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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yair" data-source="post: 4128578" data-attributes="member: 10913">1) We are playing through the Shackled City Adventure Path, currently on the plane of Occipatus undergoing the Test of the Smoking Eye.2) While the characters are a bit optimized to battle demons, which are common on this plane, the problem is with their general power level. It is a large party, and hasn't really been challenged in a long time.3) Well.... there are six characters:Nor is the biggest problem. He is a level 10 grey elf wizard (conjurer)/guildmage. He has the Double Wand Wielder feat (Complete Arcane) that allows him to activate two wands as a full round action, double the charges for the secondary wand. He also has the Metamagic Wandgrip magic item (Complete Mage), which allows him to apply a metamagic feat he knows to a wand 3/day. He also has several metamagic feats, including Energy Substitution (so monster vulnerability really is crazy...), Quicken Spell, and Empower Spell. He also has several wands, of his own manufacture. Putting out the massive damage is doable once per day: he spends a full-round action to activate both wands, applying Empower to one with the Wandgrip, and then applying the Quicken metamagic through the Wandgrip for more damage. That leaves him with only 1 daily use of his wandgrip. Normally, he uses less power - either casting spells normally, or applying the wandgrip-wand or two wands if things require more firepower. The short of it is that nothing can really withstand his firepower for two rounds.A major contributer to their success is their scout, It. He is the craziest character, a "Male Elan Rogue 2 Ardent 4 Elocater 3 Shadowdancer 1" as his character sheet says. He has a ring of blink, and powers, skill tricks, and magic items related to being a scout. The result is that he has Listen +7, Spot +17, Darkvision 60 feet, Low light vision, Elf sight, Hide+36, Move silently +13, Search +24, Tumble +13, Hide in Plain Sight, and constantly blinks so can pass through walls etc. He also always carries the psychic warrior's psicrystal with him so can communicate with the party from a distance. He is practically undetectable, making him an excellent scout - so the party almost always has the intel on its adversaries and is only rarely surprised.The other major artillery piece is the sorceress, Cordelia. She is just a level 10 sorceress, with sub-optimal spells really. Nothing too powerful here. She does have a Lesser Empower rod, and she does occasionaly use a spell from Spell Compendium that is too powerful - I think it's called Dragon's Breath or something like that, it is essentially a save-or-die spell that is a few spell levels too low.Another fairly effective artillery member is Lucas the ranger 5/order of the bow initiate 5. Fairly standard fair there, just an effective archer - wielding a +1 flaming mighty (+2) longbow, and feats such as Precise Shot and Rapid Shot. He can fire three arrows as a full round action, something like +14/+14/+9  (1d8+4+1d6 fire); he always manages to do a fair amount of damage.Then there is the psychic warrior, Big Mac. He is a a level 10 dwarf psychic warrior, with powers that include Expansion, Dissolving Weapon, and Hustle. Feats include Psycrystal Containment and Psionic Meditation, as well as Deep Impact and Psionic Weapon. He carries a +3 shield, +3 full plate, slippers and spider climbing, and +1 adamantine outsider(evil) bane dwarven waraxe (plus a small arsenal of other axes). I think he's pretty reasonable - he can dish out plenty of damage as a Huge dwarf, can barely be hit with all his armor gear, and has lots of hit points - but I regularly punch him when he faces high-CR opponents, and his hp or damage output aren't that high.Finally, there is the level 10 human cleric/inquisitor, Joseph. Really he's underpowered if anything, and I don't see him as a problem there at all.They are also accompanied in the adventure by a level 11 sorcerer, Kaurophon. His main weapon is a cone of cold (not empowered or anything); not a game-breaking character there.Edit: The problem lies with their overall power level, not just Nor's crazy shticks. For example, in the last session a dragon assualted them. The party let him come, having prepared with energy-abosrption (acid resistance) magic. The dragon breathed on Nor - which only scratched him, due to his resistance, so Nor fired back, and the dragon the grappled the wizard. Tense moement, right? Well, the dwarf approached, turned Huge, and use Action Points to stop the dragon from flying away while pounding him in. And the wizard used an Action Point to dimesnion door away (by boosting his concentration check). Then the sorceress (Cordelia) breathed on the dragon, making him sleep, and the encounter was over. The encounter was made easier due to their action points here, and due to their massive combined fire-power and Cordelia's spell the dragon never really had a chance.</blockquote>

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