What do you do with characters at different combat power levels?

[SteveC]

I'm currently playing in a campaign where we have characters at extremely different power levels in terms of combat. The characters are:

Human Rogue 1 swashbuckler 2 (my character: an academic "tomb raider" type character)
Elf Bard 2, fighter 1 (attempting to become a bladesinger)
Orc Barbarian 3 (one of our problem children, has Monkey Grip and uses a large great axe)
Human Warmage 1, Human Paragon 2 (heading for the Mystic Theurge prestige class).
Human Cleric 1, Human Paragon 2 (just intending to be a pure caster, from what I understand)
Minotaur Fighter 2 (no racial hit dice, our other problem child)
Human Druid 2. A new character.
Human Wizard 2. Another new character.

The campaign rules are that characters start at level 2 (or one level below the lowest level character, whichever is higher) but you may also start up to two levels higher by taking in game disadvantages. The minotaur character has done this, and is effectively a 4th level character. All but the human druid and human wizard have advanced a level to third level.

So you can probably see the issue here: in combat terms, this group is all over the place! The minotaur and orc are combat monsters of the highest degree for their levels. As a result, the GM has tailored the encounters to these characters to a certain extent. He has done a reasonably good job of having opponents designed to take on the combat monsters and plenty of other foes for everyone else. This has worked reasonably well, but some of the characters are feeling very left out in terms of combat, especially our new characters, the druid and the wizard.

I know that many ENers have run campaigns where characters operate at different character power levels, does anyone have advice here?

For what it's worth, most of these characters have an excellent niche to fill. My character is an academic who has a lot of skills in many different areas, and knows a little bit about everything. The bard is a diplomat with an important family and has been put in charge of our group. The warmage's player has taken the long term view for his character (as I imagine anyone who plays a Theurge would...). The cleric worships the god of dreams, who has a huge role to play in the campaign (there is a sort of dreamland that these clerics operate in much more efficiently than any other characters). The druid is the only character with real survival skills and the campaign is going to feature a lot of outdoor traveling in bad weather (the campaign world's sun has gone out). Finally the wizard is our group's only real wizard, and has magical knowledge skills that my character can't touch. The GM for this campaign runs a very combat light game, with major emphasis on skills and roleplaying, so everyone will have something to do.

...but the problem remains. Everyone wants to be effective in stand up fights. The funny thing is, the minotaur and orc haven't complained about being useless in the non-combat situations yet, and I think it's because they knew the deal coming in: very good and focued in one thing means not so good in other areas...

So this is a rambling post (hey, it's late!) but if you have some advice on either the diplomacy in handling this situation, or the mechanics of how to balance a fight with these dramatically different characters, I'd sure appreciate it.

 

[SteelDraco]

I'm in a similar situation, though at a considerably higher level. My current Thousand Years of Darkness (a Rokugan-based game) game consists of mostly casters, a diplomacy-focued Courtier/Marshal, two monks and a single heavy-hitter. Anything that can threaten the monk's ACs (both in the mid-to-high 20s at 8th level) can take apart the other PCs easily. Anything that can deal significant damage to the only tank can rip apart anyone it actually manages to hit. Anything that's a decent but not overwhelming threat to the pile of caster-types just gets ripped apart by the tank.

I've tended to solve this by throwing mixed groups at the PCs. A single boss-type doesn't fare too well, with all the casters dropping spells on it until it fails a save and is hit by something debilitating. A horde will just be ignored by the monks and ripped apart by the tank while destroying the casters. Therefore, you have to have a group that's capable of dealing with a mixed threat. Fortunately, one of the PCs is intended to be tactically-minded, so they have an in-game way of being able to identify who is the biggest threat, and can react appropriately.

