Making Melee Characters Useful at High Levels

[maggot]

He needs to pick up a reach weapon.

Just saw your post, and yes a reach weapon would help.

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

15' reach actually, but you still provoke an attack when grappling and since you have to use part of your body to grapple, the attack would hit. Or at least that is how I have always ruled it. I never even considered it the other way.

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

Well, cloud giant have 15' reach, and they can levitate, obscuring mist or fog cloud. That's it: nothing to blast casters with. They weren't cloud giants, just huge giants. But why does this matter? Is there something wrong with non-standard monsters that is hosing over the barbarian? If so, why do fights against other monsters seem to always go against him as well. For example, against Fiendish T-Rexes (improved grab) or Forest Sloths (improved grab again).

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.

He does have a range of options, but it seems more and more limited as time goes by. He does have multiple axes to choose from, but lacks quick draw. I'm not a big fan of complete rebuilds, but perhaps allowing him to swap for quick draw would be a good idea.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

You could consider instituting the stunt system from the Book of Iron Might, written by Mike Mearls and published by Malhavoc Press. It's a D&D-supplement version of what he did with his OGL game Iron Heroes, in many ways.

The first chapter introduces combat maneuvers, which basically offer a way to devise special attacks which are generally balanced with existing options in the core rules. For instance, in the core D&D combat system you can make a trip attack, which requires a Strength check and exposes you to the same effect if you fail. In the combat maneuver system, the trip effect (render your opponent prone) would carry an attack penalty of -10, for argument's sake. You don't want to be taking -10 on your attack roll just to trip someone, so you add two drawbacks (make Strength check, can be tripped if you fail) which each reduce the penalty by 5 to a total of 0 - and you have your trip attack.

The range of maneuver effects and drawbacks is pretty wide - ability score damage, daze attacks, forced movement, knockback, an immobilizing ranged attack that pins your foe to the wall, for instance, with the maneuver drawing attacks of opportunity, causing the effects only and no damage, requiring a full-round action, or needing such overwhelming effort that you lose your footing and fall prone.

Whether you create a set of standard maneuvers or allow players to create them on the fly depending on the present circumstances is up to you. The other great part is that maneuvers have "warning flags" calling out possibly unbalanced situations that can arise, so that you're warned of consequences you might not have intended.

The other great section of the book for this situation is the stunt system in the fourth chapter - which uses base attack and skill checks, often combining two skill checks together in the same action, to pull off daredevil stuff to give you an edge in combat. When fighting giants, for instance, the Climb stunt "Scaling Attack" could be useful - you climb up a much larger opponent to deny them their Dexterity bonus to AC from your attacks. There are plenty of stunts useful to barbarians - the Survival stunt "Wilderness Tactics" which uses the natural environment to your advantage, the Intimidate stunt "Blood-Kissed Threat" to render an ally of a foe you just dropped shaken - as well as more free-form uses of skills to pull off stunts in combat.

The stunt system includes a "DM Judgement Factor" in determining skill check DCs so as to set the right tone for the campaign's action. Normally this would be no bonus or penalty at all, but in a low-stunt, realistic campaign there might be +5 to the DC so that only the truly athletic can really pull off stunts, while in a swashbuckling campaign that's all about the daring moves there might be a -10 to the DC.

I highly recommend the Book of Iron Might to anyone who wants more options for warriors in D&D. It also includes some other excellent material which isn't directly relevant to this topic - arcane battle feats which grant supernatural enhancements in combat (including wuxia standing on air and flying), battlemind feats for the intellectual, meditative warrior, and fighting style feats which grant minor techniques as your character improves in martial ability (gains base attack bonus).

There's also an interesting construct race which is much more a "fantasy robot" than the warforged.

 

[johnsemlak]

I don't have the book myself, but one source of ideas worth getting might be Goodman Games' Power Gamer's 3.5 Warrior Strategy Guide.

 

[The_Gneech]

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.

D'Oh! I've been playing in a game were it was houseruled to be a standard action, and forgot about that. So yeah, rage first. The point of raging then was that you had an action that was "wasted" anyway.

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.

Pfui. Assuming you knew combat was coming, even the nerfed 3.x haste is too useful not to use. The +1 to hit mitigates the BAB hit from power attack or expertise use, or even just makes it easier to get through giants' big ol' AC; the +1 AC mitigates the AC hit from rage, and so on. (Let's not forget the +1 to Reflex saves, that might have prevented the Awesome Blow from having any effect!) Granted, the bbn never got to make a full attack action and so lost out on the extra attack. But haste is a full-party buff that helps everybody.

-The Gneech

 

[maggot]

But haste is a full-party buff that helps everybody.

I agree. I love haste. My sorcerer took haste as his only third level spell. But as DM of this campaign, I have no control over what the wizard chooses to do with his spell slots. He is an evoker and evokes away. And yes, this doesn't help the barbarian situation, which is why I'm looking for ideas that will make the barb more useful.

 

[maggot]

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

I never said it was use as an AoO. (I agree that would be totally over the top.) The Awesome Blow was used so that the barb was always 15' away at the start of his turn, which meant he had to move to attack, which meant no full attack for mister barbarian and an extra attack for mister giant.

Someone suggested a reach weapon, but that wouldn't have helped. He still would have been 10' from where he needed to be, and he would have needed to approach through the 15' reach to attack so still lost his full attack and taken an AoO. Reach weapon + enlarge person would have made it so the barb didn't take the AoO because of the 20' reach, but the giant could still fling him 10' from attacking position.

I'm beginning to think that awesome blow that is part of the problem.

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

I'm not sure I read that anywhere, but you might be right. Unfortunately, huge creatures are quite common as you get up in levels.

It would be nice if each creature said what kind of situation it creates (casters shine, archers shine, melee guys shine). What kind of creatures do you think make melee guys shine? Someone else suggested lots of smaller guys, but they would be more prone to area of effect spells than the giants.

 

[Dark Jezter]

Strange. We've never had problems with melee classes being useless at high levels in any of the 3e campaigns I've participated in. I've observed that at high levels, the fighters and barbarians end up dealing the most damage over the course of a fight to powerful enemies, while wizards and sorcerers tend to be the best at quickly taking out groups of weaker enemies. This seems to be due to the fact that at high levels, Spell Resistance (which a lot of high-level creatures have) and saving throws will limit the power of casters. But high level melee characters tend to have such high BABs that few enemies have ACs high enough to avoid their hits.

In 2e, though, it was completely true that mages owned everybody else at high levels.

 

[Enkhidu]

...I'm beginning to think that awesome blow that is part of the problem...

I would agree. Removing the ability of a melee fighter to full attack is a big thing in high level combat.

What kind of creatures do you think make melee guys shine?

Golems come to mind as prime candidates, but I think what you're looking for are leveled humanoids. They take a bit more work to pull off than monsters, but are better suited toward letting melee fighters shine.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I would say what you're looking for is either evil outsiders (particularly devils--good saves, spell resistance, energy resistance, and a bevy of spell like abilities mean that melee or ranged physical damage is the best way to attack them (though their high AC means they can survive for a little bit--particularly if the party spellcasters don't buff their allies)). Alternatively monks are good foes for melee fighters. Between good saves and spell resistance, they're tough for spellcasters to take down.

 

[the Jester]

I've found that well-equipped melee-types are incredibly lethal at high levels, especially if they're well-built. In my epic group there have been a number of occasions when the fighter (or warmind) just cleaned up against incredible villains.