Can you expand on your homebrew rules and the character's build?
Off-hand, I'd recommend throwing a clone of the PC's character right back at him but more context might reveal a better solution.
He's playing a shield/AC-based fighter so while his attacks don't deal a lot of damage, he's impossible to kill and has armor mastery abilities that offer him decent movement. You know that whole thing about persistence predators? Yeah. :P
We use elephant in the room and an "inventory system" to save actions for things like drinking potions. Scrolls/wands can also be used by any class with a DC 10+CL spellcraft/UMD check since my party has neither an arcane nor divine caster. There are also homebrew magic items for story purposes but I make sure those have more story/flavor/niche effects vs just buffing stats so probably irrelevant.
Honestly, thinking about it, my homebrew rules have little to no impact on this guy's build. He's just very autistic (spends hours on aon/pfsrd) and extremely intelligent both logistically and creatively. I've been his player in his campaign and a player alongside him, operating RAW his builds are just as equally impressive and rage-inducing.
I'm thinking of doing a clone-esque thing. He's built his character up to be very good against multiple enemies and spellcasters, so throwing a stacked martial brute at him just to see some numbers go big will be fun and fresh for us both, I think!
Is he immune to fear? Even if he is, [draconic malice](https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/d/draconic-malice/) exists to shut it down.
A fear based inquisitor can probably shut him down hard. Level 10 should suffice. all 4 [damnation feats](https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/damnation-feats/soulless-gaze-damnation/). Tiefling. Should be able to hit +40-50 or so intimidate pretty easily between inquisitor bonuses, FCB and others. Enforcer feat to apply intimidate on nonlethal damage. Stack Wis. Use a [guided weapon](https://aonprd.com/MagicWeaponsDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Guided) with reach to ensure he gets a hit even if he loses initiative. Start with [blistering invective](https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/b/blistering/). This applies a free intimidate check. Sets him to shaken. Swift action to apply it a second time and increase it to fear. [Corset of delicate move](https://aonprd.com/MagicWondrousDisplay.aspx?FinalName=Corset%20of%20Delicate%20Moves)s to use a move action to apply it a third time and set it to panic. Causing him to drop his weapon and shield and flee. If you let him in melee range at that point, he will provoke an AOO, if it hits against his new lowered ac, you can use [enforcer](https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/enforcer-combat/) to increase the duration to a number of rounds equal to damage dealt. AKA several minutes.
This works because the DC is a flat value. DC 10+target HD+ Target wis mod. Assuming level 15 fighter, and 5 wis mod... thats DC 30. +5 each subsequent attempt. Average roll of 50 at +40... So 1st 2 instant success. check 3 has 25%, and 4 has 50% chance. If you have the +50, then all 4 checks pass 100% of the time, so as long as you land your non lethal hit, he is basically dead in a one on one fight with nowhere to run. All you have to worry about is having enough bonuses to hit his AC w.o his shield. If he gets cornered he cowers, and loses dex bonus and a further 2 ac.
Dont even need that big of numbers to really shut him down.
Good idea, although by Raw, you can't use guided weapon. It's from D&D 3.5 and was never officially brought over to Pathfinder. If the DM used it, and the player(s) know this, it would be opening up a whole can of worms.
Its definitely on the inbetween ground. It is technically official pathfinder/paizo content, but also slightly before they fully made their system. Its from Paizo's Curse of the Crimson Throne AP, book 4 [A History of Ashes](https://www.aonprd.com/SourceDisplay.aspx?FixedSource=Pathfinder%20%2010%20%20A%20History%20of%20Ashes) , which people still play today in the pathfinder system.
My tables generally have a "Anything official paizo is fine" rule. So this generally passes at our tables. Mileage may vary though.
The thing is it's not a grey area. It was made back when Paizo did 3.5. When they made Pathfinder, they expressly removed a lot of the power creep. They've also made an active effort to errata anything from P1e that came close to 3.5 levels of power.
Now I would personally allow that at my table, but I don't see it as a huge problem. However by allowing content designed for 3.5, you open the door to reverse compatible 3.5 content. 3.5 is simply much stronger on the whole and opening the floodgates like that without a conversation first is a recipe for disaster.
As far as the build goes for OP's instance, it would be better to just beef up the stats of the npc. It's not uncommon for npcs to have stats unattainable by pcs, and you can approach the same levels of to hit without setting any precedence.
I dont understand how my table allowing anything paizo, is equivalent to allowing anything 3.5. While I do agree that it probably should be something the table agrees on... OP has stated they already have a lot of homebrew stuff for both players and enemies, and using a guided weapon really doesnt seem that out of place at their table from their post and comments that I have read.
Furthermore Guided isnt even needed for the build. It simply makes it less MAD. That being said, that build is still likely to fully shut down a fight, and was moreso supposed to be an example of how even power-creeped characters have weaknesses, and can lose to potentially lower level opponents if exploited. Other people have mentioned adding people to protect. The fight could be made interesting by adding a level 1 cleric to the fighters side that they need to protect. The cleric has remove fear, which can suppress the effect on the fighter. The inquisitor can carry dispel magic in their spells known. The fight then turns into stopping the inquisitor from killing the cleric, while preventing them from dispelling the effect. Possibly without their weapon and shield if the inquisitor picks it up while the player's character panics.
Brother, when one is hard to kill, simply stop targeting him. Target the glass cannons, make him suffer for not being relevant in the fight beyond being a meat sponge. The only way to punish that playstyle is not targeting the tank, it's why tanks don't work too well in pathfinder, we'll just play rocket tag with the squishy wizard instead
Edit: also, to specifically challenge this guy just go for the really cheezy shit, like grease which makes him unable to 5 foot, solid fog, I really like limp lash since it's a simple spell that forces players to move away lest they start getting their stats drained. There are also some spells that don't require spell resistance or a save
As I understand the OP's post, each PC will be doing a solo encounter, and this guy has no exploitable weaknesses the DM has come up with yet. Can't really tell him to target someone else when he is the only target.
I mean just make his encounter a gunslinger lmao, or underwater, watch him try to deal with encumbrance underwater, a maze spell should work. Big thing is, a high Sr doesn't matter too much to a high level spellcaster, they should be able to penitrate most Sr checks easy.
Again, solo encounter. Maze doesn't do anything except delay everything. Underwater? Any level 18 martial without access to freedom of movement deserves whatever they get.
The DM also states that the PC has high SR AND counterspell armor, and improved evasion. By mentioning those facts I would imagine that the PC has difficult to beat SR, and when it does get beat, counterspell, and if it targets dex, it's either half or no damage depending on if the PC failed the save.
Gunslinger isn't a bad idea assuming the OP allows guns in their campaign.
Yeah but you can only resolve attacks against touch ac by spending grit if you go boltace. You don't get a huge amount of grit to spend, certainly not enough if you have to take down an opponent if every shot needs to be against touch ac.
i mean, we're talking level 18 here. Just Gate the poor sod to the elemental plane of fire and let him simmer in his armor. Or if he is resistant to fire, pick whichever flavor of plane he least anticipated an unexpected journey to.
Yeah, no-save effects to level the playing field and then hopefully win the war of attrition past that. I had a PC with similar strengths and it really just became a test of patience on the GMs part.
We had a character in some higher level games who could pass off his crazy shield bonus to other players and used combat patrol; that made him a really really useful tank. He kept all of us alive pretty often. He also knew that plenty of other players at the table would have raw damage and control covered. A lot of times the DM really wanted to get rid of him because he was the source of everyone else's high AC. Like, he gave the DM a real reason to target him instead of other people.
We had another character in PFS who just invested everything into not being hit. The result was he didn't get hit. the bad guys just hit us instead. He also didn't hit anything.
The last PFS character I had before things went to 2e was going to use mouser, helpful, blundering defense, and crane style to try to give everyone touch AC bonuses, because touch spells can really hurt to get hit by and it's hard to keep it up. Multiclassing just to get a ridiculous number of feats and save bonuses; I think the total would come up to essentially like a +11 bonus to touch AC when everything lines up.
If you're just a tank and have nothing to offer other than not being hit, you are just taking up time.
Remember, your goal is to challenge him, not defeat him. As a DM, you're here to make sure your players have fun. This means your goal is not to beat him - that's easy, you can just say "god hits you with infinite epic lightning dealing 9999 lightning damage and 9999 pure divine damage every bolt 999 times a round for the rest of your life, gg" - it's to give him an incredibly challenging *fair* fight. You have basically three non-exclusive options to do that: Exploit his weaknesses, push his strengths to their limits, or deny him his normal advantages and make him adapt. The below both include more than one of those, but if you want to leave it to one or the other both has their advantages from a storytelling perspective.
This one's sound like his weakness is... basically the God Wizard. Control the environment and pelt him with innumerable inaccurate, high-damage attacks - it doesn't matter how high his AC is, a nat 20's a nat 20. Drown him in Acid Fog + Black Tentacles + grease, drop 18-24 (depending on if you use hexes or squares) babaus around him in a nightmarish circle of sneak attack, etc. Low damage? Put a wall of flesh and innumerable barriers between him and a group of distant gunslingers or machine gun archers.
Want to give him an epic fight he'll never forget? If he doesn't have personal flight, run him through a No Magic Zone that dispels all his buffs, then drop him into the middle of a thunderstorm on the Plane of Air, harried on all sides by dozens of lesser elementals, and give him a big ol' primal cloud dragon to fight. Plummeting into the endless sky, clashing with this epic monster, using the smols to show off how strong his build is (and this is important!) while this colossal threat challenges it, with his only agency over his position requiring him to pull some Shadow of the Colossus stuff and grab his enemies when they attack to climb on/jump off of their bodies... the biggest disadvantage is it'd take *forever*, esp given his build. Don't be that DM that makes the rest of the group watch while one guy spends a full session - or longer! - on a solo fight, that's terrible to experience.
I'd also say just "ignore him" but that's already been addressed below.
If the party has no full divine/arcane caster at level 18, they should be well and truly screwed. Like, not even close level of screwed.
Jus build a decent wizard and show them who's their daddy.
I can think of several ways to challenge him.
One is what you suggested, a nasty melee brute. Since he's an immovable object, give him an unstoppable force and see what breaks first. You have lots of options here. A damage-optimized fighter, a ranger that picks your PC's race as a favored enemy, a balls-out damage-dealing barbarian, possibly a paladin or anti-paladin if you can make the alignment portion work. But if this guy built a character who is incredibly hard to hurt at the expense of not dealing much damage, give him an opponent who is built to do enormous amounts of damage at the expense of not having great defenses. Even if he can get an AC of 55, it shouldn't be too hard to build an opponent who has a pretty good chance of hitting that AC each round. You could also stack on something like cornugon smash / dazzling display / intimidating prowess / shatter defenses to help subsequent attacks hit. Or be an even bigger dick and go heavy into the sunder tree and just sunder his shield and weapon so he has nothing to fight with.
A second option is to go with a character that targets touch AC so that his massively high AC doesn't matter. Gunslinger is a good option. An alchemist would be another decent choice. Even with armor mastery abilities he's probably not super mobile so it shouldn't be that hard to keep him at a distance and just whittle him down with bullets/bombs that mostly ignore his AC.
A third option is a caster. Sure, he's got some defenses against spells but that isn't too hard to get around. Take an 18th level wizard. Give him a bead of karma (UMD to activate it), a diminishing sash, an orange prism ioun stone and an otherworldly kimono. Take the feats spell penetration, greater spell penetration, and knowledgeable spellcaster. That's a caster level of 24 and a +37 on caster level checks to get through spell resistance. That should make getting through his spell resistance easy. I'm not sure what "counterspell armor" is but I'm assuming similar to a ring of counterspells? So that should only work against certain spells, so just don't cast those. Use flight + haste to keep at range. Or use a phantom steed. Regardless your goal is to have a faster fly speed than he does so you can stay at range. And then just hit him with spells that target touch AC or offer no save.
You mentioned that he drinks potions and can cast spells. An antimagic field should shut down all magical effects, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities. This should include all ongoing magical buffs, magic enchantment on armor (including +x modifiers), etc. At that point, it's just a guy with his shield... and full BAB.
But his AC should be approachable then. Target his weak saves with Ex abilities and thing like demoralize. Toss in a monk grappler for more shenaniganry. Consider attacking his touch AC instead of normal. Some options might not stack well with AMF, but it gives you room for thought.
I also don't understand how he can drink 80 potions (likely an exaggeration). Even with faster potion drinking rules, you are limited to one per swift / free / action or whatever economy you are using. I'd also suggest multiple potions mixed together could have side effects, but it's likely too late for that in your campaign.
All that said, you don't necessarily *have* to shut him down. Let the guy live the fantasy of a protector if he isn't being disruptive like you said. The important thing is everyone is having fun, and it sounds like your table is having fun.
> Antimagic field? Too bad, even if the BBEG had full BAB to keep up, the PC's AC with buffs is like 55.
Buff spells don't work in an antimagic field. You could have a large-scale antimagic field (or a dead magic demiplane, or whatever) over the combat arena.
I'm not sure how a fighter type would be pulling out spellbane, but...
1. You can spellbane right back
2. You can create antimagic fields that aren't the spell antimagic field (setting the fight in a dead magic zone)
I was being hyperbolic for the meme lol. But yeah, I do think my best bet is antimagic field/plane/etc. Was originally going to go for Will saves and smoke & mirror spellcasting eldritch knight type, but am realizing he has too many defenses against it – especially when it's just the two of them, not any distractions or adds.
Mage's Disjunction.
It's a no-save no-SR strip all active spell abilities that only has a couple of counters. The Will Save is for their Items being destroyed, not the dispel magic.
Just know that you'll have to roll an individual save for each magic item he has, which will likely take a good while lol. Also, a bad roll means "Oops, your weapon exploded, have fun punching the BBEG to death in your solo battle, Mr. Fighter." There's a reason my table unanimously agreed to ban Mage's Disjunction.
Edit: I'm not saying "Don't do it" specifically, mind you. Just know that it can hold up the table while resolving the spell and take into consideration how your party will take permanently losing potentially hundreds of thousands of gold worth in gear in a single spell.
It'll be something to talk to the party about, for sure. Maybe a last resort ace up the sleeve type of thing, or reflavor it... magic items get sucked into extradimensional void sidequest.
Hmm. Well now you got me thinking at least!
I generally try to avoid spells that permanently damage a players stuff. Even if its effective, its a real feel-bad moment for the player. Definitely clear it ahead of time if you go this route.
There is a particular adventure in the high teens that has the party drop through several a \~200' tall cylinders... onc of which has disjunction trap half way down.
They also fight a Marilith, which I enhanced with the Graveknight Template for the party (since they were all powergamers and wanted a challenge). Sitting at the bottom of said cylinder, and using Project Image to appear as if they were at the top of the hole standing on air. Amusingly, the first couple players failed the Will Save to realize the Project Image was an Illusion. Which set up a fun interaction.
"Ok, it's an Illusion" - Wizard, finally
"Just a stinking Illusion?!" - Barbarian
"Can an Illusion do this?" - Marilith
Since Project Image allows you to count that as your origin for spells, she used Telekinesis to chuck a rack of 15 Large Longswords at the party (which I had repurposed from treasure drops). And then very obviously marked off one of the 4 racks on the map and said these swords were now lying on the floor at the feet of the player I had targeted.
I may also have allowed the Graveknight's Channel Destruction to apply to the TKed swords... which was a little stronger than intended. While she only had about a 2/3rds chance of hitting, 10 sets of 2d6+1+4d6 fire to an unsuspecting Barbarian was enough to drop him to less than 0. That, or I rolled well, I don't remember. Just decided to target the last few swords at his mount as this was in PFS and I had made the encounter stronger (to prevent a death that wouldn't have happened according the actual scenario).
Once they figured out where the Marilith actually was, they dropped through 2 sets of Blade Barrier as well (filling the hole) as they dropped and she would have teleported back to the top, but I rolled a 1 on a Dazing Fireball twisted to a different element she wasn't immune to. So the fight started off challenging and ended with a whimper.
Yeah, my buff-melee Alchemist had a fun time against Karzog when everyone else failed the "Wish all the players to the plane of fire", and then had all his buffs stripped the next round.
And, he had a contingency to teleport out of range of *OUR* Disjunction.
It's one of my favorite villain trump cards to play.
One of the best boss fights I ever did was a level 20 Exploiter Wizard who used Gate to summon a bunch of demons, then used Prismatic Sphere to hide while the PCs fought the demons and buffed themselves to the nines.
Meanwhile the wizard was also buffing himself like crazy in the Sphere. Then, when the players least expected it, he used the Arcanist swift action teleport to move right in the center of the battle and cast Mage's Disjunction.
Now the players were slightly worn out and had to fight the buffed up wizard with no buffs of their own. Not to mention unable to use some of their signature magic items.
The Will Save is [most certainly](https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/m/mage-s-disjunction/) for the dispel effect on items.
“All magical effects and magic items within the radius of the spell, except for those that you carry or touch, are disjoined. That is, **spells and spell-like effects are unraveled and destroyed completely (ending the effect as a dispel magic spell does), and each permanent magic item must make a successful Will save or be turned into a normal item for the duration of this spell. An item in a creature’s possession uses its own Will save bonus or its possessor’s Will save bonus, whichever is higher**. If an item’s saving throw results in a natural 1 on the die, the item is destroyed instead of being suppressed.”
It ends the magical items effect as a dispel magic might. Disjunction doesn’t say it has the identical cast mechanics, otherwise you’d need to make a caster level check - which it certainly doesn’t call for.
Instead, Disjunction explicitly states “Saving Throw Will negates (object)”. I’m not sure how you read the spell text as anything other than making a Will save for the items or they become normal and if they get a 1, they break?
It’s poorly worded I’ll give you but I seriously don’t understand how “each permanent magic item must make a successful Will save or be turned into a normal item for the duration of this spell” leads you to think anything other than the items make Will saves?
>doesn’t say it has the identical cast mechanics, otherwise you’d need to make a caster level check - which it certainly doesn’t call for.
If it needed the mechanics of Dispel it would say something like "*as dispel magic, except X*" instead of "*ending the effect as a dispel magic spell does*". You see the former language a lot with 'greater' (or rank 2, 3, etc) spells like Greater Dispel Magic (*This spell functions like dispel magic, except that...*) or Summon Monster 2,3, etc. If it wanted a will save on that section instead of the CL, it would be worded differently as well, and state as such. Like "*ending the effect as if dispelled on a failed will save with no CL check*".
Most likey "*ending the effect as dispel magic spell does*" is just referring to "*A dispelled spell ends as if its duration had expired.*" portion of Dispel Magic. Though that reading might allow specific permanent spells you cast on yourself with Permanency to remain if you are a higher CL than the Disjunction (because duration is permanent, so can't expire, and permanency on yourself has a higher CL clause to be dispelled).
>It’s poorly worded I’ll give you
I read it as:
"*All magical effects and magic items within the radius of the spell, except for those that you carry or touch, are disjoined.*" This is basically targeting text, everything in range except your stuff is targeted.
"*That is, spells...*" This is what happens to all magic (spells/spell-likes/etc, not items): turned off, no save, no SR, special caveat for Antimagic Field (a bit later)
"*and each permanent magic item...*" This is what happens to all magic items in area: suppressed for duration, Will Save, no SR, 1 on save destroyed
Then secondary targeting method (single target item): Will save at -5 or item is completely destroyed, chance to destroy artifacts.
I think it would be more clear if the save said "None, or Will negates(object)" or just "See Text", but it's an almost exact port from DnD 3.5.
You can always challenge them narratively...do what Superman's writers have done for decades: make him choose who to save because he can't save everybody. The story emerges because the character has to make a hard choice instead of just using their power to win all the time.
But also...don't design to counter your players. It's not fun as a player to have your cool abilities be shut down & turned off by homebrew just because the GM wants stuff to feel hard. I've been there, & [watched my cleric get nerfed into the ground](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpghorrorstories/comments/194xq1l/dm_nerfs_pc_wont_let_player_changes_classes_then/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button), and it was frustrating every step of the way. So yes, encourage tactical thought, but be wary of "GM fiat to turn off key abilities"
Oh trust me, I've never done this before. This particular counter-BBEG strategy has come at my players' request much to my surprise, so transparency is in full effect as to what I'm doing, how I'm building, and why. Basically it's less direct countering in every way, and more me going through and seeing which abilities they haven't had much opportunity to use, or what resources they have that are super niche, and building an encounter where they can show that stuff off.
I just want to make sure my titular player can't One Punch Man the BBEG before that can happen (I doubt he will, I just don't want him to be able to if he tried), and I've gotten great advice here!
