Thurbane said:
Sometimes as a DM, you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't. The players either get bored of easy wins if you keep using the same opponents/tactics, or they cry foul if opponents start to adapt to and circumvent their tactics.
I think the problem is that too many players make characters that are over-specialized. This is sort of a problem with Prestige Classes and such, but there's even core feats and such that give opportunities for this (the Weapon Focus/Specialization/Improved Critical feats come to mind) by allowing players to become specialized in one thing. Once a character is too specialized, they become awesome in their specialized situation, but once a DM tries to combat them or nullify any of their abilities (even for the sake of balance), it makes the player feel worthless and sometimes makes them think the DM is maliciously attacking their characters' abilities.
If Wizards comes out with a Base Class that relies solely on fighting enemies susceptible to mind-affecting effects and things with no SR and low Will Saves, then that only puts the DM between a rock and a hard place when he tries to make challenging battles, because in almost every case, anything the Beguiler fights will be completely destroyed, or completely immune. In my opinion, this is something the player should be aware of when they make a Beguiler- they should be informed that in most cases, their character will be completely worthless. But, when most players make beguilers (in my experience), they instead assume that in most cases their character will be awesome, and tend to call foul whenever they begin facing anything like Undead Oozes, Constructs, or someone with Mind Blank.
I've seen things similar to this in my groups- one time, in particular, one of the players was playing a Changeling Beguiler/Mindspy (I think?), and the DM in question has a reputation of being particularly lenient when it comes to bad things happening to the PCs. We went about half of the campaign with the Changeling being WTFPWNBBQ against all of the humanoid enemies, but as soon as we came across some undead (as there ended up being quite a bit of undead near the end of this campaign), he was completely inneffective, and the player started getting frustrated because of it. And then, in a move I should have seen coming, the DM gave him a custom magic item halfway through the campaign that, somehow, gave him the ability to use all of his mindspy abilities (and some of his spells) against undead.
I, for one, was pissed off. He gave everyone else custom magic items too, but come on- nothing he could have given me, the Fighter, could have compensated for allowing the Changeling to be able to PWN anything he came across. (Unless he gave me unbeatable SR or something. That would have been nice.) And so because one player was getting fussy because he chose an inneffective class, he ended up being promoted to effective godhood while I was still getting my butt handed to me by undead warlords.
...So, yeah. Back to my main point, it's tough for the DM to handle over-specialized characters. I'm honestly not sure what I would have done in the above situation, but whenever I'm a player I try not to specialize myself THAT much unless I'm well aware (and inform the DM) of my horrible flaws and how they'll affect me as the campaign may progress.
The player doesn't know what he's talking about. If he needs a clue send 'im to me: I sell 'em cheap. ![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
