Min/max tricks of the players
Tratyn Runewind
First Post
Hello!
Optimium combat stats for a weapon/familiar/summoned creature are all well and good, but among players I've seen, they are regularly trumped by a thing called sheer coolness. Going, say, the swashbuckling Finesse/Rapier route, the knightly Lance and Spirited Charge route, or the eagle-eyed Archer route with a Fighter may bring a character in a few points lower on the Career Combat Damage Average stats than a Greatsword-wielding Strength-fighter, but a lot of players will happily make the sacrifice for the sheer coolness of those archetypes. What constitutes sheer coolness varies from group to group, and seems to vary especially widely depending on just which fantasy books or movies the players have been reading or seeing most recently before the character-creation session...
A related phenomenon is utter lameness. Items or techniques that give real combat advantages might be ignored or even mocked by players due to their utter lameness. As with sheer coolness, judgements here are highly subjective and variable, but Spiked Chains (just give me a manriki-gusari, already), Toad familiars (Toads?! Toads are for witches!), and summoned Celestial Bisons (MOOOOOO!) tend to skirt perilously close to this category; most exotic double weapons usually fall deep within it.
I remember seeing a character who did this. He wasn't the brightest candle in the chandelier, but it got him through a lot of frays. He was somewhat unlucky, but generally an OK guy as long as you didn't call him "mendicant" or hog the cheese dip...
As others have pointed out, this fighting style isn't exactly tops in the powergaming department, but it could do OK in combat, and doesn't seem lame or contrived, or even particularly unrealistic. Not every bastard sword is a full-sized claymore - katanas are bastard swords in 3e, and I could easily see a character fighting with two of them. I'd far sooner see a player with this than, say, the yet-another-elf-ranger-wielding-two-scimitars.
If everybody's having fun with it, sure, let it continue. And if it starts to become tiresome, that's the time for the DM to pull a few curveballs out of the trusty bag of tricks. I tend to view drastic rules changes or outright banning of things from the Core Rulebooks as an absolute last resort.
The summoning case is somewhat special because of the sharply limited selection of creatures, but remember that summoning aligned creatures gives the summon spell the creature's alignment descriptors. The "best" critter for a good summoner will be different from that for an evil summoner, and characters repeatedly casting spells of opposite alignment simply "because their creatures are better" could face alignment consequences. Same goes for neutral characters repeatedly summoning creatures of one alignment without balancing it out by summoning creatures of the opposite. Also, as others have said, which creatures are really "best" will vary according to the combat situation - one size does not necessarily fit all. Against high-AC targets, creatures with multiple less-accurate attacks might be inferior to those with fewer but more accurate attacks, for example, while the opposite may be true against low-AC but high HP targets. And a little Magic-style metagaming could come in handy here, too. If a party becomes predictable in what they summon, those with knowledge of their favorites could come prepared for them - a villainous wizard repeatedly thwarted by a PC party's summoned fire elementals may load up the old Ring of Spell Storing with Cone of Cold, and may decide that crafting wands of Magic Circle or Ice Storm before his next attack is a worthy investment. Creatures with less obvious vulnerabilities can still be examined for their weakest Saving Throws, movement capabilities and limitations, and so forth - all info just waiting to be exploited by a thoughtful enemy. Smarter villains who are aware that the PCs might interfere with their plans will take pains to get this information beforehand, whether by scrying, by using Gather Information in adventurer hangouts, or by sending crowds of expendable underlings to attack the PCs just so their response can be scouted.
Hope this helps!
Optimium combat stats for a weapon/familiar/summoned creature are all well and good, but among players I've seen, they are regularly trumped by a thing called sheer coolness. Going, say, the swashbuckling Finesse/Rapier route, the knightly Lance and Spirited Charge route, or the eagle-eyed Archer route with a Fighter may bring a character in a few points lower on the Career Combat Damage Average stats than a Greatsword-wielding Strength-fighter, but a lot of players will happily make the sacrifice for the sheer coolness of those archetypes. What constitutes sheer coolness varies from group to group, and seems to vary especially widely depending on just which fantasy books or movies the players have been reading or seeing most recently before the character-creation session...
A related phenomenon is utter lameness. Items or techniques that give real combat advantages might be ignored or even mocked by players due to their utter lameness. As with sheer coolness, judgements here are highly subjective and variable, but Spiked Chains (just give me a manriki-gusari, already), Toad familiars (Toads?! Toads are for witches!), and summoned Celestial Bisons (MOOOOOO!) tend to skirt perilously close to this category; most exotic double weapons usually fall deep within it.
I remember seeing a character who did this. He wasn't the brightest candle in the chandelier, but it got him through a lot of frays. He was somewhat unlucky, but generally an OK guy as long as you didn't call him "mendicant" or hog the cheese dip...
As others have pointed out, this fighting style isn't exactly tops in the powergaming department, but it could do OK in combat, and doesn't seem lame or contrived, or even particularly unrealistic. Not every bastard sword is a full-sized claymore - katanas are bastard swords in 3e, and I could easily see a character fighting with two of them. I'd far sooner see a player with this than, say, the yet-another-elf-ranger-wielding-two-scimitars.
If everybody's having fun with it, sure, let it continue. And if it starts to become tiresome, that's the time for the DM to pull a few curveballs out of the trusty bag of tricks. I tend to view drastic rules changes or outright banning of things from the Core Rulebooks as an absolute last resort.
The summoning case is somewhat special because of the sharply limited selection of creatures, but remember that summoning aligned creatures gives the summon spell the creature's alignment descriptors. The "best" critter for a good summoner will be different from that for an evil summoner, and characters repeatedly casting spells of opposite alignment simply "because their creatures are better" could face alignment consequences. Same goes for neutral characters repeatedly summoning creatures of one alignment without balancing it out by summoning creatures of the opposite. Also, as others have said, which creatures are really "best" will vary according to the combat situation - one size does not necessarily fit all. Against high-AC targets, creatures with multiple less-accurate attacks might be inferior to those with fewer but more accurate attacks, for example, while the opposite may be true against low-AC but high HP targets. And a little Magic-style metagaming could come in handy here, too. If a party becomes predictable in what they summon, those with knowledge of their favorites could come prepared for them - a villainous wizard repeatedly thwarted by a PC party's summoned fire elementals may load up the old Ring of Spell Storing with Cone of Cold, and may decide that crafting wands of Magic Circle or Ice Storm before his next attack is a worthy investment. Creatures with less obvious vulnerabilities can still be examined for their weakest Saving Throws, movement capabilities and limitations, and so forth - all info just waiting to be exploited by a thoughtful enemy. Smarter villains who are aware that the PCs might interfere with their plans will take pains to get this information beforehand, whether by scrying, by using Gather Information in adventurer hangouts, or by sending crowds of expendable underlings to attack the PCs just so their response can be scouted.
Hope this helps!
Mustrum_Ridcully
Hero
I remember some stories some of the players told me about Gaming Conventions.
On these Cons, you often find absolute super-powergamer-munchkin-extra-ordinary heros - who are not worth their salt.
One of the players remembered, that when his character only appeared with a simple armor vest, the other players feared this character, because they couldn`t believe or understand that this character was really that weak armored and armed
So, coolness over power can really work.
Mustrum Ridcully
On these Cons, you often find absolute super-powergamer-munchkin-extra-ordinary heros - who are not worth their salt.
One of the players remembered, that when his character only appeared with a simple armor vest, the other players feared this character, because they couldn`t believe or understand that this character was really that weak armored and armed
So, coolness over power can really work.
Mustrum Ridcully
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