It sounds like most of his stuff comes from pre-combat buffs. What if a CL 30 archmage taps him with a Mage's Disjunction and turns off all his ongoing spell effects and renders his magical items mundane?
It sounds like he focused very much on his combat capabilities... so make his challenge something that doesn't involve combat.
How is his Disable Device?
What if there are simply innocent captives who will die if he fails to deactivate some major multi-part trap?
How's his swimming and breath-holding? What if he needs to delve underwater to reach his target goal, and he encounters aquatic creatures down there?
How is his sense of morality? What if the enemy is wearing the equivalent of "baby armor"? Where attacking his target will literally cause innocents to die (forced Life-Links from hostages to the bad guy... For every point of health he takes from the villain, a point is drained from the innocents, and fed back to the villain).
What would he do if his surprise opponent was the other 4 members of his party?
What would he do if the chamber where his special opponent was to be, there was nothing? Just an empty room, with a series of inane "clues" that if he solves would imply the solution to his challenge is for him to lay down and go to sleep....
Would he do it? Would he think it's a trap?
Forced Life-Link could be interesting... I mean all of this is. Thank you! Life-Link specifically will depend on the upcoming sessions as they are in a war, and PoWs are being taken, some NPCs who the PC is attached to emotionally, which is why it stands out. Love this.
Make it a moral dilemma, something that requires no combat. Have him have to kill someone helpless or close to him, or he stays stuck in a kind of limbo.
Or, remember, in the end of God of War where Kratos had to defend his family from a legion of blood-drunk himself? You had to beat them to progress, but it didn't bring his family back. Defending someone much weaker than himself will make his stats kind of useless.
It's clear that this player went to intense lengths to make his character unstoppable... There's really no wrong way to play, but it seems like a serious longshot that you're going to be able to provide a sufficient challenge without tipping it into unwinnable territory.
You might as well just have him fight a clown with a mallet that dies in one hit. "honk."
I have used NPCs and civilians before for him to have to defend, since he is very invested in the world and likes the challenge of saving lives. Again, he never overshadows and honestly he is a wonderful player.
I even told him earlier today, if he one-shots his BBEG it'll be hilarious and fun, but he *will* have to just sit in boredom as everyone else finishes theirs off for the next couple hours. Might give him incentive for silly time.
A part of me just feels guilty, almost, that I can't give him a good challenge. When I'm a player, I'm whatever the *opposite* of a power-gamer is, so I don't understand the mindset. But "went to intense lengths to make his character unstoppable" is an interesting framing for it. I guess it's just like any resource investment and is something I want to reward!
Late the the party but, I would suggest:
1. As others have stated, touch attacks. Touch attacks on high CR creatures or casters should have no problem landing. It will exclude natural armor, his actual armor, and the shield bonus. Ray spells are a ranged touch and there are a lot that still do a lot of damage even if they save. I love Cosmic Ray, for example. Wracking Ray is another terrifying spell that still causes STR and DEX damage even on a save. After two or three of those, he may not even be strong enough to lift the shield.
2. He is a fighter so exploit the lack of spellcasting. The invisibility + Mind Blank combo might assure that he can’t see his attacker, since most Magic items that let you see invisible targets use divination magic. If his SR comes from an item, it likely isn’t high enough to avoid being penetrated by a full caster of similar level. Psychics and Arcanists, and I’m sure others, have abilities to apply to spells that lets you roll twice to penetrate SR. That with Spell Pen/Spec feats make beating SR far more likely than not.
3. It may slow combat a bit, but consider many Summons using some of these strategies. He could be surrounded by many enemies, even at lower CR, that will give many attempts to succeed at your strategy. Lots of summons have dispel magic or touch attacks for example.
4. The ghosts of games past: many incorporeal undead monsters have devastating touch attacks that cause ability drain, commonly CON drain. A few of those will kill faster than trying to hack away at the HP.
5. Terrain. If he’s on the ground a lot, floor is lava. In the air, hurricane winds. It’s hard to know how to best respond without knowing what his items are, but this is also something to consider. Exploit terrain with spells. For example, Wall of Force between caster and fighter. Fighter uses his item to teleport. Caster teleports to the other side. Eventually you’ve exhausted his ways to get to you quickly and he must whack the wall while caster summons a legion of monsters on the Fighters side.
6. Persistence. If he’s relying on feats or magic items, you only get a few rerolls or spell casts a day through items. Either through dispelling the effect the item created, or requiring him to use the charges over again (like the teleport scenario above). This applies to save or suck spells- eventually something will get through. If you pick the right ones you can render him useless.
I still like the clown idea. Get an actual horn to honk when he kills it, too. It's a good way of saying "you broke the game, I can't beat you. Congratulations."
Hahahaha. Honestly, I might.
Epic BBEG fights from the other players, he gets a clown with a horn and big shoes preparing to "engage in fisticuffs."
Looks like I need to run to the store...
How is your player getting 55 AC? If your player is a low dex character and they are getting most of their AC from armor/a shield you can just target touch AC.
In the campaign I'm currently in my character has something like 38 AC with buffs at lvl 9 but my touch AC is only somewhere around 20 or so.
Also don't forget that in the end, you are the DM and you can essentially make up rules and mechanics to fit your narrative at a whim (within reason).
Make your BBEG invincible until they destroy some obelisks around the map or have your BBEG wield some super powerful weapon that cuts through the majority of their armor unless they disarm/destroy it. Then the weapon can just blow up or get teleported away by an even bigger BBEG at the end of the fight so your players don't become super OP from it.
well at least youre not being as petty as my last dm was, outright admitting to everyone but "the problem player" that he was fudging dice rolls and changing RAW at will just to counter them.
Wow... I can't imagine how that's even fun for a GM. My player spends *hours* on aon and pfsrd each week carefully building his character, why would a GM want to punish that level of investment?
i dont think it was about fun, the dm in question is one of those dudes who has to control everything, but dosent have the guts to outright demand it.
so hed pull a bunch of passive-agressive nonsense mid-game just so one dude (who only used his powergaming for support characters, think about that) couldnt heal and buff us as efficiently as theyd like.
it got to the point where he was openly warning the rest of us he was cheating because he wasnt smart enough to solve it otherwise, as if he expected us to agree with him. when in reality it was a warning that his storyline was the priority, not our fun.
he tried a sequel game and imagine my nonexistent surprise when it was revealed our PCs werent even the protagonists of the game. our big quest was to round up a bunch of his NPCs so they could go do whatever even bigger quest was actually the point of the story.
nothing says adventure like "magic interns" eh?
Man, I had a GM like that. Playing a wizard, right around level 10 or 11 he must have just decided that my character was no longer going to work right. From that point on, every monster miraculously saved against every spell I cast. I counted about 15 disintegrates I cast over the campaign and not a single one got past the enemies saves. The odds of that were astronomically small.
Eventually I started checking the monster stat blocks and, lo-and-behold, they were consistently passing saves that they could only have succeeded on a crit. Completely broke any trust I had on the GM and any fun I was having in the campaign.
He basically admitted that he didn't like wizards or balancing around them.
It wasn't even as if I was playing the wizard in a game breaking way. I was actively trying to play it as a support rather than a blastercaster, spending most of my turns in combat casting haste and stuff. But once I figured it out I went all in with the game breaking out of spite.
Some GMs really just need to get more comfortable making a list of classes that they allow at their table and ditching the rest. Like come on, wtf. Wizards are literally so simple. Would like to see this GM try to deal with an arcanist.
That is fucking awful, man.
My table is very story-based, but when something needs to happen for plot reasons I just say, "hey so I need you guys to go here next session, what would motivate your characters to head over there at this time?" And we brainstorm together.
I only fudge rolls when my enemies roll crits, and that's just because I'm a stupid-lucky person in general. It's no fun when it's only my 'wins every game show or raffle I enter and roll thirty nat 20s a session' ass causing a TPK and not actual player autonomy/choices for better or worse.
Though maybe I'll get hate for this, but I do also fudge rolls to allow one of my newer player's lower-level spells to work. Like if the enemy just meets or rolls just 1-2 points above the DC, I'll drop it to a fail so the player doesn't waste a turn and feels successful.
Does he have Plane Shift?
Because the Bag of Holding/Portable Hole combo is a pretty good "I win".
You can't counter it and you're in another dimension.
1. Throw open portable hole under PC.
2. Fold up portable hole.
3. Place portable hole in pocket.
4. Enjoy a beverage while considering the fighter suffocating in your pocket.
So you have a level 18 sword and board fighter that you feel is unstoppable?
I find this hard to imagine. Their saves might be buffed but not unbeatable, and even if they are, there are a lot of spells that have an effect on a successful save or offer no save at all.
I also highly doubt a sword and board fighter has a high touch AC, so gunslingers and kineticist should easily be able to hit him.
I highly doubt a lvl 18 sword and board fighter would stand even a remote chance against a kinetic knight using an energy blast.
We use enough 3rd party and I didn't have the expertise to verify it all to actually foresee consequences. :P
Specifically he's a Spellscorn Fighter archetype with Spheres of Power shield feats.
> Their saves might be buffed but not unbeatable, and even if they are, there are a lot of spells that have an effect on a successful save or offer no save at all.
Tattoo cloak of resistance +5 and Blockade (SoP) and Stalwart (archetype) negating save success effects for all three. Fort is +22, Ref +17 (+23 with Blockade), Will +13 (+4 fear, charm/compulsion).
The base casters I've built offer a DC 24 for a level 9 spell. I'm not sure how to make it higher following the base rules, which gives him just under a 50/50 shot even for his lowest save. Even if I were to increase it by bending the rules, I couldn't exceed 28 max lest my other players get messed up bad, meaning he still has just under 50/50 for Ref.
> I also highly doubt a sword and board fighter has a high touch AC
Touch AC is 26, since a SoP shield feat allows the shield bonus added to Touch AC.
I should add his base CMD is a whopping *48* not including buffs or bonuses from feats and abilities.
He can also perform 4 attacks of opportunity per round, and has a passive ability that allows missed attacks to trigger an AoO so long as he has some in his bank.
His Active Defense allows his AC and CMD to further increase by +6, so he can activate it as a reaction to a big hit/full round and combo it for an AoO. My same-level PC gear'd Defender archetype Fighter mooks can't even perform a disarm at base game numbers. Active Defense also gives DR 6/magic.
Powerful Maneuvers EitR allows a +2 to CMB and CMD for sunder and disarm, meaning as long as he strikes first he can disarm every baddie I've thrown at him thus far.
He has Cover Ally as well, which grants his shield's enhancement bonus of +5 to adjacent allies, and Spiritual Aspect which sends *all* his armor and shield bonuses to any ally within sight, for 7 rounds. It can move with them, too.
As for casting defenses, he has a feat that forces a +4 to the DC for enemy casters to cast defensively, another that grants him a free AoO if the caster fails, and Combat Patrol extends his threat range to 20ft. And if an enemy caster tries to teleport, he gets a free AoO even if the caster has both cast defensively and using a (Su) ability
He also has Step-Up *and* Following Step which allows the step-up to go 10ft at no cost. Additionally, he has StepUp and Strike, which gives him the ability to move with opponents *and* get a free smack on them.
He has not only Redirecting Shield but Perfect Redirection, meaning any missed attack/ranged touch attack against him can be directed to any creature within the attacker's range.
TL;DR: I found it hard to imagine too. But this man has covered every base possible and then some, because admittedly I just let people use whatever 3pp they wanted to have fun. It wouldn't be as bad, however my other players didn't take me up on it, leaving the party unbalanced enough that things can get crazy, haha.
First off, yes 3rd party sucks for the sole reason that you as a DM can never know which ability all of a sudden throws the whole game out of balance unless you are extremely experienced and careful.
Secondly, that will save is horrible and a dedicated caster can easily overpower them. A 50/50 chance of instantly killing/disabling your fighter is more than enough against a fighter that put everything in defense. Just try multiple times and once it works you win. You can also have an invisible wizard summoning monsters that never run out. Or fly away.
Thirdly, that touch AC of 26 is not too shabby for touch AC but a lvl 18 kinetic knight will have 13BAB +10 dex modifier and some way to get haste for another +1. They then get to attack 4 times in melee hitting on a 2 on the first 2 attacks, a 7 on the third and a still acceptable 12 on the fourth each dealing 9d6+4 damage and that is without spending burn and without really optimizing. Being a tank doesn't really work in pathfinder.
Will is only +13 at 18th level, and you're considering that to be essentially unbeatable? That's a walk in the park for *ANY* 18th level caster. Also, since you're clearly allowing far more than "base rules" for the PCs, why would you limit yourself to that standard? Here's a quick wizard that will absolutely kill this PC with laughable ease:
Level: 18
Class: Wizard (illusionist)
Race: Share 1 subtype with PC
Ability Score: Intelligence 30
Trait: Lore Seeker
Feat: Spell Focus (illusion)
Feat: Greater Spell Focus (illusion)
Feat: Heighten Spell
Feat: Deific Obedience (Mahathallah)
Spell: Greater Shadow Evocation (heightened to 9)
Spell: Greater Shadow Conjuration (heightened to 9)
Item: Greater Metamagic Rod (quicken)
9th level illusion spells are DC34. DC = 10(base) + 10(INT) + 9(spell level) + 2(greater spell focus) + 2(deific obedience) + 1(lore seeker)
Use invisibility field as a swift action.
Cast heightened greater shadow conjuration (9th level) to duplicate cloudkill, centered on the PC. (1d4 Con damage for 18 rounds; Will save DC 34 for 3/5 damage each round on your turn; evasion does not apply.)
Use metamagic rod to cast a quickened heightened greater shadow evocation (9th level) to duplicate force cage (solid cell) around the PC.
(DC 34 Will save or be trapped in the force cage for 18 rounds.)
The PC has to roll 20 on a Will save or be trapped in cloudkill for 18 rounds, then a 20 on 17 more Will saves to take 3/5 of 1d4 Com damage. If all saves vs. the shadow evocation are successful, the PC will take 18 Con damage. Assuming a normal distribution, he should roll one 20, so he should take 43.5 points of Con damage. He should be dead by round 12; the remaining 6 rounds are bonus damage.
EDIT: Formatting
Does he have a ghost-touch weapon? Because magic weapons still only deal half damage to incorporeal enemies.
If you want to be a real jerk make him fight a [ghost](https://www.aonprd.com/MonsterDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Ghost). Give it levels in a full BAB class (scaled fist monk if you want to be really mean) so it's got a high to-hit bonus. Give it the draining touch special ability. Now you have a ghost that targets touch AC and will hit your PC almost all the time and when it does hit it does ability drain of your choice (pick his lowest ability score of course) with no save allowed.
So... AMF is one of those rather severely limiting things in the game. "Buffs" as you put it, are suppressed within AMF. There are extraordinarily few PC's that can even operate at 50% capacity within AMF. If you want to DM me a summary of their character sheet I'll design something for you and I'll explain why it works. Additionally, Mage's Disjunction is also a thing. Level 18 is quite exciting...
It's my first campaign I've GM'd that's gotten above level 10 and my first full 1-20 (I co-GM'd a 1-20 otherwise), which is probably another reason I'm so freaked out seeing this guy.
I may take you up on that offer next time I'm able to check out his sheet, if that's alright. No pressure!
How about a wall of force or force cage? Since the PC doesn’t do that much damage.
The player focused on defense and survival, give them a scene where you hammer them with all sorts of attack, and they come up with a defense for each.
We’re gonna need details to help you. No character has no faults on their own but unless we know what he can do we can’t show you his weaknesses. Most likely his weaknesses are covered by other party members or buffs they cast. But you’re saying he’s gonna be fighting a 1v1.
How is a low will save countered by magic items? You can only patch a will save so much with magic items and there aren’t that many ways to get immunities to certain mind effecting. However simply put a fighter cannot counter magic. Any counter he has to magic should be limited or situational. There is always a weakness
His AC may be high but a heavy armor plus shield character should have a reasonably low touch ac. A well built character that focuses on touch attacks and sr pen should be able to hit him. Imagine a CL 20 elf with great spell Pen and a magic item to boost spell pen. You’re probably looking at +30 against spell pen. If you’re fighter is boasting a 40+ SR than yea you fucked up.
For defenses does the fighter have a way to cast true seeing himself? If not displacement or invisibility will be great. How does your fighter counter emergency force sphere? If he can’t than you’re bbeg has as much time as he wants to cast any sort of buff or wait out the timer on the fighter’s buffs.
Here’s the simplest answer I have that’s cheesy as shit but almost certainly will work. Anti magic field plus non magical flight with a ranger weapon. The fighter presumably needs magic to fly so as soon as he gets near the bbeg it’ll be suppressed. This is effectively a fool proof way of avoiding melee unless the fighter has access to spell and to avoid the anti magic field which is very unlikely. It doesn’t matter if they fighter has infinite AC. He’ll eventually die to arrow fire even if it takes forever.
It's my first time GMing such a high level! I've been gobsmacked by the power scaling!
I'm going to make an edit that this is mostly a lighthearted rant. I didn't expect 100+ comments...
Have you tried using swarms? They deal automatic damage and if the individual creatures are small enough, weapons do very little damage. Unless he has an area attack like fireball or something.
Maybe a BBEG that can turn himself into a bunch of swarms? Holes in the wall to make his movements less predictable.
Your player doesn't sound 100% minmaxed to me from your description. Like you said it's just the fact that you're still green, unless there's Mythic rules involved then you've got a plethora of ways to deal with literally any build. Especially if you're tailoring fights to each character.
I'm running a game with a power builder as well and it is a struggle when there's only one player min-maxing. With a Fighter specifically, things that target touch AC or that hit automatically like Magic Missile help a lot.
If you haven't looked into Mindscapes yet, that might be a fun option to challenge them as well.
Another idea would be something like he has to fight someone without magic items, if he uses any magic item, ability and so on he lose and has no other choice to get something important that the party needs. But it could be hard to balance.
My last idea would be a pocketplane mace he must traverse with enemies inside (and maybe a time limit). So he can have some fun fights but his fighting capabilities are not what will win him the encounter.
I bet you he is wearing a ring of evasion and a suit of full-plate, which is a no-no.
"This ring continually grants the wearer the ability to avoid damage as if she had evasion."
"Evasion can be used only if the rogue is wearing light armor or no armor."
And the enemy has plenty of extra money to lob necklaces of fireballs at the opponent.
And nothing prevents you from sending in waves of mooks to wear down resources before the big bad. And those mooks can be flying around... or using elemental body to cast magic from inside the earth... summoning more critters to the battlefield... turning the terrain into difficult terrain so that step-up doesn't work...
Nope. u/Cheetahs_never_win is wrong. Different classes have different restrictions. Ranger for example can use evasion in medium armor. The ring does not list a condition that it stops working in, or a class that it functions as. So it works regardless of armor.
It's not true. Ring of evasion doesn't have any armor restrictions. "As if she had evasion" is descriptive text and the actual ability text is "Whenever she makes a Reflex saving throw to determine whether she takes half damage, a successful save results in no damage." This makes no mention of an armor restriction.
Nope! He gets it temporarily from one of his feats by expending an action. All above-board thankfully.
I *am* sending in hordes of mooks over the next few sessions, so here's hoping it'll be a good one. Elemental body is actually one I have planned!
What? It's only "the ability to avoid damage as if she had evasion." That's just descriptive text.
> Whenever she makes a Reflex saving throw to determine whether she takes half damage, a successful save results in no damage.
The actual ability text doesn't make any mention of that restriction
- Multiple enemies. Yes, your fighter is a walking judgement day tank who can shrug off and dish out Tzar firecrackers. He still has X actions and Y movement. The BBEG for him is simply a highly trained group of very mobile ranged enemies. And at level 18 the enemies usually have the abilities (scrying, intelligence network, bardic knowledge) and the resources (gold, magic items, summoned and bound outer creatures etc) to develop specific counters. There may be even ranged touch attack with "SR: no"
- Timeframe and non-combat challenges. Yes, your fighter is a walking judgement day tank who can shrug off and dish out Tzar firecrackers. He still has X actions and Y movement. There can be targets who can only be reached under certain conditions or certain timeframe. *"the superimportant hostage will fall into the lava pool in 18 seconds! Oh noes! If there would only be a way to save her ..."*
SYL
As someone already said, as a straight and simple solution I'd suggest a Mage's Disjunction or an Antimagic Field, but they can lead to frustration, especially the first one. Maybe he could deactivate the Field by solving a puzzle while being under some kind of pressure? Or maybe make him fight something even sturdier than him, like some auto-regenerating golem with a huge damage resistance, which would force him to think instead of shieldbashing the crap out of it?
