race & feat combos that destroy my campaigns melee combat.

[Sir ThornCrest]

In a recent campaign I allowed the players to play any race, thinking if they pick a powerfull race it will come with suitable level adjustment to fit the bonuses....1 Player showed up with the book Races of Stone..This player bought it because he loves to play Dwarves. In this book there is a race called stone child...he decided to mix it up and play the Stone Child. This player put an 18 on str and 18 on con the race gave him +8 to both so he now would have a 26 str and 26 con. We started out at 12th level and he was if I remember w/ -4 (or more?) so he would be 8th level Fighter due to level adjustment. He didnt mind he chose Fighter and wanted to give it a go. he's just over 7 foot tall and a good 400lbs or so (we call him grape ape, chewy, Ucla!)

he chose feats imp sunder, power attack, imp power attack, two handed power attack (name?but it is x2 str not x 1.5 w/ two handed weapon) wep focus, wep specialization and ? a feat that allows him to cleave after a successful sunder.
any ways he weilds a huge oversized two handed sword/claymore...

His sword is a +2 Keen, bane vs undead two handed sword, and he a pair of gauntlets of ogre str (+4 str), boots of striding and leaping +2 Full or Battle Plate a couple of potions of healing and thats it.

So here is the problem...and I do consider this a major problem!

1) He destroys weapons with one swing! I mean absolutely destroys them! +2,3 4 whatever-GONE! I FEEL THAT MAGICALS NEED MORE PROTECTION THAN RAW ALLOW. To take a enemies weapon, sheild, thats +3 or more & worth 50,000 or more that took a month for the mage to enchant and to let a meathead llike this to break it with one swing? I mean c'mon already!

2) And to make it worse he causes so much damage he downs opponents like bugs bunnies pitching 1 2 3 strikes your outta here. I mean this guy causes a good 75 pionts or so a round. I didnt exactly count while we were playing but I feel this is about right. The fully powered Merilith Demon with a Medusa template (basically a Madusa head) dc 18 or get stoned- was killed in 3 of his hits and he rolled with 2d8 a 4 twice!

He doesnt have the best ac in the world, but his to hit is good but his damage toooo UBBER!
The party is now 13th level so he is 9th fighter and is debating on his next feet, so its gonna get worse!

Secondly the party cleric and wizard are'nt dumb so they beef this guy up.

IS SUNDER BROKEN? IS TWO HANDED POWER ATTACK BROKEN? ARE SMART PLAYERS BROKEN?

its not his magicals thats causing the problem at all its his feats! Usually Im known to complain of toooo much magic but now its the feats, tooo much ubber feats.

do I diss-allow the stone child race? diss-allow the above combo of feats? Should I cheat and modify dungeons to better combat the party? (I have been) tELL THE PARTY THEY GOT TO DUMB IT DOWN A BIT? OR JUST BEEF THE HELL OUT OF DUNGEONS/ENCOUNTERS?


Thorncrest
PS; do I walk alone on this? Or have you experienced the same with certian combos of feats smart players etc.

 

[Raloc]

You should probably increase the difficulty of your encounters, considering you let this player arrange his character to have godlike ability scores.

 

[Ghostwind]

Want to keep races that rely on strength under control? Use incorporeal creatures such as shadows. I have a player that is playing a goliath in my World's Largest Dungeon campaign. One attack by six shadows and he went from a 20 Str down to a 5 Str. Play your monsters smart and the bonuses he has won't really matter so much.

 

[MrFilthyIke]

I always thought a Stonechild was waaay powerful. And Sundering is a cruel, cruel thing.

Especially when NPC's use it on PC's.

 

[Crothian]

Well, most encounters shouldn't have weapons. That takes care of sunder really fast. If you want to take care of him, hit him a will save spell, bet he doesn't have a good one of them.

What you have is a character really good at this one thing, melee combat. So, you have to mix it up some or yyes he will be too tough.

 

[Rystil Arden]

You're lucky. If he was trying to powergame, he would have taken the Combat Brute feat from Complete Warrior so he could Cleave through the weapon to hit the enemy behind it with the same attack. As it is, he wasted two feats on the non-existent (except in Neverwinter Nights) Improved Power Attack (you always get 2x the power attack input with 2-handed weapons in 3.5, and none at all with an off-handed weapon, even though you keep the penalty. I houseruled this away because it makes two-weapon-fighting even worse compared to two-handed). As for sundering, yes, its much too easy to do. Its pretty easy to see that, too, with or without high ECL Races and two-handed Power Attack, you can break most weapons pretty easily with Improved Sunder. So as a DM, I have an unspoken agreement with my players: If none of them try this cheesy tactic on the opponents (and why would they destroy perfectly good loot?), I won't have NPCs use Sunder on them (although if they challenge a Nightwalker with the Crush Item Supernatural ability, or something of that ilk, that's fair game).

Anyway, as for killing your monsters, it could be worse. He could be a Stonechild Barbarian6/FrenziedBerserker2 with a +4 Belt of Giant Strength and 40 Strength in Frenzy, dealing 42 damage per blow, three attacks per round (without a magic weapon).

 

[reveal]

I have a player in my campaign who is a Warforged Fighter and is a tank. But he doesn't even come close to your player. How did they get 2 18's? Unfortunately, you've backed yourself into a corner and unless you want to raise the difficulty of your encounters, which would probably mean killing the other players too quickly, I would talk to the player and get them to change the character.

 

[MrFilthyIke]

Want to keep races that rely on strength under control? Use incorporeal creatures such as shadows. I have a player that is playing a goliath in my World's Largest Dungeon campaign. One attack by six shadows and he went from a 20 Str down to a 5 Str. Play your monsters smart and the bonuses he has won't really matter so much.

Ghostwind gives WISE advice, follow his lead.

 

[Sir ThornCrest]

Well he chose 18 str and 18 con and the stone child race gave him +8 to str and+8 con so its by RAW would you suggest I not allow this race? Or tell him the race gives him less of a bonus? That was part of my initial question.

Thorncrest

You should probably increase the difficulty of your encounters, considering you let this player arrange his character to have godlike ability scores.

 

[jgbrowning]

You can generally safely assume than any character made at level 12 will be more powerful (probably at least +1CR) than any naturally advanced 12th level char. There's no opportunity cost decisions when you start at a high level.

Keep letting him break magic items, that's no big deal. Just make 100% certain to include those items in the amount of treasure the groups supposed to be receiving. And don't fall prey to the belief that CR is set in stone. Although a monster may have a CR listed as 12, if your group doesn't consistantly spend the proper amount of resources in that encounter, they shouldn't earn the same XP.

Or if you wanna be a rat-bastard GM, sunder his weapon and watch him cry as he realizes he can't do anything without it.

joe b.