my dilemma...Need advice

[bleakcabal]

Hello, I need some help with a difficult situation. Let me first say that I don't post very much but I have been reading these forums for years and I know there are a lot Intelligent gamers here. (please forgive any grammar errors)

Let me say this first, I have playing and running D&D for twenty plus years.

Here' the situation
I'm currently running a pathfinder game for five friends, one of my friends is power gamer and he is playing a 6th lvl Magus and i find myself becoming so angry with him because how powerful he is. let me explain. He is using spell combat with spellstrike and casting shocking grasp, in addition to giving his weapon the frost and flaming quality with arcane pool. So he makes a melee attack and does 5D6(shocking grasp)+ 1d8+2(+1 elven thin Blade+str bonus)+2d6(flaming+frost), then gets to make his normal Melee attack 1D8+2 +2d6(flaming+frost), for a grand total of 9d6+2d8+4! which i find to be a lot of Damage, and he can do this round after round.

I read the rules for magus and at first i thought he could not make the second attack and we got into a huge fight over it and frankly I blew my top and he left. Then after reading the rules several more time i realized he could!!. on top of all that his AC after casting shield on himself is 25 which is five points higher then anyone else. Here's the problem no one else in the group is near this powerful, its difficult for me to build encounters to challenge him with out slaughtering everyone else.

this guy is a good friend of mind but i'm afraid our play styles are incompatible.

I do plan on apologizing to him for blowing up at him about the rules. I just couldn't believe how powerful that class was.

I don't know what to do..
any advice would be helpful

Thanks

 

[KiloGex]

Unfortunately, it does seem that he is playing the class by the books and isn't tweaking anything to make it uber-powerful. It just seems like that is how the class is. With the combo of the Arcane Pool weapon bonus, Spell combat and Spellstrike this class does seem to be exceptionally OP. There doesn't really seem to be anything that you can do, other than kill him and tell him to roll a new toon, he just seemed to pick a very powerful class and play it appropriately.

 

[Tovec]

Here's the problem no one else in the group is near this powerful, its difficult for me to build encounters to challenge him with out slaughtering everyone else.

Okay, so you're the DM. I have a few things to ask or point out in that regard. Then I'll offer some tricks I've used in the past.

A. Have you tried talking to him about your difficulties in designing appropriate challenges? People are more receptive if they understand the issue.
B. Have you talked to the rest of the group, his fellow party, to see what they think. Do they like having a powerful member of the group to help them survive or do they despise the showboater for being nigh unkillable?
C. You are the DM. If you need to you can houserule things into working the right way. Yes you may have been wrong about what the rule says but that doesn't mean you can't change it to what it needs to be. This works really well with A and B. If the player realizes its an issue and you can find a compromise, take it.
D. Kill the character. More on this below.

Now suggestions.
1. If the party is okay with the character then consider changing the dynamic of how the game should be run. If he is their guardian angel then have him accept that responsibility and incorporate that into the game.
2. If no one can stand it then talk about ways for the character to retire or go out in a blaze of glory.
3. If you are feeling really alone in the deal, then tell the party that you are going to start designing encounters with the objective of being able to kill that PC. That they are going to hit harder challenges because they as a party can deal with them. This gives the other players an incentive to make that player not so much of a power gamer and to pick something at least more their speed. You don't need to go over the top with this. Don't throw things that are immune to all his elemental damage all the time, just challenges that are appropriate for the raised CR that player introduces.
4. Rocks fall everyone dies. New game/characters/quest/campaign!

 

[tylermalan]

Welcome to the boards, though I know you said you've lurked for awhile.

In my opinion, any and all metagame issues can and should always be resolved out-of-game. This is just a longer way of saying that you should just talk to the player. As Tovec pointed out, people are more receptive when they understand the issue. If this is really a good friend of yours, I can't imagine he would continue to try to ruin your experience with the game once he knows that this is what he's doing.

 

[Swedish Chef]

Borrow a monster from WotC's MM 4 (3.5ed).

Mageripper Swarm
Sucks 1 random spell slot or spell like ability from everyone with 30 feet, per round, DC 19 will save. Gains hit points equal to 5x spell level drained for each spell.
Swarm immunity (include spell effects that target an individual [shocking grasp] and takes only half damage from slashing weapons).

I had a party that felt they were unstoppable at 5th level. 6 characters, 2 of them spell casters. In the end, the only reason they survived is that I ran out of spell levels to remove from them and therefore ran out of "healing". One spell caster was unconcious and the other did nothing but run around the camp trying to avoid the swarm while leading it past his comrades for AoOs. Even then, he barely survived.

 

[cyderak]

When asked by players about their options in certain situations I say , "You can do anything you want in PATHFINDER.......But be aware, like anything in life, there are consequences to your actions".

