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Martin Feller wrote:
> Most depressing moment from our last game: the party's cleric got
> three crits and two regular hits in on an advanced solar. He's huge,
> was enlarged to gargantuan, using power attack and a greatsword. He
> did over 700 points of damage before DR. I just goggled.
Well, in and of itself ~700 damage is quite nice at levels around 20 -
30. But look at what you wrote: three critical hits, and two regular
hits. That means five attacks, that all hit, plus three confirmation
rolls that also all succeeded.
I do not know the exact numbers involved, but with three criticals and
two hits from a greatsword, each "normal" greatsword blow has to be
doing 90-ish damage on average to reach 700+ damage total. Let's
speculate. Give him, say, Str 50? He was Gargantuan after all. That's
+20 Str bonus, so +30 damage right there on a double-handed weapon. A
Gargantuan greatsword does, what, 6d6 damage? (A Large greatsword =
3d6, Huge 3d6 -> 3d8, Gargantuan 3d8 -> 6d6. I think.) Another expected
~21 damage (and 8 x 6d6 = 48d6 really WILL average out to ~168). Give
him, say, +20 damage from various sources (enhancement, luck, morale,
whatever). Meaning he needs another ~20 Power Attack damage, so, say, a
-10 penalty. Give or take.
If a Gargantuan (-4 size penalty) Cleric (medium BAB) takes a -10 Power
Attack Penalty and still manages to hit 5 times in a row (out of which
at least 3 have to be 17+ even IF he has Improved Critical or a Keen
weapon) plus 3 confirmations, even with his lowest iterative (-15)
attack, either something really IS wrong with the ACs involved, or he
was just lucky. In which case, more power to him!
> isn't *anything* you can throw at that... short of giving the players
> a menu of deific beings and letting them put together a couple
> courses. Sure, some of the higher CR monsters have big enough ACs that
> power attacking isn't as viable, but then you've just switched, "The
> PCs need to not roll ones" to, "the monsters just need to not roll
> ones." It was literally the last dice throw of the campaign, as I
> deus-exed an ending to the campaign on the spot.
*shrugs* Of course you can throw things at that. ACs need not be *so*
friggin' high that only a carefully-timed charge by the main melee
character (who can then not afford to take any Power Attack / Combat
Expertise penalties) when an ally is flanking would require 'only' a 19
instead of a natural 20 to hit. On the other end of the spectrum, if
with -20 penalties even the Wizard is still hitting on a 5+, you might
want to make some adjustments.
Use hit-and-run. Full attack with Mr. Solar, THEN Greater Teleport away
(using Quicken Spell-Like Ability). Be immune to criticals (saving you
~250 - 300 damage right there). Impose a miss chance of some kind
(Greater Blink from Complete Arcane for example, or concealment of some
kind). Trap the Cleric in a Forcecage. Up your AC. Use Mirror Image.
That said... you're completely right, preparing for high-level really
DOES take a lot more time than preparing for low-level, especially if
you have combat oriented games. My players just hit ECL 20, and with
some 'extras' and the fact there's 5 PCs and an NPC in the party, an EL
21 - 22 encounter is a 'normal' one for them. I expect to throw four of
those at them in a row without them breaking a sweat. Too bad each one
requires quite some preparation on my side (but then again, I love
doing that).