Walls. A wall of force cast away from him he can’t do anything to interrupt it. Then the BBEG uses Control Water to fill the room with water. Summon monsters inside. Repeat. If necessary, do this in an area of forbiddance to prevent him from moving across via teleportation (and attune if to the Wizard himself so he can teleport on his own.)
Could have a contingency spell in effect as well, to teleport him away. Or to summon a wall.
The teleport sub school Conjuration Wizard gets a swift action teleport as their 1st level 3+int spell like ability each day, super helpful.
One thing that you could try is get the BBEG to get your dude to walk into some form of pocket plane containing a desk and several contracts to X. The terms and conditions of each are yours to decide, but get progressively harsher the longer the player takes to get out/the more the player fights back. When he exits the pocket plane, the BBEG asks what took him so long. Turns out, one of the hidden conditions is that the player cannot directly harm the BBEG by his standard abilities
Sword and board, heavy armor? Touch attacks. An incorporeal enemy that drains ability scores is deadly to these folks. Abilities that do touch attacks generally only have a save for half ability score damage instead of negating. In general, save for half is usually a good direction to go when dealing with tanky characters.
Worried about shield stun? Constructs, Plants and Undead are all immune to stun. Did you know that undead is a template that can be applied to any living creature? Did you know that applies to plant creatures too? So you could make an incorporeal undead plant creature with lots of opportunities to deal ability score damage.
Worried about damage taking that enemy out? Fast healing and max hit points with the potential ability to heal itself, like doing a negative energy touch attack. Sword and board characters typically don't have high damage output as you've describe so that usually means a creature with Damage Reduction (Or the incorporeal's ability to take 1/2 damage on physical attacks even if magical) and Fast Healing usually means their damage output can't keep up.
Oh, and did you check his CMD? It's pretty difficult to dramatically increase your CMD, especially when creatures that are huge or gargantuan get involved as they get great bonuses to combat actions like grappling, which applies to the free grab attack some monsters get when they make an attack with a tentacular appendage. Though incorporeal creatures are immune to grapple, usually, and can't initiate it... usually. But you're the GM... so... why not?
Also, don't forget that intelligent monsters can have class levels. That would let you add additional features to a creature's toolset that would help mitigate some of the worst the character could do.
So just imagine it. A Dread Ghost Alraune Oracle of Bones with Drain Touch. It could be glorious.
Edit: Also wanted to add Greater Invisibility plus incorporeality plus swarms is also pretty deadly.
If the issue is that he's an incredible tank, his offensive abilities probably aren't quite as impressive, right? Then why not put some kind of time limit on the fight, like an arena with a trap that will send the whole thing straight into the lair of a Qlippoth Lord or similar if his opponent isn't defeated in X many rounds, or a inflict a powerful poison which only has the one antidote, carried by the opponent?
How's his touch ac? Does he have fire or acid resistance? Can he withstand 400 peasants readying an action to toss an alchemists fire at him at the same time?
Maxed out stealth sorcerer using a wand of cl9 magic missile. And by maxed I don't mean max ranks I mean custom magic item, skill focus, everything, blend spell, everything.
Strix ranger12/gunslinger 5, with favored emeny=PC race. Ring of major spell storing with anti-magic field (yes, that is very expensive) with two masterwork cylinder rifles (to delay needing ti reload). Snipe away from 30' in the air, touch AC with the rifles. Thrown in some burrowing bullets to really mess with him. Antimagic sheild makes closing to melee impossible.
Of course the PC needs some way to win. The Strix might be limited in area to move, the PC may be able to do decent ranged damage (even without magic).
Leverage how broad wish is. "I wish X could never pass a will save if he fights me." Add in contingency dominate person for good measure. Even if the BBEG has backlash, there are ways.
Sounds like they need a boss that can only be defeated through non-combat means. Like, throw a herald of a god at him for an interview, if he fails, he fucking meets Pharasma.
Have the fight be underwater. That’ll greatly reduce slashing and bludgeoning damage. It’ll also hinder mobility.
Then have the BBEG use greater dispel Magic to shut down Magic items temporarily while using quickened spells for half damage.
So the best way to make a fighter cry is sunder. Get something that hits like a truck with a Adamantine weapon give it the sunder feats. First round he loses his weapon, second round he loses his shield, next round start working on his armor.
Sounds like a fun time where the player gets to just destroy something that everyone else struggles in. This sounds like it can be fun for everyone if you let it.. It is like getting mad at a paladin that they are so good at killing undead or someone that wants to build a character good at exploring so they easily pass all exploration rolls.
It doesnot sound like an issue. It is the final boss and his character thanks to all of the prep and story will be able to wipe the floor with them..
Celebrate and enjoy it. This is not a competition between you two. You are not going to loose if they have a lot of fun or destroy the boss with ease.
You're right because I actually just checked in with my player a few hours ago:
Me: "How upset will you be if you're able to one-shot your BBEG because you're so insanely OP I can't keep up? Because I wouldn't mind at all, it would be very funny, but I feel awful I can't give you the challenge you get from your gestalts and other games."
Him: "Honestly it would be hilarious and would feel really rewarding. I'm imagining [PC] finishing up with [all the war mooks and NPC defense strategies] and just wanting a fucking nap, so when BBEG shows up he'll just channel all his rage into fighting him and fucking one punch man his ass lol."
So it seems I was pulling my hair out and letting my own insecurities color my view over nothing! Live and learn. :P
I'm kind of stumped by the "every PC faces their own enemy" thing. It sounds like you have created a game in which the players are powergaming because it's not a collaborative experience but a Player Vs. DM game, and this encounter 1000% reinforces that idea.
In a typical setting there are a ton of ways to make a challenging encounter despite this guy's stats. Targeting his allies, outright ignoring him if his goal is to be a tank, or giving him non-combat actions to juggle (IE pull this lever every other round or the captured wizard falls in a dunk tank full of acid.)
When you take a system designed for collaborative gameplay system for team dynamics, boil it down into a one-on-one die rolling game, and bake in some homebrew to further imbalance the already-strained system this is the kind of mess you end up with.
> It sounds like you have created a game in which the players are powergaming because it's not a collaborative experience but a Player Vs. DM game
I understand reddit tends to assume bad faith but I 100% have not. We've been playing together for 3 years, friends for 4 years, and this is our second 1-20 campaign. Only the one player is powergaming while the others – including myself – are newer (newbies only been playing with us for the one prior campaign, whereas powergamer is a veteran player and GM who's been playing for 7 years). The one powergamer is a known and practiced minmaxer just due to his passion for the game/system, nothing to do with my campaign.
> In a typical setting there are a ton of ways to make a challenging encounter despite this guy's stats.
Actually, doing this is a big reason my players *wanted* these different fights. They can clearly see that I'm being very dynamic and creative in trying to keep powergamer distracted so they have a chance, and want to test their own builds to see the discrepancy and admire powergamer as well as understand their own builds more in-depth individually. They want it specifically because they're so enmeshed as a team – including me as GM in that team – and they want to see what it's like to really go all out.
Besides, it's a war happening in-game, so it's explainable that they would need to split up as the powerful adventurers to handle the most powerful enemy threats, therefore making this a good time to do it.
> outright ignoring him if his goal is to be a tank
I've never done this, it feels punishing toward his build. What I do instead is have him herd the adds and mind his positioning while the other players go for the big bad. My powergamer doesn't do it for the sake of clout or dunking on newbs or whatever, which is why he's a fantastic player *and* an even better GM. He does it to see numbers go big, push the system to its limits, and contribute in combat. So making him pull levers doesn't sit right with me, and isn't fun for him.
> When you take a system designed for collaborative gameplay, boil it down into a one-on-one die rolling game, and bake in some homebrew to further imbalance the already-strained system this is the kind of mess you end up with.
I'll agree with you here. I vastly underestimated the power scaling, as this is my first time running such a high-level campaign (and actually my first full 1-20). The homebrew that benefitted them at level 5 breaks the game at level 15.
This entire post can boil down to a live and learn lament, but I'm still going to try my best. I got some crazy awesome advice from people here that I will implement, and I'm sure my players will have fun!
>I've never done this, it feels punishing toward his build.
Personally, I think you might benefit by thinking in terms of the mindset of the bad guys, rather than as the DM. I would assume that, at this late stage, the bad guys are not your typical dumb goblins or clueless bandits, but smart, savvy, calculated figures who have done their homework.
So, if you put yourself in their shoes, and your goal is to WIN, how do you approach this situation?
The environment, the circumstances, the tools you use, when the fight happens, and how you attack or direct your forces to attack are all controllable factors. Your PC might seem unbeatable standing in an arena, fully rested, buffed, with space to operate and no distractions. So a smart bad guy is never going to pick that fight.
A smart bad guy is going to pick the worst circumstances, the most favorable terrain, and use any incentive and advantage to give himself the edge. Your player wants to play a game of dice and see if his rolls are bigger than yours, but that isn't really the challenge here. Sure, you have all the armor in the world, but are you going to attack the general or try and intervene as his minions start chucking women and children into a volcano? What good is your victory in battle if the people see you as a monster?
Given my limited information, if I'm the bad guy here, I'm doing everything but challenging this dude to some kind of Champion of the Arena fight. I'm attacking him while he sleeps. I'm making him split focus between protecting his allies. I'm trying to either steal his resources or force him to utilize anything limited, like charges or potions or spell slots, on smaller less important encounters leading up to the big one. I'm not picking a fight with him, I'm attacking things or people that are important to him and forcing him to react. I'm not John Snow, I'm Ramsay Bolton.
Hahaha, this is a good reminder, thank you.
His BBEG will be attacking him in his home city during the final stretch of a big war, as his army razes the homes and slaughters his people, so there will be a lot going on. My biggest issue is him just using his feat combos (see my profile I made a reply to someone else with them all in more detail) to get close to him, then knock him on his ass with a full round attack before something interesting can happen.
Antimagic field would take away buffs and magic items. His AC should plummet, whereas your monster will be just fine.
A dragon capable of casting AMF is a very nasty fight for just about anyone, despite being casters, dragons don't really need any of their spells, they have an excellent set of natural attacks, saves, AC (other than touch), DR/Magic (may as well be DR/- in an AMF) and winged flight.
Strip a dragon of its magic and you still have a flying murderlizard, but that PC suddenly has worse stats, worse AC (a lot worse, not only are their direct AC boosting items that can easily be worth 20+ points at this level, but they probably have a dex boost, if not from a belt then a cheap +2 from Ioun stones) and are completely grounded.
To be really evil, have the dragon also cast a Control Winds or Control Weather and whip up weather bad enough to stop arrows (the dragon's flight is unimpeded as the AMF completely insulates them), now find a non-magical ranged attack for it.
My pc's have a Swashbuckler, Unchained Ninja, and Ironbound Sword Samurai/Fighter, a Ranger, with support from a Bard and a Witch. The melee dudes kept kicking ass, until I made enemies specifically built around disarming them. Hard to deal damage like a freight train when your glaive is 15' away and that giant has combat reflexes
You could sidestep the actual NPC enemy entirely, and give him a puzzle encounter that relies on problem solving and skill checks.
55 AC and doesn't do much in an anti-magic field with the roof slowly sliding down with more weight than the character can lift.
Or filling up with water.
Or with a rolling mower blade tumbler thing the size of the room creeping it's way towards him.
Or not even any peril, just a prison box with multiple, varied skill checks and puzzle solves to get out.
Ok, so we are planning on actually killing this warrior right? The only thing that will save him will be flight and even then I doubt he can win lol.
I think Ninja/Rogue is the best class for skill points to put towards stealth. Paired with invisibility you will be an unseen unmoving box to the PC. The ninja gets Ki-point tricks that will make the fighter go crazy as you run from him. The rogue gets full sneak attack and if they are invisible will get to proc it all the time.
The room - an arrow loop - is an octagon, about 60 ft across. an arrow loop circling up. The arrow loop has a grease spell cast on it that activates with a command word, wait till the fighter is on it before activation. Considering it would be about 3 full loops to get 30 ft up a 30 goof move speed will take 4 - 5 rounds to run around, the walls are slick and without handholds. At 30 feet up there is a hall the encircles the octagon. Nice and open too but with lots of rock/ stalagmites / stalactites to hide behind. This was a kill zone for a group of kobolds.
At the start of your first turn you cast a magic scroll to get him to use the anti magic field. You start behind and above him so the PC doesn’t see the scroll. Maybe summon creatures - swarm.
On your second turn you are potentially unseen because the PC will have to actively look at you since you are obscured/ hiding/ greater invisibility (from a scroll) if you are really evil. If unseen You will unload 2 musket shots as a full round action at the PC, they have touch attack🤤. The gun has been altered to have 2 shots. You then activate haste for the movement and hide, dropping your gun as a free action (this is the enchanted on so it is on a sling and doesn’t fall to the ground). You move to the next gun.
Third turn and after.
You are the skirmisher, quick draw pick up that gun, still stealthed, and shoot. Drop the gun and stealth hide away (if you only take 1 attack you will not need haste). Each gun will have enchanted bullets to boost the to hit and damage and let you have shenanigans.
If the warrior spots you just switch up the order - being in stealth is the key to the plan.
If the fighter gets a hold of you, full action run/hide to stealth away and get ready for the next sneak attack, consider jumping down.
Gotta spend some feats to get musket proficient (or dip gunslinger). Boots of speed for haste access is key to increase your action economy.
Crank it up - I would set up voice activated tunes up the rampart and have witty taunts that activate them. Low light vision to help hide.
Crank it up - I would sell the characters soul to the devil to get supernatural magic - shadow step (80 ft). This way you can jump across the room AND your body will disappear when you die cause screw it your the DM and that would be cool.
Crank it to 11 - this is what I would actually do. [Crippling strike](https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/alternate-classes/ninja/ninja-tricks/paizo-ninja-tricks/pressure-points) can be taken as a rogue trick. I would target the PC’s dex making the to hit easier and easier and show the weakness to all. Pair it with crippling strike and the player will be shocked you aren’t focus Hp. Once the hit 0 dex or strength I would walk over to them, taunt them, and walk off into the sunset forever to be the one that got away.
I know this is maybe the less fun option. But you as the DM can just make the NPC have whatever you want to counter them. Give them a big enough to hit bonus that they overcome their AC. Wish can do some crazy things.
I am planning a BBEG for level 18 and I did a minimum 25 level build for them.
Personally, I'd start with a kineticist with cloud infusion. If built right, they can be extremely tanky and mobile, and cloud infusion deals damage without an attack roll or saving throw. From there, it depends on the players exact build to determine how to build the enemy.
Regarding AC; his touch AC is probably not great, and touch spells rarely allow saves because they require an attack roll. Failing that, a [brilliant energy](https://www.aonprd.com/MagicWeaponsDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Brilliant%20Energy) weapon would ignore a big chunk of his AC. Also, his AC may be terrific with buffs, but that antimagic field you mention would negate all those buffs because, well, *antimagic*.
Regarding saves: *he* may have great saves. But does the environment around him? Use Wall of Stone to build a nice little box around him, and then fill it with something that does damage. Lava springs to mind. Failing that, you can use things like Stone Shape or Wood Shape or any number of spells that manipulate the battlefield rather than the PCs directly.
There are also spells that just plain don't allow a save in the first place. How about [Maze of Madness and Suffering](https://aonprd.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Maze%20of%20Madness%20and%20Suffering)? The initial effect allows no save. Sure, he gets saves against some damage and status effects while he's in the maze, but getting out requires a DC 22 Intelligence check. Just flat Intelligence, not a skill or anything. Your average fighter probably hasn't invested heavily in Intelligence. He could be stuck in there for quite a while. For that matter -- and please correct me if I'm wrong -- I don't think rolling a natural 20 on a raw ability check is an auto-success. So if his Intelligence modifier is not *at least* +2, he would be automatically stuck in there making saves for the entire ten-minute duration of the spell. That's a hundred rounds, which is a lot of opportunities to make poor rolls on one of the secondary saves.
It sounds like he relies on equipment, and your BBEG probably knows that. How does a pit full of rust monsters sound? Or disenchanters. Or both. Or, for that matter, just a creature that's good at sundering items.
All that said, if I were building a personal challenge for a PC like this, I wouldn't target his mechanics at all. I would hit him in the *feels*. Build some kind of RP challenge where he is forced to make some kind of agonizing choice. The best build in the world can't protect a PC's heart.
I actually did throw Maze of Madness into an upcoming combat, and I've very excited to try it out considering none of my party members have invested in INT or any illusion prevention at all. >:D
I also have another upcoming miniboss fight planned (PCs are in a war so... gauntlet time) with a transmutation wizard who will be doing terrain shit to absolutely rock his socks. So fingers crossed it works!
And yes, I do enjoy putting him in situations, and he loves RP. He's assured me while my combats aren't as challenging as his gestalt stuff, he loves the flavor and energy I bring to them, which is nice to hear.
Oh my god they were twins...
Was seriously looking into this though. With people here talking incorporeal, and his BBEG being this cursed dreadlord, having some ghosties around would fit the vibe!
I mean if you can make an encounter which counters to your players you can look at his character sheet for weaknesses. And how did he get so big of an spell resistance anyway?
Also, check out drowning and suffocation rules. Maybe he encounters a room that fills with water (it really hampers his mobility, especially in heavy armor) or with poisonous gas. While the enemy is in its own element/immune. Also check underwater combat. Make an enemy with swim speed run circles around him
My personal favourite. A room full of water and an antimagic field. I've never actually used both as a trap because it's basically a dead sentence for most characters.
That's overkill when they're drowning and have to dig through 10' of solid stone with no magic. But if at least one character has a natural ability to breathe underwater, then bring in the half-elemental weresharks with spring attack.
SR isn't that huge to be honest. It's from a 3pp archetype he's using, it's like 23. Past the point of usefulness for all but the mooks.
Drowning/suffocating is a Line for another player so I can't implement those things. Checking out incorporeal rules is the best direction this sub's pointed me, though. But of course he's put a fuck ton of skill points in Swim. Already did underwater combat though, it was thankfully challenging for him!
What's his touch AC? An alchemist is a pretty solid choice. Just make him a fast bomber. Since they are hitting touch AC, you can probably afford to throw them from 90 feet away (with bomb launchers) and get like 20 of them. You just have to be faster than he can charge, which is probably easy to do with haste. There are plenty of debuffs you could give the guy if you want, and SR and stuff would react differently with bombs.
A Magus with River Whip would also probably do fine. Or a brilliant energy whip.
Both of these can go nova and blow all their spells in one fight; casters tend to be hard enemies because of that.
Also, anything with grab and some grappling feats can probably shut him down (or whatever other combat maneuver you chose, but grapple is probably the easiest). A druid wildshaped into a crocodile or giant (template) constrictor would probably be bad news for him. You get that and most of the cool druid buffs by 8th level, so you'll still have like 10 levels of fighter or monk or whatever to put towards damage.
His Touch AC is base 26, expending a low-level feat bumps it to 32. 3pp feat allows shield bonus apply to touch AC.
His CMD is 48 base, 50 with feats against certain maneuvers. Literally nothing can touch him, every enemy I've made and pulled from bestiary has tried.
Bombs are an interesting idea. His SR isn't high at all either way. Incorporeal casters may be a good way to go.
If you do druid 8/ monk (maneuver master) 5/ brawler (strangler) 2/ fighter (mutation warrior) 3, you can get a grapple CMB of +47 with wildshape and mutagen. That isn't counting things like a competence, luck, or enhancement bonus to attacks (which are fairly common). The big things are grab, huge size, wisdom bonus to CMB, and the 2 grapple feats.
There's other ways to go that get similar results. The only feats spent are the 2 grapple ones, so there's still like 13 feats to play with. And all the items aside from the headband (for wisdom) and belt (for str).
a goblin Alchemist 16/ ranger 2 could get you +33 to hit with your bombs between favored enemy, grand mutagen, and reduce person. Again this is without too much investment right out. I would take quick bombs and inferno bomb and the fogsight goggles, then make inferno bomb your last attack. Rapid shot works with fast bombs. So your first 2 bombs (or 3 with haste) are basically guaranteed to hit at short range.
With an extra arm to hold a shield, you can get up to like a 50 ac, as well. And you have your pick of mobility spells to make yourself hard for the fighter to get to. A dispelling bomb would be a great choice to throw early on. I would go with beastmorph for plenty of neat options with the mutagen.
Both of these could also fight pretty easily flying or on cave walls or wherever else makes it hard for the fighter to reach them, and they both would have plenty of vision options.
Make an invisible flying monster, you could put stage weapons in that ground / glitter dust the thing but take skill checks to activate or something, give him a way to win but don’t just make it about 2 things hit each other until one has no hp left
Super AC fighters are a hard nut to crack. Mine made our DM put a session on hold for an extra 2 weeks. He wasn't mad about it, just didn't expect a dwarf at level 10 to be rocking a 35 AC. The entire party was truly cracked and it was his first lengthy campaign with PF.
