For the first time ever, I've banned a player class from my table

[megamania]

I'll add #6 to the list: The Game Master. No offence meant; just hear me out.

My point is that there are a lot of in-game ways to deal with a perceived balance problem, rather than resorting to banning a player class. I'm not telling you what to do at your own gaming table, because that's your sovereign domain; but, I do feel the need to present more options.

I am resolving similiar issues this way. My group can stomp any frontal basic attack up to four levels higher than them. Now they are facing thinking villians and they are having a much harder time of it. It has been a while since I heard the words of "That was easy."

I also have a standing rule- What ever players can do so can the DM. It helps keep the easier munchkinism down since they know I out resource them and can easily hand them their butts if I wished and with something with a lesser CR than themselves to boot.

 

[Henry]

I've banned plenty of Base Classes from my table - ESPECIALLY from the Complete Books, but mostly because they didn't fit the world, or I didn't want to needlessly complicate my game. Similarly, I've banned countless prestige classes, allowing only on a "case by case" basis.

As for the Artificer, I'd pay heed to the arguments about the feats and infusions used. Some of these are WAAAY too far-blown to be used. (I've often had reservations about BOTH the dual wand wield feat AND the Cannith Wand Adept).

 

[Wild Gazebo]

I highly suggest maintaining 'time' and 'resource' as a determinate struggle with the artificer. Those two modifiers are really the bread and butter of the class...without them, artificers are just fancy tradesmen.

I haven't had a problem yet with the class...and have found them quite colourful.

 

[S'mon]

As a default I only allow PHB classes, and even then I muck around with them to fit my setting. Non-PHB stuff is only allowed in with negotiation & usually involves editing the class to balance it - usually that will be depowering the class, but sometimes a cool concept Prestige Class has too-weak stats, in which case I'll power it up.

 

[Thundering_Dragon]

One vicious combination with the DM not applying the penalties for that combination does not equate an imbalanced character class. A well built Druid, and, to a lesser extent, Cleric or Wizard can do much worse than what this Artificer did, and at virtually no cost.

 

[Janx]

I wouldn't neccesarily put the blame on the DM for not applying penalties. In the 3.x model of player empowerment, all the rules and math is right in front of the player. If they do it wrong, you get a "too good to be true" effect. Getting 52d6 damage should have been the warning sign that something was wrong, and by wrong, odds are good the error was in application of the rules. With that many things stacked on top, the chances of erring to the benefit of the player is pretty high. And it sounds like many things were misapplied, according to others in the know. So fix it for next time.

Also, given that the artificer walked all over you encounter this time, it sounds like it needs several rounds of spell casting to get primed, that's time your next big encounter has to mulch the spell caster before she's ready.

Janx

 

[reveal]

I definitely cannot say that I got it exactly right when it came to the Artificer. I've asked the player in question exactly how she got the numbers she got and I'll go through them. I'll post them here to so I can get another set of eyes.

The reason I didn't look as closely as I could have is because her fiance, who's been playing with us for the last year, helped her create the character. He's very good at "crunching" and I don't have a problem with it because he's almost always correct with his application of the rules and I can work around it (I've come close to killing him many times even though his character's a warforged "tank.")

At this point, I'm still going to ban the class BUT I will look it over and, if I or the player made a mistake, I will let it back in.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I do believe mistakes were made in this case, but an artificer certainly can pump himself up to 52d6 damage by the Rules As Written. What went wrong in this case is that he wasn't exhuasting expensive wands, expending large amounts of gp and XP (even with the Eberron feats to reduce that expenditure) and taking significant amounts of downtime to prepare.

The artificer is, in effect, the ultimate focused, 'prepared caster' - if so built, he can do one or a very few things exceedingly well, but requires far more than the usual 8 hours downtime to 'recharge his batteries.'

I'm not sure if the class is unbalanced, but you could certainly make the case for it; it's about as far in the focus direction as the core druid is in the general direction, which is very, very nasty.

Considering its importance to Eberron fluff-wise, however, I'd be more inclined to reduce one or two special abilities rather than eliminating the class outright. For instance, denying the artificer the use of metamagic feats for his magic items, making prerequisites for Dual Wand Wielder that place it out of an artificer's grasp (or eliminate it entirely), and otherwise nerfing the outlying powers.

 

[Mystery Man]

Resist Energy - learn to love it.

And pray to God she doesn't take the feat that lets her change her spells from fire to something else (Oh how I love and hate that feat at the same time). I forget the name. One of my players has the Sorcerer/Spellsword combo and he's a handful.

Stop pitting stupid NPCs and Monsters against them, unban the class and have NPC's plan for her and take her down early. At higher levels magic gets wierd.

As far as banning classes I have not per se. I have however banned entire book collections from my game. Anything that has to do with the Sword and Sorcery line (sorry Nightfall) is wiped clean from my game as if it never existed.

 

[reveal]

Stop pitting stupid NPCs and Monsters against them, unban the class and have NPC's plan for her and take her down early. At higher levels magic gets wierd.

Last session I played smart NPCs and did almost kill her. The Hill Giant archers made her the target and the Hill Giant cleric did the same. They all did until the archers no longer had line of sight on her and the cleric was fighting people directly in front of him.