A Paladin Problematic

[Felon]

Daze takes care of that in a hurry. Either that or imobilize.

Heh. C'mon, You think the pally or the rest of the party don't have countermeasures for those all-too-common effects? If push comes to shove and he actually has to wait until the end of his turn to make a save, he'll just sustain the power while the rest of the party camps around him.

... or just spending a round beating the Paladin into the floor.

This has already been covered to great extent. After all, if "pile on the pally" was working, there wouldn't be a thread on the topic. Instead, "pile on the pally" just means spending a round missing half the time, maybe doing just enough damage that after laying on hands or the cleric's healing word that he only gets single-digit THP out of the deal.

It's also a level 25 Daily. It's supposed to be awesome.

There are awesome powers that makes a battle awesome, and then there are awesome that makes a battle lame. Powers that neutralize risk and (potentially) hang around forever kinda fall into the latter.

 

[Joshua Randall]

There are awesome powers that makes a battle awesome, and then there are awesome that makes a battle lame. Powers that neutralize risk and (potentially) hang around forever kinda fall into the latter.

Once per day in one fight, the paladin can call on the power of his god to burn down the monsters' hit points super-fast. He can only do this because his is an Epic champion of his god, on the cusp of immortality himself.

I don't see any problem with that.

But if you must...

Solution: more fights per day.

My goal is

(# fights per day) = (total # of PCs' fight-breaking Daily powers) + 1

Easier said than done, I know. Worth striving towards.

 

[Felon]

Once per day in one fight, the paladin can call on the power of his god to burn down the monsters' hit points super-fast. He can only do this because his is an Epic champion of his god, on the cusp of immortality himself.

I don't see any problem with that.

Is the point I'm trying to communicate really that elusive? Let me put it like this:

It's all good and well to be able to do awesome stuff, but the toggle of one awesome power shouldn't suck the rest of the epic out of an epic encounter. That pretty quickly goes from awesome to tiresome. Should be awesome stuff being tossed back and forth, rather than one awesome power going off and then blunting all retaliation.

 

[twilsemail]

I've found that an adventuring day with 6-8 Encounters can help a lot with the encounter balance. My encounters range from L+4 to L-2 or so. On top of that I change where the big fight happens frequently. I've had the PCs fight the big bad in the first encounter of the day and the last and somewhere in the middle. A daily like that used in Turn 4 of a fight is much less painful than one used in the first round of that days epic battle.

Epic Levels are hard on a DM. After my current Chronicle hits apotheosis, I'm probably sticking with late Heroic/early Paragon. PCs get too full of win in Epic.

 

[Aegeri]

Latest paladin player's pain-in-the-neck power pick: Discipline the Unruly. Anyone in 5 squares who attacks someone other than the paladin is blinded. Sustain minor.

Tremorsense, Blindsight and Truesight all instantly nullify blind as an effect completely. So the DM should just use monsters like the Bebilith (Tremorsense), Balor (Truesight) and anything that has Blindsight. All three of those completely negate Blind and due to how close the Paladin has to be (5 squares), nearly every party member will be within the blindsight/tremorsense range.

Also you pointed out that the party will clump around the paladin. Even better, because not only does our friend I mentioned earlier Mr. Balor have truesight, he has a close burst 3 power. So the Balor can cut down the entire party even easier. Plus given the amount of radiant damage it does, the Balor might get bloodied if he takes enough from all 4 characters (assuming a bit of damage already). This means he'll recharge Beheading blade more than likely immediately. So he'll get two close burst 3 15-20 crit range, 74+3d12 crit damage bursts one right after the other with an action point.

Delicious.

Speaking of any monster with an AoE burst or similar can get around it (but not the damage), which often do ridiculous amounts of damage as well making the attack overall worth it. Noting that area burst and close burst powers ignore any penalties for being blind to begin with. Ranged artillery with AoE powers that are area burst 3 will catch the majority of the party while being well out of range and such forth.

It's really a very simple power to work around and has a major disadvantage for the Paladin given the party will clump around him. Also I can't help but feel Couatls or creatures that interact with radiant damage would be useful here.

 

[Cormacolinde]

I'd like to point out that the Healer's Brooch does NOT work with the Hospitaler feature. The Healer's Brooch specifically mentions "When you use a power", and this heal is NOT a power. Other +healing items probably have similar wording that can matter a lot here.

 

[Felon]

It's really a very simple power to work around and has a major disadvantage for the Paladin given the party will clump around him.

Whatever. I'm getting a lot flippant responses, but wrting off an auto-blinding power as very simple to work around is being flippant to the point of absurdity. Yes, there are some monsters that can get around blindness. No, it's not feasible to suggest that a DM build an entire campaign's worth of encounters around them.

Once you're designing entire encounters around a power, you've abandoned the position that the power is a non-issue.

 

[Aegeri]

Just to be clear, your "very simple" work around is to--for the entire course of a campaign, mind you--stick to using the minority of monsters that can ignore the blindness effect? If so, kinda ridiculous.

Nah, it's just one option. A large room with long range (10+ square) artillery does the same thing. Not that the effect is bothering them at all, because it only works when the enemy that is attacking is within 5 of the paladin to begin with. Close burst powers have a similar thing, because blind doesn't do even the slightest bit to a close or area power. So a blinded [whatever] can blow the party to pieces with close attacks and will suffer the damage, but that doesn't really bother it much. Solos will be affected quite a bit, but then again what you should do there is just kill the paladin/knock him unconscious/push him away etc.

There are lots of ways around the party and it makes the party extremely susceptible to burst/area effects if they clump up.

Edit: If you're really worried, ask your DM to talk to me and I will help him out if he feels like he needs it. I'm always happy to assist with people having trouble making epic tier encounters. It's not an easy process by any means, even with current monsters.

 

[twilsemail]

Bear in mind that auras and area attacks aren't affected by the enemy being blinded. Tossing more of those against a party with two defenders seems like a good idea to me anyway. I've not seen a party with multiple defenders before, so my advice is more limited than others. I would imagine that lots of enemies is probably a better solution than bigger enemies.

Zerg rush maybe?

 

[Ryujin]

Whatever. I'm getting a lot flippant responses, but wrting off an auto-blinding power as very simple to work around is being flippant to the point of absurdity. Yes, there are some monsters that can get around blindness. No, it's not feasible to suggest that a DM build an entire campaign's worth of encounters around them.

Once you're designing entire encounters around a power, you've abandoned the position that the power is a non-issue.

Very true; if you have to design around it, then it's obviously a factor.

Our usual DM has made it very apparent that the enemy doesn't work in a vacuum though. As the characters move forward and gain fame, the enemy tends to start hearing about them. This gives the opportunity for SOME countermeasures. I'm not generally in favour of actively working to nerf a character's schtick, but a lot of the enemies that we, as characters, run into are far from stupid. A trick should certainly work once, maybe twice, but spamming it should bring about consequences.