DF: Still can't challenge the Swashbuckler

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by JMason

He has Extra Attack (not DWA), he's turning one of them into a rapid strike. I've never seen anything that implies this isn't allowed.

Yes, he only rolls one deceptive attack per turn, but that is usually enough. With his high skill he often makes this an called shot to the leg or other area to take the monster out even if it isn't killed outright.



The SB bought up his ST by quite a bit (3 or 4 levels) as he's earned CP. The Knight is much lower for a few reasons: He is a replacement character (my rules are that if you create a new character it starts at the prior character's starting value + half of the CP gained on the prior character), that player's job often keeps him out, so he has missed more session than the other characters.

High defense monsters tend to neutralize most of the group, not just the SB. The Knight uses an axe, so he's out. The Cleric likes to get into the action when done buffing, so he MIGHT throw a sunbolt, but is just as likely to draw his morning star. That leaves it up to the wizard who again, is a missile spell guy. So this leads to very slow combats that the players get tired of.

Still, maybe a few more "slogs" is what it will take to get them to see that maybe diversity is a good thing (since my repeated telling them hasn't worked out so well).




I've said this to my group, I've posted lists of useful spells, I've all but forbidden missile spells, but it hasn't gotten through.


Again, thanks for the advice everyone. I've got this thread open in one window and am working on my next dungeon in the other!

After reading all of this, I had a rather extensive post, but I think I'll just say this:

The problem is not that the Swashbuckler is too powerful. I've seen far worse (and easily challenged far worse) in my CBR campaign. In fact, I doubt he'd really do all that well in CBR. The problem is that the party is playing chicken with you, intentionally or not. Since the Swashbuckler is the most powerful member of the party, and since by your own admission you discourage most of the magey attack options, then the casters only really have the option to buff/debuff the SB, and the Knight is basically useless, then anything that the SB cannot defeat by definition destroys the party. So you have a binary situation: Either you make it weak enough for the SB to kill, or you get a TPK.

That's the problem.

You need to encourage diversity, but I'm going to leave it to you to figure out how to do that, since I largely disagree with so many of the choices that you've laid out that I'm not sure how to suggest any changes without sounding like I'm ripping up your entire style and throwing it out the window, which is seldom helpful.