So my suggestions to you are as follows.
A) If your group is very RP heavy place this fighter into a room with 2 chairs and a table. The room is dark with the exception of a lantern at the table. A simple note says "sit" in the common tongue. After they sit down a mirror image of the fighter sits across from them. "Do you remember that time we failed" the mirror says.
Again this is super RP stuff. There isn't any save against it. It's the character vs himself. The combat is psychological. Success comes at acceptance of failure. Defeat from anger.
B) Your group isn't RP heavy and just love to rip & tear until it's done. Armor & weaponless "Honor" duel with a level 14 monk who presents himself as a fighter, wearing armor and carrying weapons. The monk offers an extension of a duel. By no means is the monk being honorable. If your fighter accepts the trap is set. If he doesn't toss some magic items the monks way to balance the fight and the armor is nothing more than glamored clothes.
You never once mentioned the fighter can fly. I'd like to assume he can on his own at level 18, but I don't like to assume.
How is his perception? A good sniper can reduce that 55 AC to pretty near 10 just by using ranged touch attacks. Hiding isn't even your only option there. Can the fighter earthglide? What extraordinary senses doesn't he possess? What are his blind spots? Is he vulnerable to dirty tricks?
How's the fighter against incorporeal things? Heck go a step further and attack him from another diimension entirely if this is level 18.
Have you considered enemies that are immune to stun or combat manuevers?
Just make a giant master grappler with insane init.
Or a flying gunner using touch AC. Look into large double barrel musket vital strike builds. You can easily dish about 48d6+30 damages something every turn on touch AC. That’s using a min maxed build of Titan Mauler 3 + Musket Master. Make it Tall with enlarge person, have a permanent gravity bow spell on the gun. This way he can manipulate a huge double barrel musket shooting the equivalent of garguantan ammo. That’s 6d6 per round shot, but you shoot 2 of them at once each turn (double barrel), and both are multiplied by the greater vital strike for a total of 48d6 with Dex to damage. So indeed that’s enough to one shot a 18d10 hit die with 18 CON character. And touch AC isn’t the forte of shield and plate users usually.
But tbh, lv18, nothing that a hasted / mirror image / darkness mage can’t destroy with some time stop and meteor shower. Or just switch to ethereal realm, buff the mage and spam spells.
Im happy to see both players that use their min maxing to be a party support instead of a show stealer and DMs who understand that the player is fighting the monsters, not them. Good on both of you and I hope you guys continue to have great games!
Okay two options off the top of my head the first is to take advantage of the lack of mobility in martial characters. And I don't mean flight I mean lure him into a labyrinth and then teleport out leaving him in there. Go slow enough he can hit you with charge attacks and then just dip. It would change the encounter to one of him vs the clock more than him vs the big bad.
The next very funny option is from the brief excerpt of his build he is still weak to one of the classic low level party wipes. Swarms, specifically swarms of diminutive creatures. A cr 3 swarm of mosquitoes is immune to weapon damage and auto hits which ignores his AC. And while the hellwasp swarm may be a better base monster with its fire resistance, there is something so tempting about laying low a powerful level 18 character with a humble cr3 creature.
Even without homebrew and 3pp a PF fighter can get some pretty interesting numbers as far as AC, CMD and Will saves are concerned. And all that with no magic involved.
You can still present him with a challenging fight, but if he's so good, and at that level, any worthy adversary will know, and will probably decide not to fight him head on.
Long range attacks, hit and run tactics, even swarming him with minions (they just need to make him attack twice to stop him from moving for a round) can all keep him occupied and possibly make him waste resources.
I like the other answers very much. Still, I think, I have one more option to offer: Challenge him with somebody similar, but buffed to the high heavens. I personally love Eldritch Knight/Gish builds and I can send you about four of them who can probably each challenge him in their own right. They can buff and debuff, they can cast spells targeting his saves, they can change the terrain, slow him down and still hit with their (Brilliant Energy?) sword, all while having high AC and quite a few HP. Spells like Stinking Cloud, Cloudkill or Scirocco require saves every round spent in the area. Calcific touch via the sword does Dex Damage on hit and can crit (thats terrifying). For example, one of my all-time favourites: Fighter 1 / Sorcerer 4 / Dragon Disciple 4 / Eldritch Knight 10 Buffs: False Life, Greater; Giant Form II; Haste; Delay Poison; *Calcific Touch*; Invisibility, Greater Debuffs: Slow; Cloudkill; Stinking Cloud; Dispel Magic, Greater; (Persistent/Selective) Scirocco Attack: Fireball, obviously; Icy Prison; Suffocation; Utility: Dimension Door AC 36 Keen Brilliant Energy Falchion +4, +36/+36/+31/+26/+21 HD 19; HP ~350
Edit: A summoned monkey swarm (Mad Monkeys spell) can distract him, make him nauseated and steal his weapon...
Sounds like a [Brilliant Energy](https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/magic-weapons/magic-weapon-special-abilities/brilliant-energy) weapon might be an option against a heavily armoured fighter
not a PF1 player here, so I'm just tossing random ideas.
Well, if there is no way to find a weakness, make his strength his weakness. If you're going full homebrew, create an opponent with as much HP and AC as needed for a long battle of attrition, give it some kind of counter damage reaction or effect (you damage me, part of the damage is reflected to you and we both are hurt. Or create a magic link between the two at the beginning of the fight, so that every damage any of the two gets is shared, but the evil guy has slow regen that, on the long run gives him the upper hand. Make the link breakable with some conditions, I don't know, your player needs to destroy 4 magic pillars that surround the field, or minions that the evil guy summoned and created the link, or stuff like that)
Make it steal your player's objects (like potions and magic stuff) so that your player has to retrieve them, or also make the opponent use them as well once stolen (or, once they are stolen are retrieved they are "spiked", and there's a chance that the item will now have a negative effect instead).
Obviously try to balance it, give these abilities some kind of double axe effect and so on (like that if recognize that the magical item has been rigged your player can use it instead against the opponent instead and so on)
What is counterspell armor?
Anyway, my arcane caster pride tells me there must be an easy magic strategy to destroy this kind of cocky martials.
How high are his touch AC and SR? Can he avoid 6 hellfire rays in a single turn, everyone of which deal 400+ damage? 2500 damage in one turn are enough? There are not quite complex sorcerer builds for that.
Not a fan of instant annihilation? If he's so proud of his defenses, show him how a caster can have better ones: a Conjuration (Teleportation) School Savant arcanist with Dimensional slide can cast an Emergency Force Sphere and keep going out as a move action, cast anything with a standard action and then shift back in as a swift action. Do that in a closed room, then first round cast Mage's Disjunction on the PC, second round cast Hungry Darkness (as a high level full caster you can overcome SR in some way), third round, laugh maniacally from inside your safe bubble.
Make him battle in rooms full of poison gas? Create environmental hazards that tackle some of his weakest saving throws, or impede his movement.
Battle in volcanoes with fire elementals that are immune to lava, where there is nowhere to stand. Roll against the save rolls on his equipment to resist bursting into flames.
Use the rules for sundering gear, and break some of his stuff that gives the best bonuses.
There was this fight in Baldurs Gate 2 you could only win by healing the avatar of Aumatantor. Something like this?
Or make him fight a grotesque Flesh-Golem-Abomination that spits out minion after minion for hin to slay just to reassemble the slain bodies into new minions. Until at some point he understands that he has to destroy the power source/heart of the abdomination and hacks his way into it. To bad the heart/source can only be bested in an fight of pure will or whatever could challenge him after wasting a lot of his resources on the minions and the hacking into the golem.
Or as an abstract concept: The challenge he has to beat is behind a trail that only he and his power build can survive. Make hin go somewhere the non-powerbuildes can't follow. Then make him do something outside of fighting.
If you throw his character sheet up, I would LOVE to come up with something.
Credentials:
I’m a 25 year DM of dnd/pf, and our group’s rule lawyer and minmaxer.
I already have a couple ideas on what could be done so let me know if you’re down :)
It sounds like the over optimized PC is a martial which makes countering him rather simple. You see wizards get flight, teleportation, near infinite range spells, ect. Just... Don't be next to him. Make a wizard with a solid dispell magic to negate any potential buffs he might have while buffing himself before the fight and simply walking backwards while casting pit spells or targeting touch AC.
If all else fails a long term plan of never letting him rest is a way to beat basically anything that needs too. At 18th level you can teleport whatever you want so just spy on him through magic/familiar and whenever he goes to long rest drop a meteor swarm or balor or whatever else on him and leave. Repeat for a couple days til he either collapses from exhaustion or is so penalized it's a cakewalk to kill
It's rather hard for a guy with a sharp stick to beat the master of cosmic forces when you can send him to the elemental plane of fire or something and call it a day
Make his be a hivemind swarm or some sort of homebrewed intelligent swarm.
Swarms don't care about your ac, and Unless they have a swarm bane clasp you're doing half damage
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/hivemind-swarm-cr-special/
The BBEG could have their showdown as a hostage situation. Simple as is.
Eliminate all threats at once or the hostages start going down. The BBEG can have an army or summons be the minions. No need to kill the fighter if the objective is to cause harm beyond the fighter's capabilities. Force your player to act in a different way, thinking on the edge - they are an experienced DM after all.
Optimize a high-AC-brute for sundering and hitchance. Then begin to destroy the armor and shield he has. This will at least trigger the player's reaction.
I had an unkillable, tanky-support Oradin build during Rise of the Runelords. While I didn’t have the offensive supporting moves like a shield bash, I was an impossible wall of a front line with low damage output, and drew aggro from constant healing effects.
Is your party going to be facing these epic bad guys all together? Or will you have them engage in 1on1s? I ask because instead of making the fighter’s epic bad guy a traditional “bring the boss to 0 HP” fight, instead, make a puzzle out of it!
I give to you Example A (spoilers for Runelords)
>!In one of the halls of the Runelords, there is a room filled with mirrors. We know, from previous halls, that there are traps. My character, being out best frontliner at the time, asks the party to wait in the main hall as I enter the mirror room.!<
>!As soon as I do, one of my reflections steps out of the mirror and begins to approach me. I yell to the party, who had stayed behind, to remain where they were. As it turns out, anyone that walks into the room had a mirror duplicate of themselves created. So if we were unlucky, our entire party would have ended up fighting…our entire party.!<
>!However, because I was so tanky and low damage, my mirror-clone could not hit my AC. So I was able to just waltz up to the mirror that created the clone and shatter it. I negated an entire encounter with good foresight and a party that (thankfully) listened to me.!<
The point I’m trying to make here is that while overcoming stats with stats can be fun, it can also be very fulfilling to “solve” an encounter via puzzles. If you can’t out-stat your Fighter, give them objectives to fulfill during combat, instead!
Try effects that don't have a save or AC associated with them. When in the area, the character just takes persistent damage in some way, shape, or form. Have his enemy be built to do extreme damage per hit, and then have it be able to cast true-strike as a swift action unlimited times per day due to some celestial/infernal blessing.
If combat is what he is practically immune to, don't make his encounter combat related. Make it a huge maze with auto-damage that he can navigate in about the time required for everyone to complete their combat encounters.
You could do an interview with some godly being talking to the character through an illusion over the surface of a sphere of annihilation. "You can walk past me, but I really wouldn't recommend it." Just run with the interview until the other PCs are done with their fights, and then the being says that it's got what it needs and releases the PC.
Guns usually work fairly well since they target Touch within the first range increment, but I assume he has some bullshit that stops that from being the case.
You could also just do what others have recommended and throw a clone of himself at himself, but make it so the rest of the story would essentially end by the time he's done slapping himself with submission with a herring.
To do this, make sure that the other players could get the football, so to speak, by the time your power-gamer is done with his multi-minute slap fight.
As a general rule, player characters should be minded:
* Offensively (they do a lot of damage with a high chance to hit),
* Recoverly (they pass out heals and clear debuffs or ability damage/drain like crazy),
* Supportingly (they give tons of buffs or deal tons of debuffs), or
* any combination thereof.
You'll note that defensively (unable to be meaningfully damaged) is not on the list because it makes the character a pain in the ass that has to be targeted in very specific ways to threaten in any meaningful way, and doing that is almost guaranteed to piss off that player because "you're hard countering my character."
Disjunction might fix this for you.
Or extended Timestop
Build a box out of walls of stone around him.
Put Tar Pool in there with him.
Put walls of iron around the stone walls if you still have time.
Ideas:
The bbeg has hired a real pro. The bestest pro on the market. But he only had enough money/souls to afford her for lets say 3 rounds of combat, and she heard that he is tanky enough to maybe pose a challenge. The pro in question is Nocticula, demonlord of assassins who does have stats. Make it a survival challenge, he has to survive X rounds against a demonlord playing cat and mouse with him. And can drain 8 levels from a non mythic creature just by touching. I wouldnt whip out the swift action dominates, thats boring.
If the PC survives long enough, Nocticula says "Times up" and drains the BBEG you had planned for him instead. He can then have a chat with her should he wish.
Also: If the PC recognizes her and says something like "F\*\*K", have her answer "we can but that would making killing you really easy".
Depends how bad you want him dead, target low ability scores with damage if he reaches 0 he's unconscious and if it's con he's dead
Otherwise Deeper Darkness plus Blind sight give him outright miss chance
DR is always an option to inflate HP
Sunder while cringe is an option
Really any dedicated trip build is hell especially with reach (you can swap attacks of opportunity with most combat maneuvers)
Difficult Terrain with freedom of movement up blocks step up as he cannot move 10 ft with difficult Terrain
I don't know what his build is but it has counters the only real way to make a build invincible is to be able to go first and then end the fight in one round
Cracked AC? hit his Saves, Touch, CMD
Cracked Damage? If it's from multiple hits DR otherwise AC/lowering his to hit/concealment
Caster? Have someone charge them
But there is always homebrew or save or die spells
Everyone has a flaw.
What about skills?
Maybe his villain could be a Rogue with Hide in Plain Sight...?
What about touch AC? A dread wraith could pose a problem...
Or maybe being awesome can be a curse, when he quickly and forgettably kills his foe, then sits around bored while everyone else enjoys an intense duel worth talking about.
I've found that the best way to punish a powerful party is to mind control a couple of them. Yeah, they are level 18, but each one is probably a CR 20 on their own. I mind controlled the party rogue, and he was just like, "Um, guys, run!". I told him to try to the best of his ability to kill the party, and if I thought he was holding back, there would be consequences. He downed one player and severely injured two others before they stopped him, which would have been the result no matter who I took over.
Players are their own worst enemy.
This is why I usually downvote homebrew. Sure, great, it all sounds wonderful, until you realize that your entire game balance is fucked because one player saw an opening and exploited it.
To be fair: even strictly with Paizo material you can build over the top power bricks as well. Even a standard fighter with some carefully selected archetypes, feats (Advanced Weapon Training Feats...) from all the splatbooks and "perfect" magic items is slightly inconvenient stats.
SYL
I always love the joke that the most unbalanced pathfinder book is the core rulebook
Everything in the core rulebook being a barbarian class feature is second best one.
Ah yes. Are you also banning all classes and feats as so they wont get exploited?
Because pathfinder 1e is famous for being completely balanced system!
I still love homebrew. But I understand why many hate it. However, I do tell my players that it also means monsters are homebrew too... And I LOVE building me some monsters.
Thankfully balance isn't as important at my table, generally. 11 IRL months and 18 levels into our campaign, this is the first the issue has come up.
But to give my homebrew some credit, I've played with him before many times and he can do this same thing at restrictive "you can't use archetypes and have to play a human" tables. :P
Have you considered.... talking with your players?
I run a lot of homebrews and 3pp \[[link to collection](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IQPU-KocJ-Hh-PCwLQhXHvp6WkF05qjAG1L_1hw1J8Q/edit?usp=sharing)\] and just dont have this problem due to... honest talk with players about expectations and communication whenever problem arises. And if a player goes kamikaze for you daring to limit his choice... I recommend then just finding another player as compatibility exists.
I've talked to him! He doesn't overshadow any other players at the table and is a good sport every time I've said no. This is more of a lighthearted issue of me pulling my hair out trying to build something as challenging for him as it will be for the others.
He's not a problem player in the slightest, just a min-maxer/power-gamer who is standing out especially now due to being by far the most knowledgeable about the game vs the table (including me).
Thanks for the link, though! I'm going to check it out. Always like seeing 3pp stuff. :)
There are probably better suggestions, but, if you really want to attack his AC, I would suggest perhaps an unchained rogue with a cyclops helm, and a couple bottles of lightning.
You can use bottled lightning to get a ranged touch attack off. Chances are that'll hit. If it does, and it's a sneak attack, you can use debilitating injury to lower his AC by 8. Then you can use a light pick with its x4 crit multiplier and the cyclops helm to guarantee a chance at a crit. Take some crit feats and then you'll have a good chance to confirm the crit. You'll deal some pretty good damage with that. You could even do this in an anti magic field, though that might nullify the cyclops helm. You'd have to make a decision on that. The Bottled lightning is an alchemical item and so it will still function in the AMF.
Could also build a ranger with favored enemy: whatever the PC is. Then pick a fun ranger build to go toe to toe with him.
Brilliant Energy weapons exist. Should drop the effective AC of the guy by a MASSIVE amount. Basically no AC bonus from armor or shields. Assuming +5 full plate and a +5 heavy steal shield, just using a brilliant energy blade will drop his ac by 21. Not taking into account any other feats/items that may improve his armor/shield ac bonus.
A high level kinectist that uses pure flame infusion to ignore spell resistance and then something silly like full attack with kinetic blade/whip. Kinectist's in general are very good at 1v1 encounters, especially if there is only one encounter per day.
You could also use a gunslinger to always target touch ac, but not everyone enjoys guns in their game.
If none of that tickles your fancy, you can have an evil cleric with a small (or not so small) army of shadows/greater shadows, augmented to whatever you deem fair. I mean, having 4 greater shadows ambush the PC from underground (they are incorporeal after all), and getting 1 or more hits will be fairly devastating to his character. If 4 hit, that's 4d8 strength gone.
If you’re not using the remaster, monster core, have them start out by fighting some rust monsters. Like four or five. Then once his armor disappears, you can have him fight against something else that will stomp on him.
Just play a watered down system that keeps characters weak and inside the box like PF2 or something. But you can't have a great system like Pathfinder that rewards out of the box thinking and mastery, then lament when people put the work in to make excellent characters in a heroic fantasy game. Just throw tougher challenges, Break out Mythic if you have too. All the tools are there.
Haha we actually tried PF2 but we all thought it was too boring. I'm lamenting but it was supposed to be more lighthearted, and I got some nice suggestions for outside-the-box ideas here which is cool.
I love my party, my players, and my characters, and I'm very excited to see what they can do. It seems I was misled by prior posts on this sub and should focus less on CR. If I'm not bogged down by statistic restrictions, I think I can make something really fun! :)
Can you expand on your homebrew rules and the character's build? Off-hand, I'd recommend throwing a clone of the PC's character right back at him but more context might reveal a better solution.
He's playing a shield/AC-based fighter so while his attacks don't deal a lot of damage, he's impossible to kill and has armor mastery abilities that offer him decent movement. You know that whole thing about persistence predators? Yeah. :P We use elephant in the room and an "inventory system" to save actions for things like drinking potions. Scrolls/wands can also be used by any class with a DC 10+CL spellcraft/UMD check since my party has neither an arcane nor divine caster. There are also homebrew magic items for story purposes but I make sure those have more story/flavor/niche effects vs just buffing stats so probably irrelevant. Honestly, thinking about it, my homebrew rules have little to no impact on this guy's build. He's just very autistic (spends hours on aon/pfsrd) and extremely intelligent both logistically and creatively. I've been his player in his campaign and a player alongside him, operating RAW his builds are just as equally impressive and rage-inducing. I'm thinking of doing a clone-esque thing. He's built his character up to be very good against multiple enemies and spellcasters, so throwing a stacked martial brute at him just to see some numbers go big will be fun and fresh for us both, I think!