From the sound of things, a similar approach might work for you. Mixed groups tend to be more difficult encounters to run, but I usually enjoy them more. You can have PCs deal with the difficulty of both actually fighting, and channeling the fight in ways that they can win. You see much more tactically-minded actions (such as wall spells and other battlefield control stuff) if the PCs have to channel opponents toward their heavy hitters and away from casters.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I'd ditch the 'one level lower than the lowest level character' rule.

Start people at exactly what they need to equal the lowest character level, otherwise you will keep killing the same player's characters over and over. I was in a game where this became a real problem, though the DM was of the 'You always start at first level' persuasion, and then would throw dragons at the party in order to challenge the more experienced characters... His excuse being that if you lived you went up levels very quickly, problem was the only ones to live were the ones who hadn't died earlier...

The Auld Grump

 

[Lord Pendragon]

...but the problem remains. Everyone wants to be effective in stand up fights. The funny thing is, the minotaur and orc haven't complained about being useless in the non-combat situations yet, and I think it's because they knew the deal coming in: very good and focued in one thing means not so good in other areas...

So who has been complaining? Are those characters who aren't so good in combat taking the lead outside of combat? If so, I'd say they are the problem children, not the combat monkeys. Even a druid can't be at his best all the time.

Still, if I were the DM of this campaign, and I felt that the PCs who were lagging behind in combat should be helped out (in other words, they aren't social-situation specialized characters who just want to always be the best at everything,) I'd solve the situation with magic items. Toss in a few items that are somewhat more powerful than standard, and the PCs using them become significantly more powerful. Then if later those PCs start to become too strong, the items can be removed.

If it's a case of social characters simply wanting contribute, I'd suggest Aid Another, tanglefoot bags, flanking, etc. etc.

 

[Thanee]

I'm actually not so surprised, that the fighters, especially the brute force types, are most effective in combat at these levels. They simply are.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

The solution (IMHO) is very simple. Faster advancement for the lower levels (maybe even faster than the rules suggest).

Bye
Thanee

 

[S'mon]

D&D emphasises combat as the primary part of the game, 3e emphasises attack over defense (pace the Rokugan monk), and 3.5e heavily pushes the primacy of the high-STR 2-handed weapon wielders over alternative styles. I've seen this problem a bit myself; solutions include emphasising non-combat interaction, using mixed groups of enemies so the weaker PCs can still kick some ass, and having NPCs do the obvious thing and attack the high-damage PCs who are likely to have low ACs and be pretty vulnerable, they likely have poor Will saves too. Keeping half-orc barbarians alive long enough for them to lay the smackdown can be a challenge in itself.

 

[Plane Sailing]

and 3.5e heavily pushes the primacy of the high-STR 2-handed weapon wielders over alternative styles.

I noticed that too... I wonder why they (Andy Collins?) decided to that?

 

[Thanee]

About the 2-handed power style, at least in our campaign I notice, that now we are reaching a higher level (11th so far), our barbarian more often uses a shield (he uses a bastard sword), because it hurts pretty bad, if one gets hit, and the +4 or so to AC make a whole lot of difference.

The barbarian died three times already (tho, admittedly at least in one case, there was a lot of bad luck involved) and was fairly close even more often; being powerful also attracts the meanies. An inherent weakness of dealing massive damage in combat.

It's surely the most powerful style for lower levels, but at moderate to high levels the weaknesses start to show (unless you go for silly stuff like animated shields and such).

Bye
Thanee

 

[tarchon]

The campaign rules are that characters start at level 2 (or one level below the lowest level character, whichever is higher) but you may also start up to two levels higher by taking in game disadvantages. The minotaur character has done this, and is effectively a 4th level character. All but the human druid and human wizard have advanced a level to third level.

Two levels is way too much to get from a disad - that's a key problem at this level - it'll go away in 5 or 6 levels, but for now, I can see how it's messing things up. It would be easier to cope with with a smaller party, but it's harder to tweak an encounter to suit 8 different characters. The "fair" thing to do is to make sure the disadvantages count, whatever they are. Other than that, it's just a matter of careful encounter design.