Frustrated by Party Composition

[Eccles]

I've got a party who keep dodging. 6 people, and all but one of them have evasion.

It's not even like I've regularly attacked them with evocation spells.

It's now got so obsessional amongst my players that one of them is making a new Paladin character. With a level of monk!

Does anyone else have a group that seems to have an obsession like this?

 

[Zappo]

Uhm, no, I've never seen something like that. Frankly, I think that's not a problem for the DM. Evasion is nice, but the party is probably losing more than what it gains by acting this way.

 

[kengar]

Certain feats/abilities/skills/etc. can quickly become favorites among a party. Often I've seen this happen when a particular player puts the feat (or whatever) to good use and impresses the other members of the party with it.

I've not had Evasion become a staple, but the Tumble skill became a "must have" for a while with my group. They are obsessive about avoiding AoO's.

 

[Murrdox]

Blech.

When you have players taking a level of Monk simply to get evasion... ESPECIALLY a Paladin... that just rubs me the wrong way. I'm all for building an effective character, but metagaming your character creation to this extent bugs me.

Lump in here people who take one level of ANY class for only 1 or 2 abilities.

1) Ranger (duh)
2) I love the folks who take 1 level of Cleric just so that they can use wands of Cure.
3) Fighter just for an extra feat

list goes on and on.

 

[Eccles]

Heh. You'd hate my party then.

The new Mnk1/Pal8 replaces a deceased horrible little tumbling Dwarf Bar2/Rog3/Ftr3 with the good old "battleaxe/dwarf/boots of speed" cliche.

Then I've got a Rog3/Ftr3/Ran1/Asn3 Who's talking about taking a level of cleric because, hey, he wasn't a messed up enough character already!

That said, the other 4 characters are reasonably sensible. Apart from the straight monk who keeps being downright abusive and who I'm going to have to threaten with eviction if he doesn't shape up his ideas a bit!

Oh well...

 

[Enceladus]

This is when I start using touch attacks, ranged touch attacks, death attacks, mind affecting attacks.

Anything that doesn't require a REF save.

 

[The_Gneech]

Time for some stinking clouds, magic missiles, and good old-fashioned melee!

-The Gneech

 

[kengar]

Then I've got a Rog3/Ftr3/Ran1/Asn3 Who's talking about taking a level of cleric because, hey, he wasn't a messed up enough character already!

How about a house rule that -regardless of favored class- going to 3+ classes (i.e. from Ftr/Rog to Ftr/Rog/Sor) always incurs the XP penalty?

 

[Zhure]

1) Ranger (duh)
2) I love the folks who take 1 level of Cleric just so that they can use wands of Cure.
3) Fighter just for an extra feat

Bah, a real powergamer would only take option 1. They get a bunch of virtual feats (replacing option 3) and can use CLW wands (replacing option 2).

Greg

 

[diaglo]

it takes all types. sometimes many skills get overused or overemphasised too.

spot, listen, and search (which are not class skills for all classes)are perfect examples

whereas other skills though very necessary are hardly mentioned in many campaigns...swim, ride, and climb (this one varies more than the others).