deal multiple ranged attacks in a round that deal upwards of 20 points of damage each? (Repeating heavy crossbow, rapidshot, ect.)

 

[Dozen]

Any suggestions on how to make the game enjoyable for a mostly melee based party with a ranged combatant who can deal multiple ranged attacks in a round that deal upwards of 20 points of damage each? (Repeating heavy crossbow, rapidshot, ect.)

At this point? Best you can do is ask the Scout's player to give the rest a little lesson in book mastery.
Normally, I do not condone players goin two tiers above the weakest character in the party, but you already let the sniper in. Taking away from him when he hasn't done anything wrong is out of question, and, giving more loot or other advandages to the rest of the party when they are the one's who put less effort into their character's stats is just terrible. The lack of Optimization in itself not bad, but when somebody in the party suprasses the rest before you could stop him, the others needs to catch up. Besides, in a party high enough level to cast 4th level spells, the person who deals 30 or so damage to any creature on the battlefield counts among them as the groundbreaker build rather than the average, they are everything but 'pretty decent' for a combat-heavy game, given a world-wide comparison. A damage dealer build which cannot kill an unbuffed wizard of it's level on favorable ground and short notice is a joke, and if the other PCs are not explicitly there to maim the enemy, then what's their deal, exactly?

Alternatively, you could also tone down the combat element of your campaign and focus on roleplay, intrigue, politics, the usual package. Of course, that's only works when they have enough Charisma and points in relevant skills to support it.

 

[Ahnehnois]

A few things from a rules perspective that you might or might not need to know:

*Skirmish damage applies only to targets within 30 ft. Far Shot does not increase this range.
*If you use Manyshot, Skirmish damage applies to only the first arrow fired. If you use Rapid Shot, you can't take a move action and thus can't get Skirmish.

Now, there are some ways of manipulating the rules to get around that sort of thing, but in principle, Skirmish was written with the intent that those limitations would apply, and even if your player found a way around them, you're perfectly within reason to enforce the RAI. It's not clear to me what level the characters are or whether that multiple 20+ damage arrow thing is from Skirmish or not.

***

That being said, ranged attacks are easy to deal with. There are a variety of abilities that specifically affect ranged attacks; monks are virtually immune to them. Depending on whether the archer has the requisite concealment and cover-busting feats or items, simple tactical use of cover can go a long way. It's also possible to use opponents that are equally good at ranged combat; either archers that might keep the character busy (note the ranged disarming feat from CW), or spellcasters that might disable him (how's the scout's will save?). Invisible or otherwise concealed opponents could get within melee range (depending on how good of a scout the scout actually is). DR can be problematic for ranged characters as special ammunition is expensive.

In short, if the character is built legit and you're okay with it, you can throw legit challenges at them that are just as tough.

 

[Dozen]

In short, if the character is built legit and you're okay with it, you can throw legit challenges at them that are just as tough.

Sure you can, but the player doesn't deserve it. Handcrafting encounters so his best ability becomes nigh-useless is a strong punishment, and he didn't exactly optimize the Nine Hells out of his build, either. He's not being inconsiderate. It's just a genuine accident. No reason to be harsh on him.

 

[dragonfriend7738]

A few things from a rules perspective that you might or might not need to know:

*Skirmish damage applies only to targets within 30 ft. Far Shot does not increase this range.
*If you use Manyshot, Skirmish damage applies to only the first arrow fired. If you use Rapid Shot, you can't take a move action and thus can't get Skirmish.

-snip-

In short, if the character is built legit and you're okay with it, you can throw legit challenges at them that are just as tough.

That's what I was overlooking. Thanks for pointing that out. And as Dozen said above, I don't want to punish him for doing something well; I just want to make it so the people who were more concerned about creating their character over creating a powerful character aren't being left out of the game play.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Sure you can, but the player doesn't deserve it. Handcrafting encounters so his best ability becomes nigh-useless is a strong punishment, and he didn't exactly optimize the Nine Hells out of his build, either. He's not being inconsiderate. It's just a genuine accident. No reason to be harsh on him.

