Making Melee Characters Useful at High Levels

[maggot]

I am suprised by your situation. Giants are great grapplers. Archers and mages are not good against grapples. If these two guys are ripping up the giants they would be the target of the most attacks. Overrun and a giant's greater speed will get them there quickly. If the barbarian is getting knocked around he can wait until later when the other two are neutralized. Yes, weaker opponents do not want to give a fighter all of his attacks in a round. Just like your party should not want to fight the giants with all of their attacks.

The specific situation was with huge giants that have 15' reach. The initiative went wizard, cleric, archer, barbarian, giants. Not unusual except the cleric usually goes last. The wizard casts an empowered fireball and a quickened fireball (thanks to a metamagic rod). The cleric casts a empowered flame strike. The giants don't have that good of reflex saves, and can't hold up to the pounding so at least one died. The archer picks off another. The barbarian moves forward. He doesn't have quick draw so he doesn't want to draw his bow and then switch later to axe, so he readies to attack. The remaining giants charge. But the barbarian is 15' away from the giants, so the readied action is useless. The wizard flies and casts, the cleric stays on the ground and pound the giants with more area of effect spells, the archer snipes away taking out wounded giants. The barbarian moves up to attack and gets an attack of opportunity for the trouble. One giant uses awesome blow to send the barbarian 10' away, another pounds the prone barbarian. Giants try to grap the cleric but without improved grab, fail due to the attack of opportunity. The wizard is flying to far overhead, so a giant readies a bolder against a spell. Wizard goes, bolder misses (giants have bad ranged attack rolls), spells kill more giants. Cleric casts on defensive, more giants die. Archer stays in back and picks off more giants. Barbarian gets up and moves up to giant. Giants go: awesome blow, barbarian saves, another awesome blow, barbarian sent sailing no full attack next round either. Wizard, cleric, and archer finish off the giants.

Pretty typical for a fight lately in my game. The barbarian is an after thought or a speed bump. SR makes the combat longer because it makes about half the spells fail, so it kind of doubles the hit points of creatures against spells. Energy resistance is also an issue for spellcaster, but it penalizes flaming weapons and the like. But creatures with SR and Energy resistance tend to be demons and devils that also have annoying DR to slow down the melee guy (at least to change weapons), and have spell like abilities that outright stop the melee guy.

All total, I think the melee barbarian guy is a victim of a combination of poor personal tactics (readying against 15' reach), poor group tactics (the cleric and wizard almost never cast spells on him), suboptimal feat selection (should have quick draw at least), and maybe a situation problem (the current set of opponents). I'll have to check his equipment level.

Thanks for all the replies.

 

[ForceUser]

Meh. I don't have a problem with them.

Me either. I think they're cool.

 

[The_Gneech]

You might look into Mobility to help vs. those AoO's.

[combat sequence with rules oops removed]

Finally -- if you're high enough level to be fighting giants, why the heck aren't you hasted? The party wizard has some serious 'splainin' ta do!

-The Gneech

 

[Endur]

Great Cleave
Whirlwind

Nuff Said

 

[Saeviomagy]

The specific situation was with huge giants that have 15' reach. The initiative went wizard, cleric, archer, barbarian, giants. Not unusual except the cleric usually goes last. The wizard casts an empowered fireball and a quickened fireball (thanks to a metamagic rod). The cleric casts a empowered flame strike. The giants don't have that good of reflex saves, and can't hold up to the pounding so at least one died. The archer picks off another. The barbarian moves forward. He doesn't have quick draw so he doesn't want to draw his bow and then switch later to axe, so he readies to attack.
The remaining giants charge. But the barbarian is 15' away from the giants, so the readied action is useless.

He needs to pick up a reach weapon.

The wizard flies and casts, the cleric stays on the ground and pound the giants with more area of effect spells, the archer snipes away taking out wounded giants. The barbarian moves up to attack and gets an attack of opportunity for the trouble. One giant uses awesome blow to send the barbarian 10' away, another pounds the prone barbarian.

He needs to pick up a reach weapon.

Giants try to grap the cleric but without improved grab, fail due to the attack of opportunity.

What AoO? The giants still get their 10' of reach even when grappling.

IOW, the cleric should have been toast.

The wizard is flying to far overhead, so a giant readies a bolder against a spell. Wizard goes, bolder misses (giants have bad ranged attack rolls)

No they don't. Not as good as their melee, but should certainly be enough...

