Ancalagon
Dusty Dragon
This is not a post about gishes
The other day in a game I play, my PC was forced in a duel vs a powerful NPC warrior. I won't bore you with the details, but I won - but I felt that perhaps I shouldn't have.1
This made me wonder "is my PC too powerful?". I have some power gamer tendencies after all, and I was playing a third party class (I won't name it, this is not the topic of this thread)2. I compared my PC to a barbarian, figured the barbarian would have done just as well if not better, and concluded, no, it's not OP. But I also compared my level 9 PC to giants, and was startled to discover I had the melee offensive power of a stone giant (better really) and the defensive power of a fire giant (slightly better AC, slightly worse HP, some weak regen).
This means that a level 9 barbarian has similar fighting chops. As would a fighter probably, and the other martials too. My character can go face to face with a giant and have a reasonable chance of winning. That is amazing, incredible. And other high level martials have similarly amazing combat capacities. Implausible to the point of well - it's "magical" isn't it? How else can you explain it?
So if my character fights as well as a giant - should he have other giant powers? Well, it happens that incidentally, he has giant style powers, as he is rather large and very strong. And you know what? It's a lot of fun!
Maybe other martials should perhaps have some flavors from powerful monsters they could best, or emulates? The Monk's hydra style? The dragon fighter? Etc etc? I must admit at the instant I struggle to come up with concrete examples. But surely, this could perhaps make high level martials more interesting, and keep up in a way with the casters.
1 We were confronted by a powerful paladin who felt we had betrayed him, a leader of the Silver Order. We sort of betrayed the order but not really, rather took advantage of them being in a battle vs assisting them. The paladin challenged us to a duel. I tried to dissuade him, and his response was to challenge me first (probably because I'm the most honorable of the party... which isn't saying much ... and disappointed him the most). I realized a duel was inevitable and that I was the party member with the best chance in in a straight fight. I choose the terms - fisticuffs - knowing this would advantage me. So we fought. We dealt each other massive blows. He tried to banish me but I made the save (DC 17, +1 to the save... lucky). My PC not only hits hard, he inflicts damage when hit (he has poison blood that sprays on the foe!) and also has weak regeneration, a familiar assisting him, and cast aid on himself at level 4. It took all that and really hot dice to win. I had 7 hp left.
2: The PC I'm playing is a apothecary (think support int based short rest caster vaguely like a warlock mechanically), subclass mutagenist. This subclass has a unique playstyle: I burn a spell slot to turn into a large brutish humanoid who bashes things. It's like playing a nerd who turns into the hulk when a fight happens. It's from the 2nd Dungeon of Drakkenheim book, which I supported on kickstarter and now have the PDF)
The other day in a game I play, my PC was forced in a duel vs a powerful NPC warrior. I won't bore you with the details, but I won - but I felt that perhaps I shouldn't have.1
This made me wonder "is my PC too powerful?". I have some power gamer tendencies after all, and I was playing a third party class (I won't name it, this is not the topic of this thread)2. I compared my PC to a barbarian, figured the barbarian would have done just as well if not better, and concluded, no, it's not OP. But I also compared my level 9 PC to giants, and was startled to discover I had the melee offensive power of a stone giant (better really) and the defensive power of a fire giant (slightly better AC, slightly worse HP, some weak regen).
This means that a level 9 barbarian has similar fighting chops. As would a fighter probably, and the other martials too. My character can go face to face with a giant and have a reasonable chance of winning. That is amazing, incredible. And other high level martials have similarly amazing combat capacities. Implausible to the point of well - it's "magical" isn't it? How else can you explain it?
So if my character fights as well as a giant - should he have other giant powers? Well, it happens that incidentally, he has giant style powers, as he is rather large and very strong. And you know what? It's a lot of fun!
Maybe other martials should perhaps have some flavors from powerful monsters they could best, or emulates? The Monk's hydra style? The dragon fighter? Etc etc? I must admit at the instant I struggle to come up with concrete examples. But surely, this could perhaps make high level martials more interesting, and keep up in a way with the casters.
1 We were confronted by a powerful paladin who felt we had betrayed him, a leader of the Silver Order. We sort of betrayed the order but not really, rather took advantage of them being in a battle vs assisting them. The paladin challenged us to a duel. I tried to dissuade him, and his response was to challenge me first (probably because I'm the most honorable of the party... which isn't saying much ... and disappointed him the most). I realized a duel was inevitable and that I was the party member with the best chance in in a straight fight. I choose the terms - fisticuffs - knowing this would advantage me. So we fought. We dealt each other massive blows. He tried to banish me but I made the save (DC 17, +1 to the save... lucky). My PC not only hits hard, he inflicts damage when hit (he has poison blood that sprays on the foe!) and also has weak regeneration, a familiar assisting him, and cast aid on himself at level 4. It took all that and really hot dice to win. I had 7 hp left.
2: The PC I'm playing is a apothecary (think support int based short rest caster vaguely like a warlock mechanically), subclass mutagenist. This subclass has a unique playstyle: I burn a spell slot to turn into a large brutish humanoid who bashes things. It's like playing a nerd who turns into the hulk when a fight happens. It's from the 2nd Dungeon of Drakkenheim book, which I supported on kickstarter and now have the PDF)
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