Who's talking about punishment or making his abilities useless? I'm simply talking about a variety of ways to challenge the party. The enemies aren't trying to get themselves killed (presumably), so they either adapt to their environment and develop ways of fighting effectively or die off. It's Darwinian.

I'm not suggesting that every enemy should take Deflect Arrows and have high DR; clearly if the DM does that all the time it becomes unreasonable. Merely doing some of those things some of the time, however, is reasonable.

 

[Dozen]

Who's talking about punishment or making his abilities useless? I'm simply talking about a variety of ways to challenge the party. The enemies aren't trying to get themselves killed (presumably), so they either adapt to their environment and develop ways of fighting effectively or die off. It's Darwinian.

I'm not suggesting that every enemy should take Deflect Arrows and have high DR; clearly if the DM does that all the time it becomes unreasonable. Merely doing some of those things some of the time, however, is reasonable.

Definitely, I see your point. Yet, it takes time to adapt. Unless the DM bends the laws of reality so the appropriate challenge just happens to show up for the encounter, their adversaries need a few weeks to realize they need a change of tactics, then to learn and train, find hirelings and mercenaries, get proper equipment, refit their dungeons, etcetera. Might as well improve party performance while they're at it, less work for the DM from that point forward.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

I'd like to second what @Ahnehnois said about cover.

Unless his build has built in ways to get around or punch thru cover, make use of the environment. A forest encounter should have line of sight problems as you place trees in spaces. Do you guys play off some sort of grid map? Occupy map spaces with terrain cover- trees for a forest, rubble in ruins, a pile of trash or a horse drawn carriage in a city, a pile of lumber in a dwarven mine, etc. It would be only natural for opponents, having realized someone was firing at them, to position themselves out of the line of fire, perhaps fall back into a room to bottleneck combat at a doorway.

Build restricting passages in dungeons so people can walk down one or two at a time. If the enemy is at the end of a long hallway, and the melee fighters are at the front, the ranged attacker behind needs to get creative or find a way to go around (or over, or under, etc) the wall of friendly bodies to hit the enemy.

Play the opponents as individuals that really don't desire to die to an arrow in the neck, and so they'll move accordingly.

...I say all this having no idea how much you've already tried to implement this already. If your player happens to have ways to punch thru cover or seeking arrows or whatnot.... then sweet, good job for him! Perhaps as the DM you could see that other players acquire magical equipment that will help them be more versatile.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Definitely, I see your point. Yet, it takes time to adapt. If the DM doesn't bend the laws of reality so the appropriate challenge just happens to show up for the encounter, their adversaries need a few weeks to realize they need a change of tactics, then to learn and train, find hirelings and mercenaries, refit their dungeons, etcetera. Might as well improve party performance while they're at it, less work for the DM from that point forward.

It's a fine line between trying to challenge the players but still letting their characters function as they should.

Fortunately, this issue might be resolved simply by enforcing the RAW. I usually find that most characters that seem overpowered have already been addressed in the rules somehow.

 

[Mallus]

I've got no issues with his build- everything is legit.

It's true the player didn't do anything wrong. The build's legal, you okay'd it, etc. But everyone at the table shares the responsibility of making the game run smoothly. It's not all on the DM. Even when it comes to maintaining game balance. And especially with systems were rules-legal, same-level characters can have wildly different power levels/capabilities.

My advice: talk it over with the group. Be up front about the difficulties you're having -- you don't have to, and probably shouldn't, solve this problem alone.

One suggestion - ask the sniper's player how to challenge their character, ie ask them to use their optimization skills to help you design some opponents. One of the most satisfying combat encounters I ran using 3.5e was designed by one of the players -- a guy whose System Mastery far exceeded my own.

Another suggestion - ask if it's okay to use (some) encounters designed to specifically negate the sniper's build. Done right, this can be a fair trade-off. The player gets to keep their build, but consents to the periodic nerfing encounter built to give the rest of the group spotlight time.

Finally, you can ask them to tone the build down, in the interest of keeping the campaign as a whole running smoothly.

Whatever you do... try to involve the rest of the group. It's their responsibility, too.