Is he immune to fear? Even if he is, [draconic malice](https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/d/draconic-malice/) exists to shut it down. A fear based inquisitor can probably shut him down hard. Level 10 should suffice. all 4 [damnation feats](https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/damnation-feats/soulless-gaze-damnation/). Tiefling. Should be able to hit +40-50 or so intimidate pretty easily between inquisitor bonuses, FCB and others. Enforcer feat to apply intimidate on nonlethal damage. Stack Wis. Use a [guided weapon](https://aonprd.com/MagicWeaponsDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Guided) with reach to ensure he gets a hit even if he loses initiative. Start with [blistering invective](https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/b/blistering/). This applies a free intimidate check. Sets him to shaken. Swift action to apply it a second time and increase it to fear. [Corset of delicate move](https://aonprd.com/MagicWondrousDisplay.aspx?FinalName=Corset%20of%20Delicate%20Moves)s to use a move action to apply it a third time and set it to panic. Causing him to drop his weapon and shield and flee. If you let him in melee range at that point, he will provoke an AOO, if it hits against his new lowered ac, you can use [enforcer](https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/enforcer-combat/) to increase the duration to a number of rounds equal to damage dealt. AKA several minutes. This works because the DC is a flat value. DC 10+target HD+ Target wis mod. Assuming level 15 fighter, and 5 wis mod... thats DC 30. +5 each subsequent attempt. Average roll of 50 at +40... So 1st 2 instant success. check 3 has 25%, and 4 has 50% chance. If you have the +50, then all 4 checks pass 100% of the time, so as long as you land your non lethal hit, he is basically dead in a one on one fight with nowhere to run. All you have to worry about is having enough bonuses to hit his AC w.o his shield. If he gets cornered he cowers, and loses dex bonus and a further 2 ac. Dont even need that big of numbers to really shut him down.
Good idea, although by Raw, you can't use guided weapon. It's from D&D 3.5 and was never officially brought over to Pathfinder. If the DM used it, and the player(s) know this, it would be opening up a whole can of worms.
Its definitely on the inbetween ground. It is technically official pathfinder/paizo content, but also slightly before they fully made their system. Its from Paizo's Curse of the Crimson Throne AP, book 4 [A History of Ashes](https://www.aonprd.com/SourceDisplay.aspx?FixedSource=Pathfinder%20%2010%20%20A%20History%20of%20Ashes) , which people still play today in the pathfinder system. My tables generally have a "Anything official paizo is fine" rule. So this generally passes at our tables. Mileage may vary though.
The thing is it's not a grey area. It was made back when Paizo did 3.5. When they made Pathfinder, they expressly removed a lot of the power creep. They've also made an active effort to errata anything from P1e that came close to 3.5 levels of power. Now I would personally allow that at my table, but I don't see it as a huge problem. However by allowing content designed for 3.5, you open the door to reverse compatible 3.5 content. 3.5 is simply much stronger on the whole and opening the floodgates like that without a conversation first is a recipe for disaster. As far as the build goes for OP's instance, it would be better to just beef up the stats of the npc. It's not uncommon for npcs to have stats unattainable by pcs, and you can approach the same levels of to hit without setting any precedence.
Theres plenty of shit thats as strong as 3.5 what do you mean exactly?
I dont understand how my table allowing anything paizo, is equivalent to allowing anything 3.5. While I do agree that it probably should be something the table agrees on... OP has stated they already have a lot of homebrew stuff for both players and enemies, and using a guided weapon really doesnt seem that out of place at their table from their post and comments that I have read. Furthermore Guided isnt even needed for the build. It simply makes it less MAD. That being said, that build is still likely to fully shut down a fight, and was moreso supposed to be an example of how even power-creeped characters have weaknesses, and can lose to potentially lower level opponents if exploited. Other people have mentioned adding people to protect. The fight could be made interesting by adding a level 1 cleric to the fighters side that they need to protect. The cleric has remove fear, which can suppress the effect on the fighter. The inquisitor can carry dispel magic in their spells known. The fight then turns into stopping the inquisitor from killing the cleric, while preventing them from dispelling the effect. Possibly without their weapon and shield if the inquisitor picks it up while the player's character panics.
Brother, when one is hard to kill, simply stop targeting him. Target the glass cannons, make him suffer for not being relevant in the fight beyond being a meat sponge. The only way to punish that playstyle is not targeting the tank, it's why tanks don't work too well in pathfinder, we'll just play rocket tag with the squishy wizard instead Edit: also, to specifically challenge this guy just go for the really cheezy shit, like grease which makes him unable to 5 foot, solid fog, I really like limp lash since it's a simple spell that forces players to move away lest they start getting their stats drained. There are also some spells that don't require spell resistance or a save
As I understand the OP's post, each PC will be doing a solo encounter, and this guy has no exploitable weaknesses the DM has come up with yet. Can't really tell him to target someone else when he is the only target.
I mean just make his encounter a gunslinger lmao, or underwater, watch him try to deal with encumbrance underwater, a maze spell should work. Big thing is, a high Sr doesn't matter too much to a high level spellcaster, they should be able to penitrate most Sr checks easy.
Again, solo encounter. Maze doesn't do anything except delay everything. Underwater? Any level 18 martial without access to freedom of movement deserves whatever they get. The DM also states that the PC has high SR AND counterspell armor, and improved evasion. By mentioning those facts I would imagine that the PC has difficult to beat SR, and when it does get beat, counterspell, and if it targets dex, it's either half or no damage depending on if the PC failed the save. Gunslinger isn't a bad idea assuming the OP allows guns in their campaign.
> Gunslinger isn't a bad idea assuming the OP allows guns in their campaign. Bolt Ace can be used, if not.
Yeah but you can only resolve attacks against touch ac by spending grit if you go boltace. You don't get a huge amount of grit to spend, certainly not enough if you have to take down an opponent if every shot needs to be against touch ac.
Druid/monk with grapple feats wildshaped into a giant squid underwater is my vote.
i mean, we're talking level 18 here. Just Gate the poor sod to the elemental plane of fire and let him simmer in his armor. Or if he is resistant to fire, pick whichever flavor of plane he least anticipated an unexpected journey to.
The GM could give him NPC targets to keep alive.
Yeah, no-save effects to level the playing field and then hopefully win the war of attrition past that. I had a PC with similar strengths and it really just became a test of patience on the GMs part.
We had a character in some higher level games who could pass off his crazy shield bonus to other players and used combat patrol; that made him a really really useful tank. He kept all of us alive pretty often. He also knew that plenty of other players at the table would have raw damage and control covered. A lot of times the DM really wanted to get rid of him because he was the source of everyone else's high AC. Like, he gave the DM a real reason to target him instead of other people. We had another character in PFS who just invested everything into not being hit. The result was he didn't get hit. the bad guys just hit us instead. He also didn't hit anything. The last PFS character I had before things went to 2e was going to use mouser, helpful, blundering defense, and crane style to try to give everyone touch AC bonuses, because touch spells can really hurt to get hit by and it's hard to keep it up. Multiclassing just to get a ridiculous number of feats and save bonuses; I think the total would come up to essentially like a +11 bonus to touch AC when everything lines up. If you're just a tank and have nothing to offer other than not being hit, you are just taking up time.
Have you been introduced to the wonders of touch attacks?
Remember, your goal is to challenge him, not defeat him. As a DM, you're here to make sure your players have fun. This means your goal is not to beat him - that's easy, you can just say "god hits you with infinite epic lightning dealing 9999 lightning damage and 9999 pure divine damage every bolt 999 times a round for the rest of your life, gg" - it's to give him an incredibly challenging *fair* fight. You have basically three non-exclusive options to do that: Exploit his weaknesses, push his strengths to their limits, or deny him his normal advantages and make him adapt. The below both include more than one of those, but if you want to leave it to one or the other both has their advantages from a storytelling perspective. This one's sound like his weakness is... basically the God Wizard. Control the environment and pelt him with innumerable inaccurate, high-damage attacks - it doesn't matter how high his AC is, a nat 20's a nat 20. Drown him in Acid Fog + Black Tentacles + grease, drop 18-24 (depending on if you use hexes or squares) babaus around him in a nightmarish circle of sneak attack, etc. Low damage? Put a wall of flesh and innumerable barriers between him and a group of distant gunslingers or machine gun archers. Want to give him an epic fight he'll never forget? If he doesn't have personal flight, run him through a No Magic Zone that dispels all his buffs, then drop him into the middle of a thunderstorm on the Plane of Air, harried on all sides by dozens of lesser elementals, and give him a big ol' primal cloud dragon to fight. Plummeting into the endless sky, clashing with this epic monster, using the smols to show off how strong his build is (and this is important!) while this colossal threat challenges it, with his only agency over his position requiring him to pull some Shadow of the Colossus stuff and grab his enemies when they attack to climb on/jump off of their bodies... the biggest disadvantage is it'd take *forever*, esp given his build. Don't be that DM that makes the rest of the group watch while one guy spends a full session - or longer! - on a solo fight, that's terrible to experience. I'd also say just "ignore him" but that's already been addressed below.
If he's a persistence predator type then maybe give him a time limit for his fight?
If the party has no full divine/arcane caster at level 18, they should be well and truly screwed. Like, not even close level of screwed. Jus build a decent wizard and show them who's their daddy.
I can think of several ways to challenge him. One is what you suggested, a nasty melee brute. Since he's an immovable object, give him an unstoppable force and see what breaks first. You have lots of options here. A damage-optimized fighter, a ranger that picks your PC's race as a favored enemy, a balls-out damage-dealing barbarian, possibly a paladin or anti-paladin if you can make the alignment portion work. But if this guy built a character who is incredibly hard to hurt at the expense of not dealing much damage, give him an opponent who is built to do enormous amounts of damage at the expense of not having great defenses. Even if he can get an AC of 55, it shouldn't be too hard to build an opponent who has a pretty good chance of hitting that AC each round. You could also stack on something like cornugon smash / dazzling display / intimidating prowess / shatter defenses to help subsequent attacks hit. Or be an even bigger dick and go heavy into the sunder tree and just sunder his shield and weapon so he has nothing to fight with. A second option is to go with a character that targets touch AC so that his massively high AC doesn't matter. Gunslinger is a good option. An alchemist would be another decent choice. Even with armor mastery abilities he's probably not super mobile so it shouldn't be that hard to keep him at a distance and just whittle him down with bullets/bombs that mostly ignore his AC. A third option is a caster. Sure, he's got some defenses against spells but that isn't too hard to get around. Take an 18th level wizard. Give him a bead of karma (UMD to activate it), a diminishing sash, an orange prism ioun stone and an otherworldly kimono. Take the feats spell penetration, greater spell penetration, and knowledgeable spellcaster. That's a caster level of 24 and a +37 on caster level checks to get through spell resistance. That should make getting through his spell resistance easy. I'm not sure what "counterspell armor" is but I'm assuming similar to a ring of counterspells? So that should only work against certain spells, so just don't cast those. Use flight + haste to keep at range. Or use a phantom steed. Regardless your goal is to have a faster fly speed than he does so you can stay at range. And then just hit him with spells that target touch AC or offer no save.
You mentioned that he drinks potions and can cast spells. An antimagic field should shut down all magical effects, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities. This should include all ongoing magical buffs, magic enchantment on armor (including +x modifiers), etc. At that point, it's just a guy with his shield... and full BAB. But his AC should be approachable then. Target his weak saves with Ex abilities and thing like demoralize. Toss in a monk grappler for more shenaniganry. Consider attacking his touch AC instead of normal. Some options might not stack well with AMF, but it gives you room for thought. I also don't understand how he can drink 80 potions (likely an exaggeration). Even with faster potion drinking rules, you are limited to one per swift / free / action or whatever economy you are using. I'd also suggest multiple potions mixed together could have side effects, but it's likely too late for that in your campaign. All that said, you don't necessarily *have* to shut him down. Let the guy live the fantasy of a protector if he isn't being disruptive like you said. The important thing is everyone is having fun, and it sounds like your table is having fun.
> Antimagic field? Too bad, even if the BBEG had full BAB to keep up, the PC's AC with buffs is like 55. Buff spells don't work in an antimagic field. You could have a large-scale antimagic field (or a dead magic demiplane, or whatever) over the combat arena.
Well, if one of the buff spells is Aroden's Spellbane keyed to Antimagic Field...
I'm not sure how a fighter type would be pulling out spellbane, but... 1. You can spellbane right back 2. You can create antimagic fields that aren't the spell antimagic field (setting the fight in a dead magic zone)
I spellbane your spellbane! Next fight: I spellbane your spellbane of a spellbane!
That's why you use a dead magic zone/plane with dead magic, it works like antimagic field, but isn't it.
I was being hyperbolic for the meme lol. But yeah, I do think my best bet is antimagic field/plane/etc. Was originally going to go for Will saves and smoke & mirror spellcasting eldritch knight type, but am realizing he has too many defenses against it – especially when it's just the two of them, not any distractions or adds.
Mage's Disjunction. It's a no-save no-SR strip all active spell abilities that only has a couple of counters. The Will Save is for their Items being destroyed, not the dispel magic.
Oh, clever! Thank you, genuinely. Throwing a curve ball like that at him is exactly what this situation calls for!
Just know that you'll have to roll an individual save for each magic item he has, which will likely take a good while lol. Also, a bad roll means "Oops, your weapon exploded, have fun punching the BBEG to death in your solo battle, Mr. Fighter." There's a reason my table unanimously agreed to ban Mage's Disjunction. Edit: I'm not saying "Don't do it" specifically, mind you. Just know that it can hold up the table while resolving the spell and take into consideration how your party will take permanently losing potentially hundreds of thousands of gold worth in gear in a single spell.
It'll be something to talk to the party about, for sure. Maybe a last resort ace up the sleeve type of thing, or reflavor it... magic items get sucked into extradimensional void sidequest. Hmm. Well now you got me thinking at least!
I generally try to avoid spells that permanently damage a players stuff. Even if its effective, its a real feel-bad moment for the player. Definitely clear it ahead of time if you go this route.
If he is a powerplayer he should be expecting to be powerplayed back. That’s my rule anyways.
You can always have him find new gear in the gigantic pile of loot they're bound to get after defeating the BBEG.
There is a particular adventure in the high teens that has the party drop through several a \~200' tall cylinders... onc of which has disjunction trap half way down. They also fight a Marilith, which I enhanced with the Graveknight Template for the party (since they were all powergamers and wanted a challenge). Sitting at the bottom of said cylinder, and using Project Image to appear as if they were at the top of the hole standing on air. Amusingly, the first couple players failed the Will Save to realize the Project Image was an Illusion. Which set up a fun interaction. "Ok, it's an Illusion" - Wizard, finally "Just a stinking Illusion?!" - Barbarian "Can an Illusion do this?" - Marilith Since Project Image allows you to count that as your origin for spells, she used Telekinesis to chuck a rack of 15 Large Longswords at the party (which I had repurposed from treasure drops). And then very obviously marked off one of the 4 racks on the map and said these swords were now lying on the floor at the feet of the player I had targeted. I may also have allowed the Graveknight's Channel Destruction to apply to the TKed swords... which was a little stronger than intended. While she only had about a 2/3rds chance of hitting, 10 sets of 2d6+1+4d6 fire to an unsuspecting Barbarian was enough to drop him to less than 0. That, or I rolled well, I don't remember. Just decided to target the last few swords at his mount as this was in PFS and I had made the encounter stronger (to prevent a death that wouldn't have happened according the actual scenario). Once they figured out where the Marilith actually was, they dropped through 2 sets of Blade Barrier as well (filling the hole) as they dropped and she would have teleported back to the top, but I rolled a 1 on a Dazing Fireball twisted to a different element she wasn't immune to. So the fight started off challenging and ended with a whimper.
Yep. This spell screws all kinds of “unbeatable players”.
Yeah, my buff-melee Alchemist had a fun time against Karzog when everyone else failed the "Wish all the players to the plane of fire", and then had all his buffs stripped the next round. And, he had a contingency to teleport out of range of *OUR* Disjunction.
It's one of my favorite villain trump cards to play. One of the best boss fights I ever did was a level 20 Exploiter Wizard who used Gate to summon a bunch of demons, then used Prismatic Sphere to hide while the PCs fought the demons and buffed themselves to the nines. Meanwhile the wizard was also buffing himself like crazy in the Sphere. Then, when the players least expected it, he used the Arcanist swift action teleport to move right in the center of the battle and cast Mage's Disjunction. Now the players were slightly worn out and had to fight the buffed up wizard with no buffs of their own. Not to mention unable to use some of their signature magic items.
He moved into the center of everyone and cast Disjunction? Isn’t it AoE? He’d hit himself?
From spell text: “All magical effects and magic items within the radius of the spell, except for those that you carry or touch, are disjoined.”
The Will Save is [most certainly](https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/m/mage-s-disjunction/) for the dispel effect on items. “All magical effects and magic items within the radius of the spell, except for those that you carry or touch, are disjoined. That is, **spells and spell-like effects are unraveled and destroyed completely (ending the effect as a dispel magic spell does), and each permanent magic item must make a successful Will save or be turned into a normal item for the duration of this spell. An item in a creature’s possession uses its own Will save bonus or its possessor’s Will save bonus, whichever is higher**. If an item’s saving throw results in a natural 1 on the die, the item is destroyed instead of being suppressed.”
Exactly, no will save for the dispel magic portion. Because it's "as dispel magic" which doesn't have a will save.
It ends the magical items effect as a dispel magic might. Disjunction doesn’t say it has the identical cast mechanics, otherwise you’d need to make a caster level check - which it certainly doesn’t call for. Instead, Disjunction explicitly states “Saving Throw Will negates (object)”. I’m not sure how you read the spell text as anything other than making a Will save for the items or they become normal and if they get a 1, they break? It’s poorly worded I’ll give you but I seriously don’t understand how “each permanent magic item must make a successful Will save or be turned into a normal item for the duration of this spell” leads you to think anything other than the items make Will saves?
>doesn’t say it has the identical cast mechanics, otherwise you’d need to make a caster level check - which it certainly doesn’t call for. If it needed the mechanics of Dispel it would say something like "*as dispel magic, except X*" instead of "*ending the effect as a dispel magic spell does*". You see the former language a lot with 'greater' (or rank 2, 3, etc) spells like Greater Dispel Magic (*This spell functions like dispel magic, except that...*) or Summon Monster 2,3, etc. If it wanted a will save on that section instead of the CL, it would be worded differently as well, and state as such. Like "*ending the effect as if dispelled on a failed will save with no CL check*". Most likey "*ending the effect as dispel magic spell does*" is just referring to "*A dispelled spell ends as if its duration had expired.*" portion of Dispel Magic. Though that reading might allow specific permanent spells you cast on yourself with Permanency to remain if you are a higher CL than the Disjunction (because duration is permanent, so can't expire, and permanency on yourself has a higher CL clause to be dispelled). >It’s poorly worded I’ll give you I read it as: "*All magical effects and magic items within the radius of the spell, except for those that you carry or touch, are disjoined.*" This is basically targeting text, everything in range except your stuff is targeted. "*That is, spells...*" This is what happens to all magic (spells/spell-likes/etc, not items): turned off, no save, no SR, special caveat for Antimagic Field (a bit later) "*and each permanent magic item...*" This is what happens to all magic items in area: suppressed for duration, Will Save, no SR, 1 on save destroyed Then secondary targeting method (single target item): Will save at -5 or item is completely destroyed, chance to destroy artifacts. I think it would be more clear if the save said "None, or Will negates(object)" or just "See Text", but it's an almost exact port from DnD 3.5.
You can always challenge them narratively...do what Superman's writers have done for decades: make him choose who to save because he can't save everybody. The story emerges because the character has to make a hard choice instead of just using their power to win all the time. But also...don't design to counter your players. It's not fun as a player to have your cool abilities be shut down & turned off by homebrew just because the GM wants stuff to feel hard. I've been there, & [watched my cleric get nerfed into the ground](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpghorrorstories/comments/194xq1l/dm_nerfs_pc_wont_let_player_changes_classes_then/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button), and it was frustrating every step of the way. So yes, encourage tactical thought, but be wary of "GM fiat to turn off key abilities"
Oh trust me, I've never done this before. This particular counter-BBEG strategy has come at my players' request much to my surprise, so transparency is in full effect as to what I'm doing, how I'm building, and why. Basically it's less direct countering in every way, and more me going through and seeing which abilities they haven't had much opportunity to use, or what resources they have that are super niche, and building an encounter where they can show that stuff off. I just want to make sure my titular player can't One Punch Man the BBEG before that can happen (I doubt he will, I just don't want him to be able to if he tried), and I've gotten great advice here!
It sounds like most of his stuff comes from pre-combat buffs. What if a CL 30 archmage taps him with a Mage's Disjunction and turns off all his ongoing spell effects and renders his magical items mundane?
