How to stop a Warden?

[eriktheguy]

Let us know how it goes Miio. Some of the more pushy types like myself like to see how these things turn out. The theory is interesting you see...

 

[Mengu]

Sheesh. What is it with threads like this and people suggesting grudge monsters? Wake up; they're -never- a good idea!

It's not that bad really. It's merely adjusting difficulty level. What's a DM to do if a group is walking all over encounters and the thrill and danger are all but gone? Increase the threat. It's the DM's job to make sure the players are challenged, and there is a chance, albeit small, of failure, so victory has greater meaning.

There are certainly unfun monsters that blind at will, stun, etc. and monster combinations that daze you, push you, and knock you prone, or push you and immobilize you. But minions that explode? Those are in the positive fun range, especially if you can also shove them into the enemy and blow them up yourself. Gnolls and the like that ramp up the damage when they surround you also increase the thrill. It's not like they are doing any denial, they just tax your hit point and healing resources.

Sometimes the DM has to increase the challenge for a group that clicks really well, and sometimes the DM has to tone down the enemies as is often the case for me, so I don't slaughter the PC's. That's why we have human DM's instead of droids running the game.

 

[Sanzuo]

Attention Miio's Player!

• Get a Hammer Shield and a hammer! It will give you +1 AC each round you hit something!
• Don't neglect your NADs! Your fort should be pretty good, but if you can do anything to raise your Ref and Will then do so!
• If you are human, get some feats to increase your saving throws.
• Second Wind every fight. If you are not a dwarf, save your action points for second wind!
• Form of Winter's Herald -> Inspiring Fortitude -> Bear's Endurance
• At Paragon, retrain a feat to a fighter multiclass, then take the fighter paragon path Dreadnought (+10 max hp, burn 10hp to automatically end save end effect, lots of damage resistance)
• Congrats you are now hilariously unkillable.

Attention Miio!

• YOU CANNOT STOP US, YOU WILL NOT STOP US
• WARDEN SUPREMACY!

 

[Dice4Hire]

Attention Miio's Player!

• Get a Hammer Shield and a hammer! It will give you +1 AC each round you hit something!
• Don't neglect your NADs! Your fort should be pretty good, but if you can do anything to raise your Ref and Will then do so!
• If you are human, get some feats to increase your saving throws.
• Second Wind every fight. If you are not a dwarf, save your action points for second wind!
• Form of Winter's Herald -> Inspiring Fortitude -> Bear's Endurance
• At Paragon, retrain a feat to a fighter multiclass, then take the fighter paragon path Dreadnought (+10 max hp, burn 10hp to automatically end save end effect, lots of damage resistance)
• Congrats you are now hilariously unkillable.

Attention Miio!

• YOU CANNOT STOP US, YOU WILL NOT STOP US
• WARDEN SUPREMACY!

Straightjackets are cool too. Wanna try out this one?

 

[Ryujin]

Oh, right. I forgot one way to stop a Warden. Make him have to swim and his bling will drag him to the bottom.

 

[Nullzone]

Attention Miio's Player!

• Get a Hammer Shield and a hammer! It will give you +1 AC each round you hit something!
• Don't neglect your NADs! Your fort should be pretty good, but if you can do anything to raise your Ref and Will then do so!
• If you are human, get some feats to increase your saving throws.
• Second Wind every fight. If you are not a dwarf, save your action points for second wind!
• Form of Winter's Herald -> Inspiring Fortitude -> Bear's Endurance
• At Paragon, retrain a feat to a fighter multiclass, then take the fighter paragon path Dreadnought (+10 max hp, burn 10hp to automatically end save end effect, lots of damage resistance)
• Congrats you are now hilariously unkillable.

Attention Miio!

• YOU CANNOT STOP US, YOU WILL NOT STOP US
• WARDEN SUPREMACY!

At first I

But then I

 

[sigfile]

This is true. That's why the second half of my post points out that if the party is suffering for lack of a proper defender, make sure they have one.

I'm not disagreeing with you. I went in another direction. There's a lot of health being wasted in a group where the guy with the best defenses, most surges, and highest surge value isn't absorbing most of the enemy effort.

 

[mneme]

sigfile: it depends, really. I mean, an Avenger will (unless she's a martyr, anyway) often have ludcirous defenses and hp for her role and not end up absorbing that many attacks. Or an optimal twin striking ranger will have conditional encounter powers (because marginal bump on Twin Strike = LAME) and often end encounters without having used one. It's ok to have resources you don't use.

Mind, I'm guessing that, optimizer as he is described, the Warden is marking enemies and using his control powers. After all, the player's an optimizer, and that stuff is free. If he's putting his free resources into damage buffs rather than lockdown, well, that's a choice that still helps the party--as is tacitcally playing his character like a chessmaster willing to sacrifice his friends when that's what gets the job done (although a big challenge for a high-defense striker can be deciding whether it's better to continue putting on the hurt when multiple allies are down--or whether it's better to start running around and trying to trigger second wind with Heal checks. Just because you keep your eye on the ball doesn't mean you want to solo the entire encounter while losing the rest of your party)!

 

[Miio]

I would like to go ahead and explain the problem fully.

When this thread started I was attempting to actually challenge this party, especially the Warden. The more encounters we've had since the original post, the more full of himself the Warden has gotten. Being "undefeatable" is going to his head, and upsetting the other players at the table. I have had more than one player ask me to "rape" him or set up a tournament so they can prove that they are worth something.

The Warden has actually told the other players that they couldn't last one round against him and, in game, has told them to leave mobs alone and let him "handle it" as if the other players don't matter and their contribution would only screw things up.

I see that this is a group of people that is supposed to be friends and I am not sure what to do. I do not want to kill anyone, I do not want to be angry with the Warden, and I don't want anyone to hate anyone else. The player is ruining the campaign for everyone else, and it is not fair.

 

[mneme]

It's not that bad really. It's merely adjusting difficulty level. What's a DM to do if a group is walking all over encounters and the thrill and danger are all but gone? Increase the threat. It's the DM's job to make sure the players are challenged, and there is a chance, albeit small, of failure, so victory has greater meaning.

Minions that explode can be a lot of fun, but Thatwackyned's post crossed the "grudge monster" line for me (in a different way than the Giant Frogs comment).

Partially, that's because it's not a good enough answer to the actual problem to be worth making up monsters (if he'd suggested specific by the book monsters or a reasonable situation that like my "lone defender" encounter seed, tried to deal with the whole issue, it wouldn't have triggered like that for me).

Part, I think, is that it's not really answering the question at all. The issue isn't functionally "how do I make monsters big and powerful enough to threaten this annoying warden", (because, as another poster said, that's easy. You can always make bigger monsters--but that's not the point) but "how do I make sure the untouchable warden has a challenging and interesting game without killing the squishier party members". Admittedly, exploding minions -can- do that if the warden steps up and absorbs the damage while the rest of the party sits back at a safe distance -- but if they don't, enough damage to annoy the warden will likely start killing his friends (really, exploding minions are a controller/ranged striker problem best solved by teleporting the minons away as part of/right before killing them; the warden absorbing their blows with his mighty hit points is a weaker, lamer way of dealing with the issue). To threaten a warden, you need to either throw out big enough monsters to scare him (probably mostly single target, so they don't risk hurting the rest of the group until they've gone through the warden; at least unless he ignores them entirely) or threaten his role, rather than his person (which as claimed, is a problem--though see my previous post for why I'm not sure it's that cut and dry).