Abusable character?

[TracerBullet42]

He's still abusable. Regardless of class choice, all characters are abusable.

Have jesters walk by, and throw random insults in his general direction. Have shop keepers comment on his parentage/ancestry. There's always the racial slur. Lots of good dwarf insults abound. I'm sure you can find a few with a simple search here on ENworld.

The abuse can vary from minor indirect slander, to out-an-out sexual innuendo.

"A wizard you say? A decrepit dwarf wizard? Sheesh, the academy must be getting desperate these days."

"Look at him! All those wrinkles! No wonder they call him the walking prune! A living raisin on legs, if you ask me!"

"Hahahaha! Watch how he waddles! My staff and I, we'll give him a good reason to waddle!"

This sounds dirty.

Yeah...not exactly what the thread is about...

 

[green slime]

Yeah...not exactly what the thread is about...

Lost the Funny?

Can't have one crazy poke of fun at your expense when you have had lots of clever answers to your dilemma already?

Ah well.

"And now, after our announcement, we bring you back to our scheduled programme!"

No. It isn't broken, nor "abusable". Not even mildly.

Instead, the class combo is so shafted, they had to introduce a special PrC to try and keep the architype alive within the game.

Consider: How powerful is the 10 Wizard / 10 Cleric when compared to a single class 20th level spell slinger of either? How exactly do 5th level spells compare to 9th?

 

[MonkeyDragon]

Decide early if you want to allow Practiced Spellcaster. I would be very surprised if he doesn't want to take it. I think it's a grand feat, m'self. I also think it would be good to ask him if he has any special feat chains or PrCs in mind, so you can consider them early and let him know your decision BEFORE he starts taking all the prereqs. If he springs on you that he wants Crazy Busted Prestige Class and you say no way, he's going to feel hosed if he spent a lot of skills and feats preparing for it, and you're going to feel pressured into allowing it.

I agree with the others that this combo is more likely to be underpowered than over, and it's going to be the player, not the character that winds up breaking something. As for your other players, I suspect that the reason they think he's overpowered right now (aside from knowing about his powergaming potential) is that at second level, all anyone has is first level spells, and he has twice as many. It should become clear to everyone how more vs better balances out.

 

[Slife]

Well... multiclassing 50/50 in casters is one of the worst possible multiclasses. I wouldn't worry that much about it.

 

[TracerBullet42]

Lost the Funny?

Can't have one crazy poke of fun at your expense when you have had lots of clever answers to your dilemma already?

No, no...don't get me wrong. I love the funny. I've just also seen enough threads where someone only reads the title and then posts something that can derail things...

I've pretty much got my answer by now, though. It seems that there aren't a whole lot of tricks to make this class combo dangerous. I didn't think that there were, but I figured I'd check and see because this player seems to have a tendancy towards such ideas.

But I hope I haven't lost the funny...if I have, feel free to cut me down with a herring.

 

[Maldor]

Thanks for all the tips, everyone!

I think I'm going to limit him to the PHB for spells, simply so that it doesn't get WAY out of control. He's aware of the arcane spell failure, as he's going to limit himself to studded leather armor. He's asked if there's a way to reduce the failure percentage. Without getting into another class, though, I don't believe there is one.

We'll see how it goes.

sounds like your picking on him have you started limiting your othe PC's telling them which weapons they can and can't have what about feats and make sure it's ones they want that way you can have a nice TPK. He took a hit a big hit for the party he is going to need every liitle bit of powergamering the rules allow to make this character able to pull weight i would not give him anything free but i sure would not limit his options

P.S. it might not be that he is not that bad of a powergamer it might be that your other player just make sub-par characters (this is not to be consider a insult many players like have sightly incopendent characted they find it's fun to play them other don't) the other classes in your gourp are all a little on the weaker end as far as classes go

 

[FEADIN]

Far less powerful than 1 cleric and 1 wizard, one character is limited on the number of action he can do in one round, even with Quicken whatever or Divine what you want he is alone to act.

 

[migo]

Man I hate when players try to get free crap for nothing. This guy is already powergaming the old-age angle simply to get better bonuses.

You should tell him, "No, you don't get bonus skill points because you didn't start training those skills until later in life, which is why you don't get bonus spells or anything. But, you do have lots of penalties to skills. Being old, your eyesight is worse so you take a -4 to spot & search. People aren't usually afraid of the elderly, so your intimidate drops -10. You also are much slower than you were in your younger days, so your speed drops by 10-ft."

I had a player that tried getting free bonuses all the time. I'd say things like that to shut him up. If he wants to dissect stats for realism, I'll have to dissect them in the negative direction also.

This is a problem in D&D. Spot is based off Wisdom. So as you get older your eyesight gets better. You're starting to throw in arbitrary changes that wouldn't happen naturally if someone ages. It's better to just not allow starting old if that's a problem.

 

[Darklone]

Ok... he has great Wis and Int and Cha. First point solved, his MT will be ok.

The group does not seem to consist of other powerhorses (Swashy, rogue and marshal: No real fighter)... no other healer and no blaster. So I think it's a good idea he took that route.

Check out the errata of Divine Power/Righteous Might and Divine Metamagic. In fact, check out most things (best ask here in the rules forum) before you let him take it.

Spells: I haven't encountered many abuseable MT combinations yet. Last time someone asked here, we found one or two nice things, but far from broken.

All in all the character sounds good. Just don't get used to his performance at level 4-6, he'll get stronger after that. Much stronger with Practised Spellcaster.

Try to get his feat selection and ask him what he plans to take (featwise and prestigeclasses) then we can tell you more... Still I think it's a good character for the group and he won't necessarily be abused.

 

[Evilhalfling]

This is a problem in D&D. Spot is based off Wisdom. So as you get older your eyesight gets better. You're starting to throw in arbitrary changes that wouldn't happen naturally if someone ages. It's better to just not allow starting old if that's a problem.

I have built NPCs with old-age flaws Inatintive (-4 to spot and listen checks)
Slow (speed reduced to 1/2 your base speed), Murkey-eyed (roll twice for concealment based miss chance, take the worst roll.) but this was for flavor more than anything else. (although I did give him the free feat that came with each flaw.