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Message: <blockquote data-quote="rushlight" data-source="post: 986715" data-attributes="member: 3801">"I don't quite understand how an 18th level fighter can single-handedly kill a CR 25 dragon in 2 or 3 rounds. "Well, here's how it breaks down, and by the end of this I'll show you how a single PC can approach 1000 points of damage in 3 rounds, so stick with me.Take a Great Wyrm Red Dragon.  CR 25, AC 41, avg HPs 660.18th level PC: 8th level fighter, 10th level weapon master with 20 STR.  He uses a +1 frosting, shocking burst holy greatsword (two handed) with a scabbard of keen edge, and boots of haste.  He does need 3 spells cast upon him (provided by the cleric): GMW (+5) for the sword, Sanguine Strength (from Relics and Rituals) which gives him a +18(!) STR, and Assassin's Senses (increases his Crit range +1 and his Crit Mulitplier by x1).So after all that he's got a +39 to hit, and he crits on an 11 or more.  He only needs a 2 to hit the thing (which gives him an 95% chance to hit), and will do 2d6 (weapon) + 1d6 (frost, ignoring for now that the dragon takes bonus damage from cold) + 1d6 shock + 2d6 (Holy) + 5 for magic bonus + 14 STR + 7 STR for two-handed use.  That's 6d6 + 26, but wait! He's got Ki Damage (Weapon Master ability) so he'll do max damage or 62 points of damage.  When he crits though, things get ugly.  His Crit Multiplier is x4 (x2 base, x1 for Weapon Master ability and x1 for spell) so on a roll of 11 or more (that's a 50% chance) he'll do 8d6 (weapon x4) + 1d6 (frost) + 2d6 (Holy) + 4d10 (shocking burst) + 20 (magic x4) + 84  (2h STR x4) for a total of 11d6 + 4d10 + 104 or around 164 points of damage on average.  Now, in 3 rounds he'll get 6 attacks at his full BAB due to haste, 3 at -5, 3 at -10 and 3 at -15.  That's 6 attacks at 95% to hit, 3 at 70%, 3 at 45% and 3 at 20%.  Also, 6 of those attacks will have a 48% chance to crit (once you factor in the confirm roll), 3 will have a 35% to crit, 3 will have 23% chance to crit, and the last 3 will have 10% chance to crit.  Ok, so here's how it will play out.  The first 6 attacks will hit, and probably 3 will crit.  That's 678 points of damage on average.  Two of the next 3 will hit, and one will probably crit (but we'll skip that) so that's another 124 points of damage.  Probably 2 of the last six attacks will hit, so that's another 124 points.  So in 3 rounds he's done a total of 926 points of damage - on average.  So you can see that he has a fair chance to kill it in a single round (with really good rolls), an excellent chance in the second round (with average rolls) and a near 100% chance to kill it on the third round.  This is absurd, and it's done totally within the rules.So, what to do?  Well, I've banned the above 2 spells, and already fixed crit - range stacking, as well as banning all crit multiplier stacking.  The other option was to ban the Weapon Master PrC outright, but I was reluctant to do that.  I know that it is possible for me to fix these things with house rules (and I have already done so) but the system really should take care of this by itself.  To require the DM to house rule every loophole the player finds gets old after a while, for both people.  So, I welcome 3.5 with open arms.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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