And like I say as a DM, "There is ALWAYS a way around any situation a player can present to me". As DM I can plan ahead to the next encounter by putting any legal spell in a wizards spellbook to handle PC's.

Which brings me to the meat of the discussion. Present him with an encounter you know he can't pass up, then rig it.
Encounter specifics:
--Monsters:
_____**1 Wizard
_____**1 MAGUS(A dose of his own medicine)
--While resting make it so the encounter happens on his watch.
--Enemy wizard casts silence on him. (Can't warn other PC's of enemies and can't cast spells with verbal components).
--Enemy MAGUS casts Ray of Enfeeblement on him.......1d6 + level in STR. damage.
--Next round Enemy Magus casts Hydraulic Push to put him on the ground.(Negatives to hit from a prone position)
--Enemy Wizard casts "Lock Gaze" on him. He stares at the caster and ignores other enemies thus giving them concealment. If he breaks the staring gaze he becomes blind for 1 round.
--Enemy Magus proceeds to mash him into a fine paste.



Now I could have just said cast hold person and then Coup de Grace him but as I described above, he'll get a fighting chance.

Act eveything up too. As soon as you flub your roll to put him on watch for the encounter give a big convincing HAAAARUMPH!!!


There you go.

You took care of the Powerful PC problem.

 

[Epametheus]

A magus is impressive, especially if he doesn't have to care about resource conservation.

He DOES need to be performing the spell combat full attack action to get his extra weapon swing. He doesn't get that during rounds where he has to move.

The simple solution to just tell him that his character is so much better than everyone else's there you're worried you'd kill the rest of the party trying to challenge him.

The other issue of interest - what's the rest of the party like? How is this guy as strong as everyone else put together? More importantly, do they mind that?

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

A magus is impressive, especially if he doesn't have to care about resource conservation.

He DOES need to be performing the spell combat full attack action to get his extra weapon swing. He doesn't get that during rounds where he has to move.

The simple solution to just tell him that his character is so much better than everyone else's there you're worried you'd kill the rest of the party trying to challenge him.

The other issue of interest - what's the rest of the party like? How is this guy as strong as everyone else put together? More importantly, do they mind that?

This. Sounds like he's blowing a LOT of short duration spells and effects (shield; the weapon enhancements from spell pool) and getting away with it. Lengthen the adventuring day, with encounters spaced out enough that his min/level buffs only last for one fight whenever logically possible. Spread out the enemies more so he can never kill more than 1 per turn (at least until he can get the Dimensional Dervish feat, which was intended for monks but works SO much better on a magus...) no matter how much damage he does and use more foes in general. CR is an art, not a science. If the party can handle more foes because of how powerful his character is, it's not really worth awarding the party more xp. Just use more monsters, not buffed up/advanced ones, as there's a thin line between "overwhelm him with the weight of our actions per turn" and "OMG he's crazy powerful! TPK!" Of course, still take care for monsters that become incredibly nasty in large groups, like mind flayers and shocker lizards. Start using a "team of bosses" rather than a single big bad when possible. If using a single boss, have him use figments and decoys to make the Magus waste resources attacking the wrong person/square.

 

[SkredlitheOgre]

Definitely apologize and put your concerns out there. Hopefully that'll get everything cleared up.

If nothing gets resolved and you keep playing, something I've found in this case is that the other players, whether they mind or not, tend to decide that the powerful character is good enough that they can be kind of lackadaisical in combat. Stealth is a good option for bad guys too. If you combine this with StreamOfTheSky's idea of a 'group of bosses' mentality, you can have the powerful character spending time taking down 'boss' enemies or illusions thereof, while slightly less powerful enemies swarm the rest of the characters. Once (if) they survive, it could force them to fight more like a team instead of one guy doing everything. Especially if, like StreamOfTheSky said, you extend the adventuring day so that resources have to be expended over a longer period of time.

Damage reduction and reach weapons are also fun things for bad guys to have. Your Magus steps up to lay down the hurt, oh...AoO. If you can get more than one guy on him, there's flanking bonuses. Combat Maneuvers, like grappling or tripping, can reduce his AC. If he's prone from tripping, standing up is an AoO at -4 to his AC. If he's hard to get a hold of, multiple creatures can grapple the same opponent, with a +2 (using Aid Another) to the CMB.

Feint is something the rogue in my party uses. Bluff vs. Sense Motive. If the Sense Motive fails, he's denied his Dexterity bonus. Disarm can take away his sword and Bull Rush can push him away, making him use a Move action, granting him only one attack.

Try to handle this out of game, definitely. You have options in-game, but they might push the player even harder if you suddenly start targeting his character.

Good luck.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Damage reduction comment reminded me of something I forgot to add. He's using flaming, shock, etc... That's only a d6. Just energy resistance 5 will annihilate that, without hurting anyone else in the party (even an evoker won't notice -5 damage much when he's doing like 30) in a noticeable fashion.