"Tome game" starting, have a couple of issues.

[Surgo]

Hey all,

I'm going to be running a game soon, and I essentially said to all of my players "if anyone want to play a melee character, use something from Dungeonomicon or Races of War instead of the trash in the SRD" and told them to use anything they felt like out of the rest of the tomes too. I have a couple issues that seem to be fairly common and known with a couple of the classes though, and was wondering what everyone did to remedy them.

First, with the Samurai. Kiai! is only slightly problematic, generally because most of your hits are going to be attacks of opportunity, but Iaijutsu Grandmaster is much moreso (and I do expect to reach this level, so it would become problematic). It's obvious here that at the point where you use these, the 18-20/x2 critical or 19-20/x3 critical weapons are fairly stupid, and you would obviously use the 20/x4 critical weapons all the time. I don't want anyone to have to suddenly switch weapons like that though, so how does everyone else deal with it?

Second is with the Fighter. Yeah, foil. I really do like it, a lot. I definitely like the ability to shut down some special ability at a range, and I remember K saying repeatedly that you should be able to stop it by closing and melee attacking. This doesn't seem so much the case though because, if I'm not mistaken, you can foil melee attacks too. Obviously any fight with more than 1 monster is going to nullify this, but I still worry a bit that it becomes even more powerful against a single monster than it already is. Has anyone else experienced that issue? If they have, what if you made it so you couldn't foil melee attacks?

If you got rid of that ability though I'd want to give some way to get it back, or at least something like it...with that in mind, I'm considering offering the following combat feat. I basically took 3.0 psionic Standstill (an awesome feat as-is) and added some stuff to it.

Wall [Combat]
You're like a tree standing by the water.
Benefits:
+1:
+6: Whenever you successfully damage an opponent moving through your square with an attack of opportunity, that opponent must make a fortitude save (DC = damage dealt) or stop moving.
+11:
+16:

That is pretty useful throughout your entire career, and I'm not really sure what to add to this for the initial benefit, +1, +11, and +16. Maybe something early on to do with bull rushes, or maybe fold in the Dwarven Defender's defensive stance?

[CalibronXXX]

What K meant was that the fighter doesn't have nearly enough foil actions to take out all or even the majority of your attacks in a full attack, so if you manage to close to melee you'll be able to at least attack the fighter. Where as a spellcaster played by someone who doesn't know how to play a spellcaster, or a spellcaster confined to Core only material, has very few options if a fighter manages to close to the 30/60/90 foot range of their foil ability.

[Surgo]

Ah, I see. And of course, if you have -two- (or more) monsters, it's not really a help at all in that instance.

[Koumei]

Well, at a certain point you can Foil twice per round, IIRC. That will help against two monsters - even if they have multiple attacks each, it will still at least help a bit and reduce the smackdown headed your way (and if one of them decides "Attacks? Nah, I'm using a SLA/breath weapon/whatever" then that monster spends the round doing nothing instead).

So it won't win the game or anything, but it will seriously help.

[Username17]

1193327762[/unixtime]]Ah, I see. And of course, if you have -two- (or more) monsters, it's not really a help at all in that instance.

Against most melee attackers at those levels, it is approximately the equivalent of blur.

-Username17

[Koumei]

You know, that actually makes it sound unimpressive. Which makes me wonder why I was "Holy shit!" when I first saw it.

Maybe it's the way it wins the game against any spellcaster stupid enough to get into that range.

[CalibronXXX]

It only "wins the game" against spellcasters at any level if you restrict casters to core. Adding any one of several books(CArcane, PHBII, ect.) will allow a spellcaster to take on a RoW Fighter; allowing all of them has a good chance of giving a Wizard the ability to dominate a RoW Fighter.

[Koumei]

Note the "Is stupid enough to let them get that close" part. If the caster just stays out of reach - and contingencies make that so much easier - then they're quite safe.

[RandomCasualty]

1193397148[/unixtime]]Note the "Is stupid enough to let them get that close" part. If the caster just stays out of reach - and contingencies make that so much easier - then they're quite safe.

Honestly contingencies are heavily overrated. You can only have one contingency to prevent people from getting close and once it blows, you're probably out of luck. Not to mention, it's kind of annoying having contingencies constantly teleport you away, because you may be deserting your own party when an angry rat approaches.

Contingencies in my opinion tend to be mostly crap used for theoretical arguments. Unless you allow them omniscience, they're really not that useful.

[Koumei]

Contingency: When someone is just about to attack me, Dimension Door (or Teleport or whatever) 500 feet in the air.

Paired with Contingency: When in the air and about to fall far enough for an injury, Fly.

Very simple ones that greatly help. I haven't actually seen Contingency used that much myself, but those two are an easy example of how to, once per day, get out of jail free.

Note that your average monster isn't doing this, though. So if the party Wizard and Fighter get into a scrap, or if the DM uses classed humanoid foes, then this crops up, but in a regular game, the foe doesn't have such options, and mostly gets locked down.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

The simple, obvious contingency is:

if (curHealth/maxHealth < 0.2 && (attack of any sort) && !sanctuary) Teleport(sanctuary);
else continue;

But there are a number of ways to get around the fighter ability that a solid caster should be employing: Contingencies, multiple spells, dischargable spells, or walking away and taking the AoO.

If we are playing a F+K game, our caster is likely to have a way to get off 2 spells (Lesser Metamagic rod of Quickening). Also, the "you may only have one contingency" is likely to get phased out with a Craft Contingent Spell. With a 30' range, our caster can also simply cast (or get from Boots of Speed) a Swift Expeditious Retreat (or Haste), walk 60' away, and cast a spell.

That being said, IMHO a level 9 fighter should hose a level 9 caster if he closes to melee and the caster is not prepared for it (hint: he should be).

[NineInchNall]

Movement is an action, yes? Then it can be foiled just as any other.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

Fighter's choice:
free attack (possible KO for a caster)
stop caster from moving away (means the caster can probably get a spell off, but has to cast defensively and sets up for a full attack next round)

My assumption is that the fighter takes the attack now and charges next round, making 2 attacks at full bonuses instead of a full attack, but there are merits to both sides.

Not quite an insta-glib though.