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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zad" data-source="post: 1288786" data-attributes="member: 90">An interesting situation. Here's my take, which boils down to two parts. First, an old Champions DM of mine had a saying/rule/guideline for all players: everyone should have an offense, a defense, and a movement power. Character concept is great but you should cover those bases somehow, and he was right, doubly so in a supers setting. But it applies to D&D also - you neglect an area at your peril. You have focused mostly on defense, they on offense, so the disparity is overly emphasized. Personally I feel there is nothing wrong with some focus - every character in a party should be the best (in the group) at something. It allows everyone to shine. But it is odd at times. Second part: I find the levels of your group particularly interesting. Because whether you know it or not, you're doomed! Ok not really - they're doomed. Here's why: Up til now, life has been fairly simple for your merry band - a failed save is a pain, but not fatal - the effects are usually not permanent. But you're heading into the mid/high levels now. Save-or-die spells become much more common and suddenly everyone realizes they better put some time/money/effort into their defenses. They start buying resistance items, taking save-related feats, boosting AC, and so on. It's not unusual in my experience to focus on offense early, but later you realize that when you get to the point where you can't kill things in a round, you damn well better tend to your defenses. That or you will end up with a lot of dead PCs. Assuming that lesson sinks in, then over time, the polarities in your group will pull together. They will invest in defenses, (not to mention that there's only so much you can do to boost offense) and you will have gold/feats/etc to spend on offense.  But that still leaves you with a problem right now, and I see where the DM is coming from. One suggestion is this - the DM says to all players "We have a problem. I think it will go away in time, but I'd like everyone to help fix it in the short term. I'd like each of you to come up with one way to move your character back to the middle ground. Offensive characters - find something defensive, etc. You can re-select a feat, alter a prior magic item purchase, whatever, with my approval. You can take that feat back later on, but I need to pull everyone together a little right now to help my job balancing your encounters." So maybe the ranger drops improved rapid shot and takes iron will, and then just takes improved rapid shot again at 12th, or whatever.   Another alternative that depends on how forward thinking the group is: you can just point them to some higher level story hours and say "unless you guys think about your hit points/saves/AC, you'll all be toasted by the first beholder that sees you."</blockquote>

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