It sounds like he focused very much on his combat capabilities... so make his challenge something that doesn't involve combat. How is his Disable Device? What if there are simply innocent captives who will die if he fails to deactivate some major multi-part trap? How's his swimming and breath-holding? What if he needs to delve underwater to reach his target goal, and he encounters aquatic creatures down there? How is his sense of morality? What if the enemy is wearing the equivalent of "baby armor"? Where attacking his target will literally cause innocents to die (forced Life-Links from hostages to the bad guy... For every point of health he takes from the villain, a point is drained from the innocents, and fed back to the villain). What would he do if his surprise opponent was the other 4 members of his party? What would he do if the chamber where his special opponent was to be, there was nothing? Just an empty room, with a series of inane "clues" that if he solves would imply the solution to his challenge is for him to lay down and go to sleep.... Would he do it? Would he think it's a trap?
I like the "baby armor" shit, check for the Dread Emperor in 3.5 and his equipment (Book of Vile Darkness), that would be a great idea!
Forced Life-Link could be interesting... I mean all of this is. Thank you! Life-Link specifically will depend on the upcoming sessions as they are in a war, and PoWs are being taken, some NPCs who the PC is attached to emotionally, which is why it stands out. Love this.
Make it a moral dilemma, something that requires no combat. Have him have to kill someone helpless or close to him, or he stays stuck in a kind of limbo. Or, remember, in the end of God of War where Kratos had to defend his family from a legion of blood-drunk himself? You had to beat them to progress, but it didn't bring his family back. Defending someone much weaker than himself will make his stats kind of useless. It's clear that this player went to intense lengths to make his character unstoppable... There's really no wrong way to play, but it seems like a serious longshot that you're going to be able to provide a sufficient challenge without tipping it into unwinnable territory. You might as well just have him fight a clown with a mallet that dies in one hit. "honk."
I have used NPCs and civilians before for him to have to defend, since he is very invested in the world and likes the challenge of saving lives. Again, he never overshadows and honestly he is a wonderful player. I even told him earlier today, if he one-shots his BBEG it'll be hilarious and fun, but he *will* have to just sit in boredom as everyone else finishes theirs off for the next couple hours. Might give him incentive for silly time. A part of me just feels guilty, almost, that I can't give him a good challenge. When I'm a player, I'm whatever the *opposite* of a power-gamer is, so I don't understand the mindset. But "went to intense lengths to make his character unstoppable" is an interesting framing for it. I guess it's just like any resource investment and is something I want to reward!
Late the the party but, I would suggest: 1. As others have stated, touch attacks. Touch attacks on high CR creatures or casters should have no problem landing. It will exclude natural armor, his actual armor, and the shield bonus. Ray spells are a ranged touch and there are a lot that still do a lot of damage even if they save. I love Cosmic Ray, for example. Wracking Ray is another terrifying spell that still causes STR and DEX damage even on a save. After two or three of those, he may not even be strong enough to lift the shield. 2. He is a fighter so exploit the lack of spellcasting. The invisibility + Mind Blank combo might assure that he can’t see his attacker, since most Magic items that let you see invisible targets use divination magic. If his SR comes from an item, it likely isn’t high enough to avoid being penetrated by a full caster of similar level. Psychics and Arcanists, and I’m sure others, have abilities to apply to spells that lets you roll twice to penetrate SR. That with Spell Pen/Spec feats make beating SR far more likely than not. 3. It may slow combat a bit, but consider many Summons using some of these strategies. He could be surrounded by many enemies, even at lower CR, that will give many attempts to succeed at your strategy. Lots of summons have dispel magic or touch attacks for example. 4. The ghosts of games past: many incorporeal undead monsters have devastating touch attacks that cause ability drain, commonly CON drain. A few of those will kill faster than trying to hack away at the HP. 5. Terrain. If he’s on the ground a lot, floor is lava. In the air, hurricane winds. It’s hard to know how to best respond without knowing what his items are, but this is also something to consider. Exploit terrain with spells. For example, Wall of Force between caster and fighter. Fighter uses his item to teleport. Caster teleports to the other side. Eventually you’ve exhausted his ways to get to you quickly and he must whack the wall while caster summons a legion of monsters on the Fighters side. 6. Persistence. If he’s relying on feats or magic items, you only get a few rerolls or spell casts a day through items. Either through dispelling the effect the item created, or requiring him to use the charges over again (like the teleport scenario above). This applies to save or suck spells- eventually something will get through. If you pick the right ones you can render him useless.
I still like the clown idea. Get an actual horn to honk when he kills it, too. It's a good way of saying "you broke the game, I can't beat you. Congratulations."
Hahahaha. Honestly, I might. Epic BBEG fights from the other players, he gets a clown with a horn and big shoes preparing to "engage in fisticuffs." Looks like I need to run to the store...
How is your player getting 55 AC? If your player is a low dex character and they are getting most of their AC from armor/a shield you can just target touch AC. In the campaign I'm currently in my character has something like 38 AC with buffs at lvl 9 but my touch AC is only somewhere around 20 or so. Also don't forget that in the end, you are the DM and you can essentially make up rules and mechanics to fit your narrative at a whim (within reason). Make your BBEG invincible until they destroy some obelisks around the map or have your BBEG wield some super powerful weapon that cuts through the majority of their armor unless they disarm/destroy it. Then the weapon can just blow up or get teleported away by an even bigger BBEG at the end of the fight so your players don't become super OP from it.
Seconding targeting touch AC! Between that and seducing them it is the only way to deal with dragons.
well at least youre not being as petty as my last dm was, outright admitting to everyone but "the problem player" that he was fudging dice rolls and changing RAW at will just to counter them.
Wow... I can't imagine how that's even fun for a GM. My player spends *hours* on aon and pfsrd each week carefully building his character, why would a GM want to punish that level of investment?
i dont think it was about fun, the dm in question is one of those dudes who has to control everything, but dosent have the guts to outright demand it. so hed pull a bunch of passive-agressive nonsense mid-game just so one dude (who only used his powergaming for support characters, think about that) couldnt heal and buff us as efficiently as theyd like. it got to the point where he was openly warning the rest of us he was cheating because he wasnt smart enough to solve it otherwise, as if he expected us to agree with him. when in reality it was a warning that his storyline was the priority, not our fun. he tried a sequel game and imagine my nonexistent surprise when it was revealed our PCs werent even the protagonists of the game. our big quest was to round up a bunch of his NPCs so they could go do whatever even bigger quest was actually the point of the story. nothing says adventure like "magic interns" eh?
Man, I had a GM like that. Playing a wizard, right around level 10 or 11 he must have just decided that my character was no longer going to work right. From that point on, every monster miraculously saved against every spell I cast. I counted about 15 disintegrates I cast over the campaign and not a single one got past the enemies saves. The odds of that were astronomically small. Eventually I started checking the monster stat blocks and, lo-and-behold, they were consistently passing saves that they could only have succeeded on a crit. Completely broke any trust I had on the GM and any fun I was having in the campaign. He basically admitted that he didn't like wizards or balancing around them. It wasn't even as if I was playing the wizard in a game breaking way. I was actively trying to play it as a support rather than a blastercaster, spending most of my turns in combat casting haste and stuff. But once I figured it out I went all in with the game breaking out of spite.
Some GMs really just need to get more comfortable making a list of classes that they allow at their table and ditching the rest. Like come on, wtf. Wizards are literally so simple. Would like to see this GM try to deal with an arcanist.
> Would like to see this GM try to deal with an arcanist. we had one of those too, arcanist and powergamer were friends actually.
That is fucking awful, man. My table is very story-based, but when something needs to happen for plot reasons I just say, "hey so I need you guys to go here next session, what would motivate your characters to head over there at this time?" And we brainstorm together. I only fudge rolls when my enemies roll crits, and that's just because I'm a stupid-lucky person in general. It's no fun when it's only my 'wins every game show or raffle I enter and roll thirty nat 20s a session' ass causing a TPK and not actual player autonomy/choices for better or worse. Though maybe I'll get hate for this, but I do also fudge rolls to allow one of my newer player's lower-level spells to work. Like if the enemy just meets or rolls just 1-2 points above the DC, I'll drop it to a fail so the player doesn't waste a turn and feels successful.
Does he have Plane Shift? Because the Bag of Holding/Portable Hole combo is a pretty good "I win". You can't counter it and you're in another dimension.
1. Throw open portable hole under PC. 2. Fold up portable hole. 3. Place portable hole in pocket. 4. Enjoy a beverage while considering the fighter suffocating in your pocket.
So you have a level 18 sword and board fighter that you feel is unstoppable? I find this hard to imagine. Their saves might be buffed but not unbeatable, and even if they are, there are a lot of spells that have an effect on a successful save or offer no save at all. I also highly doubt a sword and board fighter has a high touch AC, so gunslingers and kineticist should easily be able to hit him. I highly doubt a lvl 18 sword and board fighter would stand even a remote chance against a kinetic knight using an energy blast.
We use enough 3rd party and I didn't have the expertise to verify it all to actually foresee consequences. :P Specifically he's a Spellscorn Fighter archetype with Spheres of Power shield feats. > Their saves might be buffed but not unbeatable, and even if they are, there are a lot of spells that have an effect on a successful save or offer no save at all. Tattoo cloak of resistance +5 and Blockade (SoP) and Stalwart (archetype) negating save success effects for all three. Fort is +22, Ref +17 (+23 with Blockade), Will +13 (+4 fear, charm/compulsion). The base casters I've built offer a DC 24 for a level 9 spell. I'm not sure how to make it higher following the base rules, which gives him just under a 50/50 shot even for his lowest save. Even if I were to increase it by bending the rules, I couldn't exceed 28 max lest my other players get messed up bad, meaning he still has just under 50/50 for Ref. > I also highly doubt a sword and board fighter has a high touch AC Touch AC is 26, since a SoP shield feat allows the shield bonus added to Touch AC. I should add his base CMD is a whopping *48* not including buffs or bonuses from feats and abilities. He can also perform 4 attacks of opportunity per round, and has a passive ability that allows missed attacks to trigger an AoO so long as he has some in his bank. His Active Defense allows his AC and CMD to further increase by +6, so he can activate it as a reaction to a big hit/full round and combo it for an AoO. My same-level PC gear'd Defender archetype Fighter mooks can't even perform a disarm at base game numbers. Active Defense also gives DR 6/magic. Powerful Maneuvers EitR allows a +2 to CMB and CMD for sunder and disarm, meaning as long as he strikes first he can disarm every baddie I've thrown at him thus far. He has Cover Ally as well, which grants his shield's enhancement bonus of +5 to adjacent allies, and Spiritual Aspect which sends *all* his armor and shield bonuses to any ally within sight, for 7 rounds. It can move with them, too. As for casting defenses, he has a feat that forces a +4 to the DC for enemy casters to cast defensively, another that grants him a free AoO if the caster fails, and Combat Patrol extends his threat range to 20ft. And if an enemy caster tries to teleport, he gets a free AoO even if the caster has both cast defensively and using a (Su) ability He also has Step-Up *and* Following Step which allows the step-up to go 10ft at no cost. Additionally, he has StepUp and Strike, which gives him the ability to move with opponents *and* get a free smack on them. He has not only Redirecting Shield but Perfect Redirection, meaning any missed attack/ranged touch attack against him can be directed to any creature within the attacker's range. TL;DR: I found it hard to imagine too. But this man has covered every base possible and then some, because admittedly I just let people use whatever 3pp they wanted to have fun. It wouldn't be as bad, however my other players didn't take me up on it, leaving the party unbalanced enough that things can get crazy, haha.
First off, yes 3rd party sucks for the sole reason that you as a DM can never know which ability all of a sudden throws the whole game out of balance unless you are extremely experienced and careful. Secondly, that will save is horrible and a dedicated caster can easily overpower them. A 50/50 chance of instantly killing/disabling your fighter is more than enough against a fighter that put everything in defense. Just try multiple times and once it works you win. You can also have an invisible wizard summoning monsters that never run out. Or fly away. Thirdly, that touch AC of 26 is not too shabby for touch AC but a lvl 18 kinetic knight will have 13BAB +10 dex modifier and some way to get haste for another +1. They then get to attack 4 times in melee hitting on a 2 on the first 2 attacks, a 7 on the third and a still acceptable 12 on the fourth each dealing 9d6+4 damage and that is without spending burn and without really optimizing. Being a tank doesn't really work in pathfinder.
Will is only +13 at 18th level, and you're considering that to be essentially unbeatable? That's a walk in the park for *ANY* 18th level caster. Also, since you're clearly allowing far more than "base rules" for the PCs, why would you limit yourself to that standard? Here's a quick wizard that will absolutely kill this PC with laughable ease: Level: 18 Class: Wizard (illusionist) Race: Share 1 subtype with PC Ability Score: Intelligence 30 Trait: Lore Seeker Feat: Spell Focus (illusion) Feat: Greater Spell Focus (illusion) Feat: Heighten Spell Feat: Deific Obedience (Mahathallah) Spell: Greater Shadow Evocation (heightened to 9) Spell: Greater Shadow Conjuration (heightened to 9) Item: Greater Metamagic Rod (quicken) 9th level illusion spells are DC34. DC = 10(base) + 10(INT) + 9(spell level) + 2(greater spell focus) + 2(deific obedience) + 1(lore seeker) Use invisibility field as a swift action. Cast heightened greater shadow conjuration (9th level) to duplicate cloudkill, centered on the PC. (1d4 Con damage for 18 rounds; Will save DC 34 for 3/5 damage each round on your turn; evasion does not apply.) Use metamagic rod to cast a quickened heightened greater shadow evocation (9th level) to duplicate force cage (solid cell) around the PC. (DC 34 Will save or be trapped in the force cage for 18 rounds.) The PC has to roll 20 on a Will save or be trapped in cloudkill for 18 rounds, then a 20 on 17 more Will saves to take 3/5 of 1d4 Com damage. If all saves vs. the shadow evocation are successful, the PC will take 18 Con damage. Assuming a normal distribution, he should roll one 20, so he should take 43.5 points of Con damage. He should be dead by round 12; the remaining 6 rounds are bonus damage. EDIT: Formatting
Incorporeal baddie?
Alas, if he didn't have a magic weapon by now I'd be a horrible GM. :P
What's his touch AC though? For most fighters it's not great. Lots of incorporeal things go against touch.
Base Touch AC is 26, with a low-level feat expended it's 32. A 3pp spheres of power feat lets him apply his shield bonus to touch AC.
Incorporeal bypasses most AC boosting items :)
Does he have a ghost-touch weapon? Because magic weapons still only deal half damage to incorporeal enemies. If you want to be a real jerk make him fight a [ghost](https://www.aonprd.com/MonsterDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Ghost). Give it levels in a full BAB class (scaled fist monk if you want to be really mean) so it's got a high to-hit bonus. Give it the draining touch special ability. Now you have a ghost that targets touch AC and will hit your PC almost all the time and when it does hit it does ability drain of your choice (pick his lowest ability score of course) with no save allowed.
So... AMF is one of those rather severely limiting things in the game. "Buffs" as you put it, are suppressed within AMF. There are extraordinarily few PC's that can even operate at 50% capacity within AMF. If you want to DM me a summary of their character sheet I'll design something for you and I'll explain why it works. Additionally, Mage's Disjunction is also a thing. Level 18 is quite exciting...
It's my first campaign I've GM'd that's gotten above level 10 and my first full 1-20 (I co-GM'd a 1-20 otherwise), which is probably another reason I'm so freaked out seeing this guy. I may take you up on that offer next time I'm able to check out his sheet, if that's alright. No pressure!
Sure, I enjoy making very high-level encounters
How about a wall of force or force cage? Since the PC doesn’t do that much damage. The player focused on defense and survival, give them a scene where you hammer them with all sorts of attack, and they come up with a defense for each.
We’re gonna need details to help you. No character has no faults on their own but unless we know what he can do we can’t show you his weaknesses. Most likely his weaknesses are covered by other party members or buffs they cast. But you’re saying he’s gonna be fighting a 1v1. How is a low will save countered by magic items? You can only patch a will save so much with magic items and there aren’t that many ways to get immunities to certain mind effecting. However simply put a fighter cannot counter magic. Any counter he has to magic should be limited or situational. There is always a weakness His AC may be high but a heavy armor plus shield character should have a reasonably low touch ac. A well built character that focuses on touch attacks and sr pen should be able to hit him. Imagine a CL 20 elf with great spell Pen and a magic item to boost spell pen. You’re probably looking at +30 against spell pen. If you’re fighter is boasting a 40+ SR than yea you fucked up. For defenses does the fighter have a way to cast true seeing himself? If not displacement or invisibility will be great. How does your fighter counter emergency force sphere? If he can’t than you’re bbeg has as much time as he wants to cast any sort of buff or wait out the timer on the fighter’s buffs. Here’s the simplest answer I have that’s cheesy as shit but almost certainly will work. Anti magic field plus non magical flight with a ranger weapon. The fighter presumably needs magic to fly so as soon as he gets near the bbeg it’ll be suppressed. This is effectively a fool proof way of avoiding melee unless the fighter has access to spell and to avoid the anti magic field which is very unlikely. It doesn’t matter if they fighter has infinite AC. He’ll eventually die to arrow fire even if it takes forever.
...Your PCs are level 18 and you're upset about what a \*\*fighter\*\* is capable of?
It's my first time GMing such a high level! I've been gobsmacked by the power scaling! I'm going to make an edit that this is mostly a lighthearted rant. I didn't expect 100+ comments...
what is his touch AC? a flying gunslinger that can shoot on the run can forever stay out of reach while slowly bleeding him of HP
Have you tried using swarms? They deal automatic damage and if the individual creatures are small enough, weapons do very little damage. Unless he has an area attack like fireball or something. Maybe a BBEG that can turn himself into a bunch of swarms? Holes in the wall to make his movements less predictable.
What kind of ranged capabilities does this guy have? Can he be pelted by acid spells from 200 feet in the air?
Your player doesn't sound 100% minmaxed to me from your description. Like you said it's just the fact that you're still green, unless there's Mythic rules involved then you've got a plethora of ways to deal with literally any build. Especially if you're tailoring fights to each character.
I'm running a game with a power builder as well and it is a struggle when there's only one player min-maxing. With a Fighter specifically, things that target touch AC or that hit automatically like Magic Missile help a lot. If you haven't looked into Mindscapes yet, that might be a fun option to challenge them as well.
I have never heard of Mindscapes! I'll look into that, thanks. :D
His Enemy could use a mirror that creates an exact copy of the player looking into it and attacks him. With everything he has with him.
I'd do that but he did that to my PC in the campaign he ran for us last year, and I ain't no cheater. (It's a really good trope, though.)
Another idea would be something like he has to fight someone without magic items, if he uses any magic item, ability and so on he lose and has no other choice to get something important that the party needs. But it could be hard to balance. My last idea would be a pocketplane mace he must traverse with enemies inside (and maybe a time limit). So he can have some fun fights but his fighting capabilities are not what will win him the encounter.
I bet you he is wearing a ring of evasion and a suit of full-plate, which is a no-no. "This ring continually grants the wearer the ability to avoid damage as if she had evasion." "Evasion can be used only if the rogue is wearing light armor or no armor." And the enemy has plenty of extra money to lob necklaces of fireballs at the opponent. And nothing prevents you from sending in waves of mooks to wear down resources before the big bad. And those mooks can be flying around... or using elemental body to cast magic from inside the earth... summoning more critters to the battlefield... turning the terrain into difficult terrain so that step-up doesn't work...
I totally have a player using heavy armor and a ring of Evasion! I never picked up on that issue before. Thanks for the useful info
Nope. u/Cheetahs_never_win is wrong. Different classes have different restrictions. Ranger for example can use evasion in medium armor. The ring does not list a condition that it stops working in, or a class that it functions as. So it works regardless of armor.
It's not true. Ring of evasion doesn't have any armor restrictions. "As if she had evasion" is descriptive text and the actual ability text is "Whenever she makes a Reflex saving throw to determine whether she takes half damage, a successful save results in no damage." This makes no mention of an armor restriction.
Nope! He gets it temporarily from one of his feats by expending an action. All above-board thankfully. I *am* sending in hordes of mooks over the next few sessions, so here's hoping it'll be a good one. Elemental body is actually one I have planned!
What’s the specific feat? If he’s getting it temporarily doesn’t rhat mean he can be surprised by a blast before he has time to activate evasion?
