Unbalanced Encounters

[Nyronus]

IMO, if you are playing a defender, having sky high defenses is pointless unless you also focus on making your mark mean something. The ideal is defenses that are tempting but still high and a really nasty punishing attack for anyone who ignores you.

Actually, this is somewhat misleading: The ideal situation is to have both a crippling punishment mechanic, and to be nigh invulnerable. That way any enemy that you mark loses either way. My hybrid paladin|fighter has lay one hands (house rule), high defenses except for his reflex, resistances, and THP out the wazo. If you choose not to waste time trying to hurt him though, enemies eat 9-12 automatic damage, a melee basic attack, and lose half the damage from their attack, and he can do this twice a round. Both options are poor ones for team monster, particularly if team monster is a solo. You shouldn't reward team monster for trying to fight a defender, you should make that suck and any OTHER option suck even harder.

Its the difference between a good defender and a great one.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Fortunately, this guy is a fighter, not a paladin. He's only dangerous because he gets a free hit if enemies target someone squishier.

 

[Nyronus]

Fortunately, this guy is a fighter, not a paladin. He's only dangerous because he gets a free hit if enemies target someone squishier.

Which is why he should daze them on the hit. Or do 60 damage. Or slide them 7 and knock the prone, invalidating the attack altogether. Fighters can get on the game to, they just need to know how.

 

[Havrik Stoneskimmer]

The other thing I want to say is don't metagame your monsters. In other words, make sure you are playing them in a way that makes sense within the narrative of the game. Intelligent monsters should ignore the big heavily armored guy in favor of a squishy wizard in robes, but an angry or scared beast might very well just attack whoever hit it last. Some monsters might preferentially attack certain races or classes, even if it's not necessarily the best tactic to do so (hobgoblins really hate elves, for example). Some NPCs with an overdeveloped sense of honor might feel it necessary to confront the fighter in single combat.

So by all means use the advice given here, but only when it makes sense for the monsters to fight that well. Mixing things up keeps each combat fresh and different, anyway.

 

[keterys]

At high level it's pretty easy to just toss around lots of bursts and multitarget attacks, anyways.

 

[Horatio]

I know that
You know that
He doesn't

I had a similar player once, playing a fighter too. And so it happens, the group ran into intelligent opponents with a smart leader. I did not realised what the outcome of the battle will be when I was designing it until we played it, so I can't really take credit of the result, but this what happened.

The enemy leader quickly realised that the fighter isn't that big of a threat and ordered his band to "concentrate on more problematic targets" . Both strikers went down pretty quickly, the fighter not really being able to prevent that, because he just wanted to be tough and not hit and kill as many opponents as he can. The party healer/leader died soon after. The fighter managed to kill 2 of the opponents before he died, overwhelmed by the sheer number of opponents.

First, he couldn't believe it. Then he was angry and accused me of setting that up to mess with his perfect build. Then he started to tell me how that encounter should have been played, how the enemies (being essentially a "party" of "adventurers" too) should have helped each other more, the big one with the hammer and shield should have protected his healer instead of rushing to kill "our" rogue, etc.). I just said: do you realise you were acting just like him?

For a moment, I thought I broke him, he stood there, rendered speechless. Then a big aaaaaaah came out, and he asked if we could, just for once, rewind the campaing 2 encounters back, so his irrational behavior isn't the couse of everyone's death.

 

[Nullzone]

Actually, this is somewhat misleading: The ideal situation is to have both a crippling punishment mechanic, and to be nigh invulnerable. That way any enemy that you mark loses either way. My hybrid paladin|fighter has lay one hands (house rule), high defenses except for his reflex, resistances, and THP out the wazo. If you choose not to waste time trying to hurt him though, enemies eat 9-12 automatic damage, a melee basic attack, and lose half the damage from their attack, and he can do this twice a round. Both options are poor ones for team monster, particularly if team monster is a solo. You shouldn't reward team monster for trying to fight a defender, you should make that suck and any OTHER option suck even harder.

Its the difference between a good defender and a great one.

Not to derail, but how? The only way I can find to do what you describe is to break the fundamental rules of immediate actions, which would make any defender insanely powerful.


On topic, ignore the brick wall defender. He can take it, but he can't dish it out. Then start throwing in some damage zones and auras to put the hurt on him. If you want to get really mean about it, make the auras do more damage if the creature is marked. Force the defender to make a choice: stand the line and risk some extra hurt, or let the monster roam where it may and potentially beat on the clothies?

 

[ForeverSlayer]

I thought the whole purpose of the fighter was to keep enemies on you and keep them marked so they have to attack you or suffer the consequences.

The fighter has a lot of hit points but he doesn't have enough to just stand there and take hit after hit after hit. If I have an enemy on me that has no choice but to stand there and swing at me, I would rather him miss all the time than hit me every time.

 

[Riastlin]

I thought the whole purpose of the fighter was to keep enemies on you and keep them marked so they have to attack you or suffer the consequences.

The fighter has a lot of hit points but he doesn't have enough to just stand there and take hit after hit after hit. If I have an enemy on me that has no choice but to stand there and swing at me, I would rather him miss all the time than hit me every time.

Well that's kind of the point here. Odds are, the fighter is not going to be able to overly punish the monsters for ignoring the mark. Yeah, they'll suffer the consequences, but those consequences are not nearly so bad as if they simply attack the fighter. Attacking the fighter means they die. Attacking the rest of the party means they may take a little damage, but at least they have a chance to survive.

To the OP, I find that auras are a great way to help balance things out. Make it an auto-damage, doesn't have to hit. Make it slow the fighter, or even daze (though be careful there, that does kind of suck). Perhaps the aura imposes a penalty to hit or to defenses (either way helps balance things out as the fighter is either less able to punish those who ignore the mark or is easier to hit). Then, as stated, through in some artillery or other monsters with bursts or ranged attacks. Force the fighter to move around if he wants to protect the party. Just because he's wearing the big tin can doesn't mean that all the monsters will naturally gravitate to him.

 

[Nyronus]

Not to derail, but how? The only way I can find to do what you describe is to break the fundamental rules of immediate actions, which would make any defender insanely powerful.

Rapid Combat Challenge. Look it up.

Granted, after playing 2 adventures with this set up, I have had it come up all of zero times. Either monsters obey the mark, throw out rather annoying multi-target attack, or they toss me halfway across the battlefield and dominate me.

Although, considering the DM either respects the mark, or uses tactics to try and avoid it, I guess that means I'm doing something right.