, spells kill more giants. Cleric casts on defensive, more giants die. Archer stays in back and picks off more giants. Barbarian gets up and moves up to giant.

reach weapon. Better tactics.

Giants go: awesome blow, barbarian saves, another awesome blow, barbarian sent sailing no full attack next round either. Wizard, cleric, and archer finish off the giants.

Pretty typical for a fight lately in my game. The barbarian is an after thought or a speed bump. SR makes the combat longer because it makes about half the spells fail, so it kind of doubles the hit points of creatures against spells. Energy resistance is also an issue for spellcaster, but it penalizes flaming weapons and the like. But creatures with SR and Energy resistance tend to be demons and devils that also have annoying DR to slow down the melee guy (at least to change weapons), and have spell like abilities that outright stop the melee guy.

All total, I think the melee barbarian guy is a victim of a combination of poor personal tactics (readying against 15' reach), poor group tactics (the cleric and wizard almost never cast spells on him), suboptimal feat selection (should have quick draw at least), and maybe a situation problem (the current set of opponents). I'll have to check his equipment level.

Thanks for all the replies.

I'm also interested in what sort of giant has a 15' reach but no SLAs to blast casters with...

It sounds like the barbarian is a one-trick pony. He can only do one thing (hit stuff with his axe). It also sounds like he's not even good at doing that (his tactics are awful, and given what you said about outsiders, he doesn't have a range of axes for different situations).

I'd suggest allowing him a rebuild so he can get some flexibility in.

 

[maggot]

Attack action: Hassan chop!
--get knocked flying by giant

Second round:
Move action: stand up
Standard action: rage, baby!

Rage is a free action. And why do you rage at this point? You are 10' away from the giant with only a standard action left.

Finally -- if you're high enough level to be fighting giants, why the heck aren't you hasted? The party wizard has some serious 'splainin' ta do!

The wizard chose to use quickened fireball to take out the damaged giants rather than buff guys that may or may not reach combat. Later he used quickened fly on himself. I'm not sure if he has ever done a quickened haste (not since 3.0 in any case).

And even a hasted barbarian would only get to stand up and move to the giant without an attack after getting flung 10' by an awesome blow. An enlarge person would have been more useful. Marginally more useful. Getting flung 10' is rough on any melee guy. Especially when the giant can do it as a standard action and move afterwards.

Tumble, however, is a good idea. The barbarian has it, and I'm not sure what the situation was that he didn't use it. He didn't rage until he could attack, I know that.

 

[MerricB]

Err... Awesome Blow requires a standard action. You can't use it as an Attack of Opportunity.

Mind you, creatures with reach 15' are so designed to be taken out with spells and ranged weapons.

Cheers!

 

[ForceUser]

Great Cleave
Whirlwind

Nuff Said

These no longer stack in 3.5E. You have to do one or the other. For a Power Attacking, 2-handed weapon wielding fighter, I'd go with Great Cleave.

 

[Kunimatyu]

Sorry, I have to say this everytime I see it - call it a compulsion

Animated Shields are one of the most unbalanced things in the game - not allowed in my campaign! And I won't play in one that does either.

Um, why? At the level where an Animated Shield is affordable(not the minimum level it can be acquired, because any competant melee type will invest in weapons first) the ability to 2-handed power attack while wielding a shield is *completely insignificant* next to the crazy spells your cleric, wizard, and druid will be tossing around. In fact, animated shields are almost a necessary item to keep the power-attacking fighters on the same power level as the casters once you get into the higher levels.

 

[Victim]

Animated Shields are broken in that they make a conventional sword and board style obsolete. Why use a longsword and shield when you can use a Greatsword for more base damage, STR damage, and Power Attack damage AND have the handy shield bonus to AC as well? Animated isn't that much extra.

On the other hand, in terms of over all effectiveness, Animated shields aren't a major concern. Adding some good shield use feats would keep sword and board characters more valuable since two hander or two weapon characters couldn't poach all the benefits of their style with a fairly cheap item.

Our group is up to 15th level, and our melee characters tear stuff up, even with fewer than "normal" encounters per day. We get alot of buffs, especially since the buff spells seem to do more damage overall than most damaging spells. Mobility (not the feat) is important; most fighter types do far less damage at range than in melee, so they need to get close quickly. Tumble is good; you avoid damage closing and, perhaps more importantly, get more leeway in picking targets since you can bypass enemy defenders.