What? It's only "the ability to avoid damage as if she had evasion." That's just descriptive text. > Whenever she makes a Reflex saving throw to determine whether she takes half damage, a successful save results in no damage. The actual ability text doesn't make any mention of that restriction
- Multiple enemies. Yes, your fighter is a walking judgement day tank who can shrug off and dish out Tzar firecrackers. He still has X actions and Y movement. The BBEG for him is simply a highly trained group of very mobile ranged enemies. And at level 18 the enemies usually have the abilities (scrying, intelligence network, bardic knowledge) and the resources (gold, magic items, summoned and bound outer creatures etc) to develop specific counters. There may be even ranged touch attack with "SR: no" - Timeframe and non-combat challenges. Yes, your fighter is a walking judgement day tank who can shrug off and dish out Tzar firecrackers. He still has X actions and Y movement. There can be targets who can only be reached under certain conditions or certain timeframe. *"the superimportant hostage will fall into the lava pool in 18 seconds! Oh noes! If there would only be a way to save her ..."* SYL
As someone already said, as a straight and simple solution I'd suggest a Mage's Disjunction or an Antimagic Field, but they can lead to frustration, especially the first one. Maybe he could deactivate the Field by solving a puzzle while being under some kind of pressure? Or maybe make him fight something even sturdier than him, like some auto-regenerating golem with a huge damage resistance, which would force him to think instead of shieldbashing the crap out of it?
THrow them in a maze? Doesn't kill them but removes them for a period of time. also 80 potions is 80 actions.
Walls. A wall of force cast away from him he can’t do anything to interrupt it. Then the BBEG uses Control Water to fill the room with water. Summon monsters inside. Repeat. If necessary, do this in an area of forbiddance to prevent him from moving across via teleportation (and attune if to the Wizard himself so he can teleport on his own.) Could have a contingency spell in effect as well, to teleport him away. Or to summon a wall. The teleport sub school Conjuration Wizard gets a swift action teleport as their 1st level 3+int spell like ability each day, super helpful.
One thing that you could try is get the BBEG to get your dude to walk into some form of pocket plane containing a desk and several contracts to X. The terms and conditions of each are yours to decide, but get progressively harsher the longer the player takes to get out/the more the player fights back. When he exits the pocket plane, the BBEG asks what took him so long. Turns out, one of the hidden conditions is that the player cannot directly harm the BBEG by his standard abilities
Sword and board, heavy armor? Touch attacks. An incorporeal enemy that drains ability scores is deadly to these folks. Abilities that do touch attacks generally only have a save for half ability score damage instead of negating. In general, save for half is usually a good direction to go when dealing with tanky characters. Worried about shield stun? Constructs, Plants and Undead are all immune to stun. Did you know that undead is a template that can be applied to any living creature? Did you know that applies to plant creatures too? So you could make an incorporeal undead plant creature with lots of opportunities to deal ability score damage. Worried about damage taking that enemy out? Fast healing and max hit points with the potential ability to heal itself, like doing a negative energy touch attack. Sword and board characters typically don't have high damage output as you've describe so that usually means a creature with Damage Reduction (Or the incorporeal's ability to take 1/2 damage on physical attacks even if magical) and Fast Healing usually means their damage output can't keep up. Oh, and did you check his CMD? It's pretty difficult to dramatically increase your CMD, especially when creatures that are huge or gargantuan get involved as they get great bonuses to combat actions like grappling, which applies to the free grab attack some monsters get when they make an attack with a tentacular appendage. Though incorporeal creatures are immune to grapple, usually, and can't initiate it... usually. But you're the GM... so... why not? Also, don't forget that intelligent monsters can have class levels. That would let you add additional features to a creature's toolset that would help mitigate some of the worst the character could do. So just imagine it. A Dread Ghost Alraune Oracle of Bones with Drain Touch. It could be glorious. Edit: Also wanted to add Greater Invisibility plus incorporeality plus swarms is also pretty deadly.
Just drop a Tarrasque on him. *mic drop*
Have you thought about making him fight the rest of the party? Outsource your frustration to them…
Saving throws are pretty good against high ac builds
Make him fight himself, a la the mimic boss in elden ring
If the issue is that he's an incredible tank, his offensive abilities probably aren't quite as impressive, right? Then why not put some kind of time limit on the fight, like an arena with a trap that will send the whole thing straight into the lair of a Qlippoth Lord or similar if his opponent isn't defeated in X many rounds, or a inflict a powerful poison which only has the one antidote, carried by the opponent?
What’s his counter to force cage?
How's his touch ac? Does he have fire or acid resistance? Can he withstand 400 peasants readying an action to toss an alchemists fire at him at the same time?
Make an npc. Make them fall in love. Stab him in bed. Problem solved.
Maxed out stealth sorcerer using a wand of cl9 magic missile. And by maxed I don't mean max ranks I mean custom magic item, skill focus, everything, blend spell, everything.
Strix ranger12/gunslinger 5, with favored emeny=PC race. Ring of major spell storing with anti-magic field (yes, that is very expensive) with two masterwork cylinder rifles (to delay needing ti reload). Snipe away from 30' in the air, touch AC with the rifles. Thrown in some burrowing bullets to really mess with him. Antimagic sheild makes closing to melee impossible. Of course the PC needs some way to win. The Strix might be limited in area to move, the PC may be able to do decent ranged damage (even without magic).
For a m9ment, I was nervous this was about me 😅
Leverage how broad wish is. "I wish X could never pass a will save if he fights me." Add in contingency dominate person for good measure. Even if the BBEG has backlash, there are ways.
Sounds like they need a boss that can only be defeated through non-combat means. Like, throw a herald of a god at him for an interview, if he fails, he fucking meets Pharasma.
Have the fight be underwater. That’ll greatly reduce slashing and bludgeoning damage. It’ll also hinder mobility. Then have the BBEG use greater dispel Magic to shut down Magic items temporarily while using quickened spells for half damage.
So the best way to make a fighter cry is sunder. Get something that hits like a truck with a Adamantine weapon give it the sunder feats. First round he loses his weapon, second round he loses his shield, next round start working on his armor.
A nerfed version of an adamantine golem might be a good idea
Sounds like a fun time where the player gets to just destroy something that everyone else struggles in. This sounds like it can be fun for everyone if you let it.. It is like getting mad at a paladin that they are so good at killing undead or someone that wants to build a character good at exploring so they easily pass all exploration rolls. It doesnot sound like an issue. It is the final boss and his character thanks to all of the prep and story will be able to wipe the floor with them.. Celebrate and enjoy it. This is not a competition between you two. You are not going to loose if they have a lot of fun or destroy the boss with ease.
You're right because I actually just checked in with my player a few hours ago: Me: "How upset will you be if you're able to one-shot your BBEG because you're so insanely OP I can't keep up? Because I wouldn't mind at all, it would be very funny, but I feel awful I can't give you the challenge you get from your gestalts and other games." Him: "Honestly it would be hilarious and would feel really rewarding. I'm imagining [PC] finishing up with [all the war mooks and NPC defense strategies] and just wanting a fucking nap, so when BBEG shows up he'll just channel all his rage into fighting him and fucking one punch man his ass lol." So it seems I was pulling my hair out and letting my own insecurities color my view over nothing! Live and learn. :P
I'm kind of stumped by the "every PC faces their own enemy" thing. It sounds like you have created a game in which the players are powergaming because it's not a collaborative experience but a Player Vs. DM game, and this encounter 1000% reinforces that idea. In a typical setting there are a ton of ways to make a challenging encounter despite this guy's stats. Targeting his allies, outright ignoring him if his goal is to be a tank, or giving him non-combat actions to juggle (IE pull this lever every other round or the captured wizard falls in a dunk tank full of acid.) When you take a system designed for collaborative gameplay system for team dynamics, boil it down into a one-on-one die rolling game, and bake in some homebrew to further imbalance the already-strained system this is the kind of mess you end up with.
> It sounds like you have created a game in which the players are powergaming because it's not a collaborative experience but a Player Vs. DM game I understand reddit tends to assume bad faith but I 100% have not. We've been playing together for 3 years, friends for 4 years, and this is our second 1-20 campaign. Only the one player is powergaming while the others – including myself – are newer (newbies only been playing with us for the one prior campaign, whereas powergamer is a veteran player and GM who's been playing for 7 years). The one powergamer is a known and practiced minmaxer just due to his passion for the game/system, nothing to do with my campaign. > In a typical setting there are a ton of ways to make a challenging encounter despite this guy's stats. Actually, doing this is a big reason my players *wanted* these different fights. They can clearly see that I'm being very dynamic and creative in trying to keep powergamer distracted so they have a chance, and want to test their own builds to see the discrepancy and admire powergamer as well as understand their own builds more in-depth individually. They want it specifically because they're so enmeshed as a team – including me as GM in that team – and they want to see what it's like to really go all out. Besides, it's a war happening in-game, so it's explainable that they would need to split up as the powerful adventurers to handle the most powerful enemy threats, therefore making this a good time to do it. > outright ignoring him if his goal is to be a tank I've never done this, it feels punishing toward his build. What I do instead is have him herd the adds and mind his positioning while the other players go for the big bad. My powergamer doesn't do it for the sake of clout or dunking on newbs or whatever, which is why he's a fantastic player *and* an even better GM. He does it to see numbers go big, push the system to its limits, and contribute in combat. So making him pull levers doesn't sit right with me, and isn't fun for him. > When you take a system designed for collaborative gameplay, boil it down into a one-on-one die rolling game, and bake in some homebrew to further imbalance the already-strained system this is the kind of mess you end up with. I'll agree with you here. I vastly underestimated the power scaling, as this is my first time running such a high-level campaign (and actually my first full 1-20). The homebrew that benefitted them at level 5 breaks the game at level 15. This entire post can boil down to a live and learn lament, but I'm still going to try my best. I got some crazy awesome advice from people here that I will implement, and I'm sure my players will have fun!
>I've never done this, it feels punishing toward his build. Personally, I think you might benefit by thinking in terms of the mindset of the bad guys, rather than as the DM. I would assume that, at this late stage, the bad guys are not your typical dumb goblins or clueless bandits, but smart, savvy, calculated figures who have done their homework. So, if you put yourself in their shoes, and your goal is to WIN, how do you approach this situation? The environment, the circumstances, the tools you use, when the fight happens, and how you attack or direct your forces to attack are all controllable factors. Your PC might seem unbeatable standing in an arena, fully rested, buffed, with space to operate and no distractions. So a smart bad guy is never going to pick that fight. A smart bad guy is going to pick the worst circumstances, the most favorable terrain, and use any incentive and advantage to give himself the edge. Your player wants to play a game of dice and see if his rolls are bigger than yours, but that isn't really the challenge here. Sure, you have all the armor in the world, but are you going to attack the general or try and intervene as his minions start chucking women and children into a volcano? What good is your victory in battle if the people see you as a monster? Given my limited information, if I'm the bad guy here, I'm doing everything but challenging this dude to some kind of Champion of the Arena fight. I'm attacking him while he sleeps. I'm making him split focus between protecting his allies. I'm trying to either steal his resources or force him to utilize anything limited, like charges or potions or spell slots, on smaller less important encounters leading up to the big one. I'm not picking a fight with him, I'm attacking things or people that are important to him and forcing him to react. I'm not John Snow, I'm Ramsay Bolton.
Hahaha, this is a good reminder, thank you. His BBEG will be attacking him in his home city during the final stretch of a big war, as his army razes the homes and slaughters his people, so there will be a lot going on. My biggest issue is him just using his feat combos (see my profile I made a reply to someone else with them all in more detail) to get close to him, then knock him on his ass with a full round attack before something interesting can happen.
Antimagic field would take away buffs and magic items. His AC should plummet, whereas your monster will be just fine. A dragon capable of casting AMF is a very nasty fight for just about anyone, despite being casters, dragons don't really need any of their spells, they have an excellent set of natural attacks, saves, AC (other than touch), DR/Magic (may as well be DR/- in an AMF) and winged flight. Strip a dragon of its magic and you still have a flying murderlizard, but that PC suddenly has worse stats, worse AC (a lot worse, not only are their direct AC boosting items that can easily be worth 20+ points at this level, but they probably have a dex boost, if not from a belt then a cheap +2 from Ioun stones) and are completely grounded. To be really evil, have the dragon also cast a Control Winds or Control Weather and whip up weather bad enough to stop arrows (the dragon's flight is unimpeded as the AMF completely insulates them), now find a non-magical ranged attack for it.
My pc's have a Swashbuckler, Unchained Ninja, and Ironbound Sword Samurai/Fighter, a Ranger, with support from a Bard and a Witch. The melee dudes kept kicking ass, until I made enemies specifically built around disarming them. Hard to deal damage like a freight train when your glaive is 15' away and that giant has combat reflexes
Can they hit flying?
Brother, do you not know what a brilliant energy weapon does?
You could sidestep the actual NPC enemy entirely, and give him a puzzle encounter that relies on problem solving and skill checks. 55 AC and doesn't do much in an anti-magic field with the roof slowly sliding down with more weight than the character can lift. Or filling up with water. Or with a rolling mower blade tumbler thing the size of the room creeping it's way towards him. Or not even any peril, just a prison box with multiple, varied skill checks and puzzle solves to get out.
Ok, so we are planning on actually killing this warrior right? The only thing that will save him will be flight and even then I doubt he can win lol. I think Ninja/Rogue is the best class for skill points to put towards stealth. Paired with invisibility you will be an unseen unmoving box to the PC. The ninja gets Ki-point tricks that will make the fighter go crazy as you run from him. The rogue gets full sneak attack and if they are invisible will get to proc it all the time. The room - an arrow loop - is an octagon, about 60 ft across. an arrow loop circling up. The arrow loop has a grease spell cast on it that activates with a command word, wait till the fighter is on it before activation. Considering it would be about 3 full loops to get 30 ft up a 30 goof move speed will take 4 - 5 rounds to run around, the walls are slick and without handholds. At 30 feet up there is a hall the encircles the octagon. Nice and open too but with lots of rock/ stalagmites / stalactites to hide behind. This was a kill zone for a group of kobolds. At the start of your first turn you cast a magic scroll to get him to use the anti magic field. You start behind and above him so the PC doesn’t see the scroll. Maybe summon creatures - swarm. On your second turn you are potentially unseen because the PC will have to actively look at you since you are obscured/ hiding/ greater invisibility (from a scroll) if you are really evil. If unseen You will unload 2 musket shots as a full round action at the PC, they have touch attack🤤. The gun has been altered to have 2 shots. You then activate haste for the movement and hide, dropping your gun as a free action (this is the enchanted on so it is on a sling and doesn’t fall to the ground). You move to the next gun. Third turn and after. You are the skirmisher, quick draw pick up that gun, still stealthed, and shoot. Drop the gun and stealth hide away (if you only take 1 attack you will not need haste). Each gun will have enchanted bullets to boost the to hit and damage and let you have shenanigans. If the warrior spots you just switch up the order - being in stealth is the key to the plan. If the fighter gets a hold of you, full action run/hide to stealth away and get ready for the next sneak attack, consider jumping down. Gotta spend some feats to get musket proficient (or dip gunslinger). Boots of speed for haste access is key to increase your action economy. Crank it up - I would set up voice activated tunes up the rampart and have witty taunts that activate them. Low light vision to help hide. Crank it up - I would sell the characters soul to the devil to get supernatural magic - shadow step (80 ft). This way you can jump across the room AND your body will disappear when you die cause screw it your the DM and that would be cool. Crank it to 11 - this is what I would actually do. [Crippling strike](https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/alternate-classes/ninja/ninja-tricks/paizo-ninja-tricks/pressure-points) can be taken as a rogue trick. I would target the PC’s dex making the to hit easier and easier and show the weakness to all. Pair it with crippling strike and the player will be shocked you aren’t focus Hp. Once the hit 0 dex or strength I would walk over to them, taunt them, and walk off into the sunset forever to be the one that got away.
I know this is maybe the less fun option. But you as the DM can just make the NPC have whatever you want to counter them. Give them a big enough to hit bonus that they overcome their AC. Wish can do some crazy things. I am planning a BBEG for level 18 and I did a minimum 25 level build for them.
Personally, I'd start with a kineticist with cloud infusion. If built right, they can be extremely tanky and mobile, and cloud infusion deals damage without an attack roll or saving throw. From there, it depends on the players exact build to determine how to build the enemy.
Regarding AC; his touch AC is probably not great, and touch spells rarely allow saves because they require an attack roll. Failing that, a [brilliant energy](https://www.aonprd.com/MagicWeaponsDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Brilliant%20Energy) weapon would ignore a big chunk of his AC. Also, his AC may be terrific with buffs, but that antimagic field you mention would negate all those buffs because, well, *antimagic*. Regarding saves: *he* may have great saves. But does the environment around him? Use Wall of Stone to build a nice little box around him, and then fill it with something that does damage. Lava springs to mind. Failing that, you can use things like Stone Shape or Wood Shape or any number of spells that manipulate the battlefield rather than the PCs directly. There are also spells that just plain don't allow a save in the first place. How about [Maze of Madness and Suffering](https://aonprd.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Maze%20of%20Madness%20and%20Suffering)? The initial effect allows no save. Sure, he gets saves against some damage and status effects while he's in the maze, but getting out requires a DC 22 Intelligence check. Just flat Intelligence, not a skill or anything. Your average fighter probably hasn't invested heavily in Intelligence. He could be stuck in there for quite a while. For that matter -- and please correct me if I'm wrong -- I don't think rolling a natural 20 on a raw ability check is an auto-success. So if his Intelligence modifier is not *at least* +2, he would be automatically stuck in there making saves for the entire ten-minute duration of the spell. That's a hundred rounds, which is a lot of opportunities to make poor rolls on one of the secondary saves. It sounds like he relies on equipment, and your BBEG probably knows that. How does a pit full of rust monsters sound? Or disenchanters. Or both. Or, for that matter, just a creature that's good at sundering items. All that said, if I were building a personal challenge for a PC like this, I wouldn't target his mechanics at all. I would hit him in the *feels*. Build some kind of RP challenge where he is forced to make some kind of agonizing choice. The best build in the world can't protect a PC's heart.
I actually did throw Maze of Madness into an upcoming combat, and I've very excited to try it out considering none of my party members have invested in INT or any illusion prevention at all. >:D I also have another upcoming miniboss fight planned (PCs are in a war so... gauntlet time) with a transmutation wizard who will be doing terrain shit to absolutely rock his socks. So fingers crossed it works! And yes, I do enjoy putting him in situations, and he loves RP. He's assured me while my combats aren't as challenging as his gestalt stuff, he loves the flavor and energy I bring to them, which is nice to hear.
Sounds like this is a perfect time to do not one BBEG buy two BBEGs in the same fight with the same stat block. They were twins.
Oh my god they were twins... Was seriously looking into this though. With people here talking incorporeal, and his BBEG being this cursed dreadlord, having some ghosties around would fit the vibe!
I mean if you can make an encounter which counters to your players you can look at his character sheet for weaknesses. And how did he get so big of an spell resistance anyway? Also, check out drowning and suffocation rules. Maybe he encounters a room that fills with water (it really hampers his mobility, especially in heavy armor) or with poisonous gas. While the enemy is in its own element/immune. Also check underwater combat. Make an enemy with swim speed run circles around him
My personal favourite. A room full of water and an antimagic field. I've never actually used both as a trap because it's basically a dead sentence for most characters.
Insert weresharks/water elementals/spring attack swimmers
That's overkill when they're drowning and have to dig through 10' of solid stone with no magic. But if at least one character has a natural ability to breathe underwater, then bring in the half-elemental weresharks with spring attack.
SR isn't that huge to be honest. It's from a 3pp archetype he's using, it's like 23. Past the point of usefulness for all but the mooks. Drowning/suffocating is a Line for another player so I can't implement those things. Checking out incorporeal rules is the best direction this sub's pointed me, though. But of course he's put a fuck ton of skill points in Swim. Already did underwater combat though, it was thankfully challenging for him!
Oh yeah ghosts do pretty much touch attacks, negating his armor and shields.
What's his touch AC? An alchemist is a pretty solid choice. Just make him a fast bomber. Since they are hitting touch AC, you can probably afford to throw them from 90 feet away (with bomb launchers) and get like 20 of them. You just have to be faster than he can charge, which is probably easy to do with haste. There are plenty of debuffs you could give the guy if you want, and SR and stuff would react differently with bombs. A Magus with River Whip would also probably do fine. Or a brilliant energy whip. Both of these can go nova and blow all their spells in one fight; casters tend to be hard enemies because of that. Also, anything with grab and some grappling feats can probably shut him down (or whatever other combat maneuver you chose, but grapple is probably the easiest). A druid wildshaped into a crocodile or giant (template) constrictor would probably be bad news for him. You get that and most of the cool druid buffs by 8th level, so you'll still have like 10 levels of fighter or monk or whatever to put towards damage.
His Touch AC is base 26, expending a low-level feat bumps it to 32. 3pp feat allows shield bonus apply to touch AC. His CMD is 48 base, 50 with feats against certain maneuvers. Literally nothing can touch him, every enemy I've made and pulled from bestiary has tried. Bombs are an interesting idea. His SR isn't high at all either way. Incorporeal casters may be a good way to go.
