Post by Gameking31 on Jan 2, 2017 17:31:20 GMT
Hello friends! I am for the first time in 3 years of dming reaching out for help from you fellow dms.
Backstory: Our campaign is a long-running, 3 year, 3.5 campaign that was always made to be fun. In the group we have:
Player 1: if he wanted, could be a powergamer, only has recently picked up a healing (NON CLERIC THANK GOD) class, and brought himself into a less encounter-ending role.
Player 2: Someone who played with us sort of on and off, and has only recently started picking up psionic classes. She's finally feeling powerful (As our group tends to get somewhat op characters sometimes)
Player 3: Someone who is new to the party, and plays a lot of front line, beefstick, whack it with my axe and don't care what happens orc-style fighting. Kept alive through the 100s of damage by player 1.
Player 4: Someone often criticized for staying 1-class, non prc, and might not even get to participate in some battles, due to how fast they end.
This group has faced me with numerous challenges throughout the years, but things are getting tough now. My players recently discovered tome of battle and complete psionics, 2 books that I wish I knew about prior and banned when I had the chance. Player 1 tends to keep things in line (no 1-level dip in warblade, thank you), and obey my new mantra "You can, just don't make me regret it." But my issue actually comes from player 2 recent aquirement of death/save or suck spells.
It's hard enough to actually get monsters to reasonable 'boss status' without pumping them full of a kingdom's worth of magic items, and adding an asston of HD just to keep those suspiciously 20-favoring dice from player 3 from critting them to death in 2 hits. (However, I have been liking constructs against him. His favorite phrase became 'let me confirm, **** you' XD)
I lost a boss last session to some kind of brain-anyurism spell (Non death, non mind-affecting) from player 2's psychic fairy, a boss I spent a few hours on and decked out in decent gear. Had enough minions to keep her safe from player 3 (Who waded into battle and took about 24d6 of lazer beam damage, which made us both laugh) But I rolled a save for the boss, and rolled a 4, gave her an 'elite mob' reroll chance, 3. I could have even accepted this until I realised the save was something like 27... she had a 14, one of the highest will saves I've seen on any non-epic srd monster. At the same time, I don't want to give bosses a laundry list of immunities, which would in turn just to be a big middle finger to our fairy. How do I make it to where 1 ****ty... or not godly dice roll doesn't undo a good 4-hours of planning an encounter, our casters can still at least do something to the monster in question?
Note: So far, I like golems, nice hp, good dr (Meaningless to player 3's samurai, but no crits) and magic immunity, but these are only so few and far between. The CR 7-8 seems to have some of the coolest monsters, but monster advancer, kingdom-sized-budgets, and item destroying death-throes can only go so far. Thank you ahead of time, and sorry the post is so long.
Backstory: Our campaign is a long-running, 3 year, 3.5 campaign that was always made to be fun. In the group we have:
Player 1: if he wanted, could be a powergamer, only has recently picked up a healing (NON CLERIC THANK GOD) class, and brought himself into a less encounter-ending role.
Player 2: Someone who played with us sort of on and off, and has only recently started picking up psionic classes. She's finally feeling powerful (As our group tends to get somewhat op characters sometimes)
Player 3: Someone who is new to the party, and plays a lot of front line, beefstick, whack it with my axe and don't care what happens orc-style fighting. Kept alive through the 100s of damage by player 1.
Player 4: Someone often criticized for staying 1-class, non prc, and might not even get to participate in some battles, due to how fast they end.
This group has faced me with numerous challenges throughout the years, but things are getting tough now. My players recently discovered tome of battle and complete psionics, 2 books that I wish I knew about prior and banned when I had the chance. Player 1 tends to keep things in line (no 1-level dip in warblade, thank you), and obey my new mantra "You can, just don't make me regret it." But my issue actually comes from player 2 recent aquirement of death/save or suck spells.
It's hard enough to actually get monsters to reasonable 'boss status' without pumping them full of a kingdom's worth of magic items, and adding an asston of HD just to keep those suspiciously 20-favoring dice from player 3 from critting them to death in 2 hits. (However, I have been liking constructs against him. His favorite phrase became 'let me confirm, **** you' XD)
I lost a boss last session to some kind of brain-anyurism spell (Non death, non mind-affecting) from player 2's psychic fairy, a boss I spent a few hours on and decked out in decent gear. Had enough minions to keep her safe from player 3 (Who waded into battle and took about 24d6 of lazer beam damage, which made us both laugh) But I rolled a save for the boss, and rolled a 4, gave her an 'elite mob' reroll chance, 3. I could have even accepted this until I realised the save was something like 27... she had a 14, one of the highest will saves I've seen on any non-epic srd monster. At the same time, I don't want to give bosses a laundry list of immunities, which would in turn just to be a big middle finger to our fairy. How do I make it to where 1 ****ty... or not godly dice roll doesn't undo a good 4-hours of planning an encounter, our casters can still at least do something to the monster in question?
Note: So far, I like golems, nice hp, good dr (Meaningless to player 3's samurai, but no crits) and magic immunity, but these are only so few and far between. The CR 7-8 seems to have some of the coolest monsters, but monster advancer, kingdom-sized-budgets, and item destroying death-throes can only go so far. Thank you ahead of time, and sorry the post is so long.