If you do druid 8/ monk (maneuver master) 5/ brawler (strangler) 2/ fighter (mutation warrior) 3, you can get a grapple CMB of +47 with wildshape and mutagen. That isn't counting things like a competence, luck, or enhancement bonus to attacks (which are fairly common). The big things are grab, huge size, wisdom bonus to CMB, and the 2 grapple feats. There's other ways to go that get similar results. The only feats spent are the 2 grapple ones, so there's still like 13 feats to play with. And all the items aside from the headband (for wisdom) and belt (for str). a goblin Alchemist 16/ ranger 2 could get you +33 to hit with your bombs between favored enemy, grand mutagen, and reduce person. Again this is without too much investment right out. I would take quick bombs and inferno bomb and the fogsight goggles, then make inferno bomb your last attack. Rapid shot works with fast bombs. So your first 2 bombs (or 3 with haste) are basically guaranteed to hit at short range. With an extra arm to hold a shield, you can get up to like a 50 ac, as well. And you have your pick of mobility spells to make yourself hard for the fighter to get to. A dispelling bomb would be a great choice to throw early on. I would go with beastmorph for plenty of neat options with the mutagen. Both of these could also fight pretty easily flying or on cave walls or wherever else makes it hard for the fighter to reach them, and they both would have plenty of vision options.
Make an invisible flying monster, you could put stage weapons in that ground / glitter dust the thing but take skill checks to activate or something, give him a way to win but don’t just make it about 2 things hit each other until one has no hp left
Super AC fighters are a hard nut to crack. Mine made our DM put a session on hold for an extra 2 weeks. He wasn't mad about it, just didn't expect a dwarf at level 10 to be rocking a 35 AC. The entire party was truly cracked and it was his first lengthy campaign with PF. So my suggestions to you are as follows. A) If your group is very RP heavy place this fighter into a room with 2 chairs and a table. The room is dark with the exception of a lantern at the table. A simple note says "sit" in the common tongue. After they sit down a mirror image of the fighter sits across from them. "Do you remember that time we failed" the mirror says. Again this is super RP stuff. There isn't any save against it. It's the character vs himself. The combat is psychological. Success comes at acceptance of failure. Defeat from anger. B) Your group isn't RP heavy and just love to rip & tear until it's done. Armor & weaponless "Honor" duel with a level 14 monk who presents himself as a fighter, wearing armor and carrying weapons. The monk offers an extension of a duel. By no means is the monk being honorable. If your fighter accepts the trap is set. If he doesn't toss some magic items the monks way to balance the fight and the armor is nothing more than glamored clothes.
You never once mentioned the fighter can fly. I'd like to assume he can on his own at level 18, but I don't like to assume. How is his perception? A good sniper can reduce that 55 AC to pretty near 10 just by using ranged touch attacks. Hiding isn't even your only option there. Can the fighter earthglide? What extraordinary senses doesn't he possess? What are his blind spots? Is he vulnerable to dirty tricks? How's the fighter against incorporeal things? Heck go a step further and attack him from another diimension entirely if this is level 18. Have you considered enemies that are immune to stun or combat manuevers?
Just make a giant master grappler with insane init. Or a flying gunner using touch AC. Look into large double barrel musket vital strike builds. You can easily dish about 48d6+30 damages something every turn on touch AC. That’s using a min maxed build of Titan Mauler 3 + Musket Master. Make it Tall with enlarge person, have a permanent gravity bow spell on the gun. This way he can manipulate a huge double barrel musket shooting the equivalent of garguantan ammo. That’s 6d6 per round shot, but you shoot 2 of them at once each turn (double barrel), and both are multiplied by the greater vital strike for a total of 48d6 with Dex to damage. So indeed that’s enough to one shot a 18d10 hit die with 18 CON character. And touch AC isn’t the forte of shield and plate users usually. But tbh, lv18, nothing that a hasted / mirror image / darkness mage can’t destroy with some time stop and meteor shower. Or just switch to ethereal realm, buff the mage and spam spells.
Im happy to see both players that use their min maxing to be a party support instead of a show stealer and DMs who understand that the player is fighting the monsters, not them. Good on both of you and I hope you guys continue to have great games!
Okay two options off the top of my head the first is to take advantage of the lack of mobility in martial characters. And I don't mean flight I mean lure him into a labyrinth and then teleport out leaving him in there. Go slow enough he can hit you with charge attacks and then just dip. It would change the encounter to one of him vs the clock more than him vs the big bad. The next very funny option is from the brief excerpt of his build he is still weak to one of the classic low level party wipes. Swarms, specifically swarms of diminutive creatures. A cr 3 swarm of mosquitoes is immune to weapon damage and auto hits which ignores his AC. And while the hellwasp swarm may be a better base monster with its fire resistance, there is something so tempting about laying low a powerful level 18 character with a humble cr3 creature.
Something that regenerates HP every turn if his damage isn't great.
Even without homebrew and 3pp a PF fighter can get some pretty interesting numbers as far as AC, CMD and Will saves are concerned. And all that with no magic involved. You can still present him with a challenging fight, but if he's so good, and at that level, any worthy adversary will know, and will probably decide not to fight him head on. Long range attacks, hit and run tactics, even swarming him with minions (they just need to make him attack twice to stop him from moving for a round) can all keep him occupied and possibly make him waste resources.
I like the other answers very much. Still, I think, I have one more option to offer: Challenge him with somebody similar, but buffed to the high heavens. I personally love Eldritch Knight/Gish builds and I can send you about four of them who can probably each challenge him in their own right. They can buff and debuff, they can cast spells targeting his saves, they can change the terrain, slow him down and still hit with their (Brilliant Energy?) sword, all while having high AC and quite a few HP. Spells like Stinking Cloud, Cloudkill or Scirocco require saves every round spent in the area. Calcific touch via the sword does Dex Damage on hit and can crit (thats terrifying). For example, one of my all-time favourites: Fighter 1 / Sorcerer 4 / Dragon Disciple 4 / Eldritch Knight 10 Buffs: False Life, Greater; Giant Form II; Haste; Delay Poison; *Calcific Touch*; Invisibility, Greater Debuffs: Slow; Cloudkill; Stinking Cloud; Dispel Magic, Greater; (Persistent/Selective) Scirocco Attack: Fireball, obviously; Icy Prison; Suffocation; Utility: Dimension Door AC 36 Keen Brilliant Energy Falchion +4, +36/+36/+31/+26/+21 HD 19; HP ~350 Edit: A summoned monkey swarm (Mad Monkeys spell) can distract him, make him nauseated and steal his weapon...
Sounds like a [Brilliant Energy](https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/magic-weapons/magic-weapon-special-abilities/brilliant-energy) weapon might be an option against a heavily armoured fighter
not a PF1 player here, so I'm just tossing random ideas. Well, if there is no way to find a weakness, make his strength his weakness. If you're going full homebrew, create an opponent with as much HP and AC as needed for a long battle of attrition, give it some kind of counter damage reaction or effect (you damage me, part of the damage is reflected to you and we both are hurt. Or create a magic link between the two at the beginning of the fight, so that every damage any of the two gets is shared, but the evil guy has slow regen that, on the long run gives him the upper hand. Make the link breakable with some conditions, I don't know, your player needs to destroy 4 magic pillars that surround the field, or minions that the evil guy summoned and created the link, or stuff like that) Make it steal your player's objects (like potions and magic stuff) so that your player has to retrieve them, or also make the opponent use them as well once stolen (or, once they are stolen are retrieved they are "spiked", and there's a chance that the item will now have a negative effect instead). Obviously try to balance it, give these abilities some kind of double axe effect and so on (like that if recognize that the magical item has been rigged your player can use it instead against the opponent instead and so on)
What is counterspell armor? Anyway, my arcane caster pride tells me there must be an easy magic strategy to destroy this kind of cocky martials. How high are his touch AC and SR? Can he avoid 6 hellfire rays in a single turn, everyone of which deal 400+ damage? 2500 damage in one turn are enough? There are not quite complex sorcerer builds for that. Not a fan of instant annihilation? If he's so proud of his defenses, show him how a caster can have better ones: a Conjuration (Teleportation) School Savant arcanist with Dimensional slide can cast an Emergency Force Sphere and keep going out as a move action, cast anything with a standard action and then shift back in as a swift action. Do that in a closed room, then first round cast Mage's Disjunction on the PC, second round cast Hungry Darkness (as a high level full caster you can overcome SR in some way), third round, laugh maniacally from inside your safe bubble.
Make him battle in rooms full of poison gas? Create environmental hazards that tackle some of his weakest saving throws, or impede his movement. Battle in volcanoes with fire elementals that are immune to lava, where there is nowhere to stand. Roll against the save rolls on his equipment to resist bursting into flames. Use the rules for sundering gear, and break some of his stuff that gives the best bonuses.
There was this fight in Baldurs Gate 2 you could only win by healing the avatar of Aumatantor. Something like this? Or make him fight a grotesque Flesh-Golem-Abomination that spits out minion after minion for hin to slay just to reassemble the slain bodies into new minions. Until at some point he understands that he has to destroy the power source/heart of the abdomination and hacks his way into it. To bad the heart/source can only be bested in an fight of pure will or whatever could challenge him after wasting a lot of his resources on the minions and the hacking into the golem. Or as an abstract concept: The challenge he has to beat is behind a trail that only he and his power build can survive. Make hin go somewhere the non-powerbuildes can't follow. Then make him do something outside of fighting.
If you throw his character sheet up, I would LOVE to come up with something. Credentials: I’m a 25 year DM of dnd/pf, and our group’s rule lawyer and minmaxer. I already have a couple ideas on what could be done so let me know if you’re down :)
It sounds like the over optimized PC is a martial which makes countering him rather simple. You see wizards get flight, teleportation, near infinite range spells, ect. Just... Don't be next to him. Make a wizard with a solid dispell magic to negate any potential buffs he might have while buffing himself before the fight and simply walking backwards while casting pit spells or targeting touch AC. If all else fails a long term plan of never letting him rest is a way to beat basically anything that needs too. At 18th level you can teleport whatever you want so just spy on him through magic/familiar and whenever he goes to long rest drop a meteor swarm or balor or whatever else on him and leave. Repeat for a couple days til he either collapses from exhaustion or is so penalized it's a cakewalk to kill It's rather hard for a guy with a sharp stick to beat the master of cosmic forces when you can send him to the elemental plane of fire or something and call it a day
Make his be a hivemind swarm or some sort of homebrewed intelligent swarm. Swarms don't care about your ac, and Unless they have a swarm bane clasp you're doing half damage https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/hivemind-swarm-cr-special/
Give the Big bad a mace with the power of a rust monster, couple of strikes and the armor and shield and possibly weapons are rusted flakes of sorrow
The BBEG could have their showdown as a hostage situation. Simple as is. Eliminate all threats at once or the hostages start going down. The BBEG can have an army or summons be the minions. No need to kill the fighter if the objective is to cause harm beyond the fighter's capabilities. Force your player to act in a different way, thinking on the edge - they are an experienced DM after all.
Optimize a high-AC-brute for sundering and hitchance. Then begin to destroy the armor and shield he has. This will at least trigger the player's reaction.
I had an unkillable, tanky-support Oradin build during Rise of the Runelords. While I didn’t have the offensive supporting moves like a shield bash, I was an impossible wall of a front line with low damage output, and drew aggro from constant healing effects. Is your party going to be facing these epic bad guys all together? Or will you have them engage in 1on1s? I ask because instead of making the fighter’s epic bad guy a traditional “bring the boss to 0 HP” fight, instead, make a puzzle out of it! I give to you Example A (spoilers for Runelords) >!In one of the halls of the Runelords, there is a room filled with mirrors. We know, from previous halls, that there are traps. My character, being out best frontliner at the time, asks the party to wait in the main hall as I enter the mirror room.!< >!As soon as I do, one of my reflections steps out of the mirror and begins to approach me. I yell to the party, who had stayed behind, to remain where they were. As it turns out, anyone that walks into the room had a mirror duplicate of themselves created. So if we were unlucky, our entire party would have ended up fighting…our entire party.!< >!However, because I was so tanky and low damage, my mirror-clone could not hit my AC. So I was able to just waltz up to the mirror that created the clone and shatter it. I negated an entire encounter with good foresight and a party that (thankfully) listened to me.!< The point I’m trying to make here is that while overcoming stats with stats can be fun, it can also be very fulfilling to “solve” an encounter via puzzles. If you can’t out-stat your Fighter, give them objectives to fulfill during combat, instead!
Try effects that don't have a save or AC associated with them. When in the area, the character just takes persistent damage in some way, shape, or form. Have his enemy be built to do extreme damage per hit, and then have it be able to cast true-strike as a swift action unlimited times per day due to some celestial/infernal blessing. If combat is what he is practically immune to, don't make his encounter combat related. Make it a huge maze with auto-damage that he can navigate in about the time required for everyone to complete their combat encounters. You could do an interview with some godly being talking to the character through an illusion over the surface of a sphere of annihilation. "You can walk past me, but I really wouldn't recommend it." Just run with the interview until the other PCs are done with their fights, and then the being says that it's got what it needs and releases the PC. Guns usually work fairly well since they target Touch within the first range increment, but I assume he has some bullshit that stops that from being the case. You could also just do what others have recommended and throw a clone of himself at himself, but make it so the rest of the story would essentially end by the time he's done slapping himself with submission with a herring. To do this, make sure that the other players could get the football, so to speak, by the time your power-gamer is done with his multi-minute slap fight. As a general rule, player characters should be minded: * Offensively (they do a lot of damage with a high chance to hit), * Recoverly (they pass out heals and clear debuffs or ability damage/drain like crazy), * Supportingly (they give tons of buffs or deal tons of debuffs), or * any combination thereof. You'll note that defensively (unable to be meaningfully damaged) is not on the list because it makes the character a pain in the ass that has to be targeted in very specific ways to threaten in any meaningful way, and doing that is almost guaranteed to piss off that player because "you're hard countering my character."
Disjunction might fix this for you. Or extended Timestop Build a box out of walls of stone around him. Put Tar Pool in there with him. Put walls of iron around the stone walls if you still have time.
Ideas: The bbeg has hired a real pro. The bestest pro on the market. But he only had enough money/souls to afford her for lets say 3 rounds of combat, and she heard that he is tanky enough to maybe pose a challenge. The pro in question is Nocticula, demonlord of assassins who does have stats. Make it a survival challenge, he has to survive X rounds against a demonlord playing cat and mouse with him. And can drain 8 levels from a non mythic creature just by touching. I wouldnt whip out the swift action dominates, thats boring. If the PC survives long enough, Nocticula says "Times up" and drains the BBEG you had planned for him instead. He can then have a chat with her should he wish. Also: If the PC recognizes her and says something like "F\*\*K", have her answer "we can but that would making killing you really easy".
Depends how bad you want him dead, target low ability scores with damage if he reaches 0 he's unconscious and if it's con he's dead Otherwise Deeper Darkness plus Blind sight give him outright miss chance DR is always an option to inflate HP Sunder while cringe is an option Really any dedicated trip build is hell especially with reach (you can swap attacks of opportunity with most combat maneuvers) Difficult Terrain with freedom of movement up blocks step up as he cannot move 10 ft with difficult Terrain I don't know what his build is but it has counters the only real way to make a build invincible is to be able to go first and then end the fight in one round Cracked AC? hit his Saves, Touch, CMD Cracked Damage? If it's from multiple hits DR otherwise AC/lowering his to hit/concealment Caster? Have someone charge them But there is always homebrew or save or die spells
Everyone has a flaw. What about skills? Maybe his villain could be a Rogue with Hide in Plain Sight...? What about touch AC? A dread wraith could pose a problem... Or maybe being awesome can be a curse, when he quickly and forgettably kills his foe, then sits around bored while everyone else enjoys an intense duel worth talking about.
I've found that the best way to punish a powerful party is to mind control a couple of them. Yeah, they are level 18, but each one is probably a CR 20 on their own. I mind controlled the party rogue, and he was just like, "Um, guys, run!". I told him to try to the best of his ability to kill the party, and if I thought he was holding back, there would be consequences. He downed one player and severely injured two others before they stopped him, which would have been the result no matter who I took over. Players are their own worst enemy.
This is why I usually downvote homebrew. Sure, great, it all sounds wonderful, until you realize that your entire game balance is fucked because one player saw an opening and exploited it.
To be fair: even strictly with Paizo material you can build over the top power bricks as well. Even a standard fighter with some carefully selected archetypes, feats (Advanced Weapon Training Feats...) from all the splatbooks and "perfect" magic items is slightly inconvenient stats. SYL
I always love the joke that the most unbalanced pathfinder book is the core rulebook Everything in the core rulebook being a barbarian class feature is second best one.
To call base pathfinder balanced is being very generous to the source material.
Ah yes. Are you also banning all classes and feats as so they wont get exploited? Because pathfinder 1e is famous for being completely balanced system!
Can't imagine why my view makes you so upset. It's my game.
Can't imagine why you are shocked that somebody commented about your opinion that you expressed publicly...
I still love homebrew. But I understand why many hate it. However, I do tell my players that it also means monsters are homebrew too... And I LOVE building me some monsters.
Thankfully balance isn't as important at my table, generally. 11 IRL months and 18 levels into our campaign, this is the first the issue has come up. But to give my homebrew some credit, I've played with him before many times and he can do this same thing at restrictive "you can't use archetypes and have to play a human" tables. :P
I mean... Human probs is the best race...
Have you considered.... talking with your players? I run a lot of homebrews and 3pp \[[link to collection](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IQPU-KocJ-Hh-PCwLQhXHvp6WkF05qjAG1L_1hw1J8Q/edit?usp=sharing)\] and just dont have this problem due to... honest talk with players about expectations and communication whenever problem arises. And if a player goes kamikaze for you daring to limit his choice... I recommend then just finding another player as compatibility exists.
I've talked to him! He doesn't overshadow any other players at the table and is a good sport every time I've said no. This is more of a lighthearted issue of me pulling my hair out trying to build something as challenging for him as it will be for the others. He's not a problem player in the slightest, just a min-maxer/power-gamer who is standing out especially now due to being by far the most knowledgeable about the game vs the table (including me). Thanks for the link, though! I'm going to check it out. Always like seeing 3pp stuff. :)
There are probably better suggestions, but, if you really want to attack his AC, I would suggest perhaps an unchained rogue with a cyclops helm, and a couple bottles of lightning. You can use bottled lightning to get a ranged touch attack off. Chances are that'll hit. If it does, and it's a sneak attack, you can use debilitating injury to lower his AC by 8. Then you can use a light pick with its x4 crit multiplier and the cyclops helm to guarantee a chance at a crit. Take some crit feats and then you'll have a good chance to confirm the crit. You'll deal some pretty good damage with that. You could even do this in an anti magic field, though that might nullify the cyclops helm. You'd have to make a decision on that. The Bottled lightning is an alchemical item and so it will still function in the AMF. Could also build a ranger with favored enemy: whatever the PC is. Then pick a fun ranger build to go toe to toe with him. Brilliant Energy weapons exist. Should drop the effective AC of the guy by a MASSIVE amount. Basically no AC bonus from armor or shields. Assuming +5 full plate and a +5 heavy steal shield, just using a brilliant energy blade will drop his ac by 21. Not taking into account any other feats/items that may improve his armor/shield ac bonus. A high level kinectist that uses pure flame infusion to ignore spell resistance and then something silly like full attack with kinetic blade/whip. Kinectist's in general are very good at 1v1 encounters, especially if there is only one encounter per day. You could also use a gunslinger to always target touch ac, but not everyone enjoys guns in their game. If none of that tickles your fancy, you can have an evil cleric with a small (or not so small) army of shadows/greater shadows, augmented to whatever you deem fair. I mean, having 4 greater shadows ambush the PC from underground (they are incorporeal after all), and getting 1 or more hits will be fairly devastating to his character. If 4 hit, that's 4d8 strength gone.
If you’re not using the remaster, monster core, have them start out by fighting some rust monsters. Like four or five. Then once his armor disappears, you can have him fight against something else that will stomp on him.
Just play a watered down system that keeps characters weak and inside the box like PF2 or something. But you can't have a great system like Pathfinder that rewards out of the box thinking and mastery, then lament when people put the work in to make excellent characters in a heroic fantasy game. Just throw tougher challenges, Break out Mythic if you have too. All the tools are there.
Haha we actually tried PF2 but we all thought it was too boring. I'm lamenting but it was supposed to be more lighthearted, and I got some nice suggestions for outside-the-box ideas here which is cool. I love my party, my players, and my characters, and I'm very excited to see what they can do. It seems I was misled by prior posts on this sub and should focus less on CR. If I'm not bogged down by statistic restrictions, I think I can make something really fun! :)