Need an enemy immune or highly resistant to physical attacks

[PhantasyPen]

Hello again all,

I've done a goof, and designed a barbarian PrC for one of my players, unfortunately I designed it a little too well, and he is now an ubercharger with a metric death-load of natural attacks, regularly pumping out around 400 damage and one-shotting anything he hits. I need to figure out a good enemy that he can't oneshot that can keep him happy and occupied, while more appropriate enemies battle with the rest of the party.

[Ravens_cry]

Sounds like you need to talk to the player about doing you a little tweaking, because making immune or highly resistant to physical damage sounds like a great way to ruin everyone else in the party who deals physical damage's fun. It's a bit of an atomic bomb approach to what's an Out of Character problem (character class is too powerful), in my opinion.

[Nifft]

Use lots of smaller enemies.

400+ damage is not that exciting when your enemy only has 30 HP.

Some ideas:
- Draconians (from Dragonlance) which explode / turn into stone (trapping your weapon) / etc. when they die.
- 10 goblins with leather armor & quarterstaves, plus 2 veil'd rust monsters.
- Displacer Beasts (50% miss chance); with Int 5 they could take class levels. Give one of them Marshal levels (Motivate Strength) and give two of them Combat Reflexes + Stand Still.

[flappeercraft]

Zodar from FF is immune to all damage unless it is dealt by a bludgeoning weapon.

[Goaty14]

If you can dumb down his fort save, then the Jovoc from MMII has a retributive aura that, when it takes damage, deals the same damage to all within 30 ft.

( DC 15 Fortitude Halves)

[xyamius]

Could just pull the ol caster move and just gain control of the damage tank and turn them on the party or just remove the ability for them to do melee by forcing them into ranged only via fly, levitate, platforms, tree's and faster moving targets. Then again the old Rakshasa move to get the party to attack each other while it watches and enjoy's the show is always a fun thing to do. High damage reduction isn't the only way to deal with things sometimes being the parties tank turns you into the enemy casters tank.

You could also have an enemy that just stalls by using a reach weapon and readies a trip attack once that player comes into range while using improved trip. Take 2 levels of fighter for an npc as an example give it Combat expertise and Improved Trip those two alone will keep him on his back for a decent amount of the fight. Net's are always fun but then again it's a barbarian so betting high strength. For the improved trip if the npc trips it gets an attack and then when the player goes to stand up another from an attack of opportunity or just have them move and ready each round after they hit with the readied attack. They are attempting to stall not kill after all anyways.

Don't forget traps you can always trap mine an area have the npc aware of what's where and stay away but attempt to lure the pc's to charge into melee so they fall into pit traps or set off snare or other types.

One combo i love is have a large group of low level creatures like kobolds or goblins hiding while 1 to 3 engage with rocks to get the party to rush them as they run away and all of a sudden the party is surrounded on all sides with no escape by hidden low level critters that where in wait. Will it kill a decent party not normally, but it will mess them up and get them to think before falling for tactics like that and then they start using it on monsters sometimes.

Don't forget just because you can doesn't mean you should.

[Rijan_Sai]

While I agree that talking to the player (and/or using a horde) is the best course of action, you could always go with:

Troll Blooded, Half Dragon (pick one: Red or Black), Human Gheden.

Spoiler: Brief Explanation

Show

Troll Blooded - Feat: Dragon 319 (Regen 1 fire/acid)*
Half Dragon - Template: MM1 or SRD (There are other ways to get elemental immunity, this is one of the easiest. Only pick one; you want this guy to take damage from something!)
Gheden - Template: Dragon 313 (Effectively immune to non-lethal damage, plus other goodies)

That should make for a difficult, (but ultimately defeatable) opponent!

*(I had thought I had seen this in a Forgotten Realms book, but I can't find it, so maybe not...)

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Antimagic Field plus Selective Spell (Shining South) or Extraordinary Spell Aim (Complete Adventurer) or Mastery of Shaping (Archmage) or similar, the caster isn't affected by the antimatic field but anyone within 10 feet of him and all their attended items are affected by it. This may not even be necessary.

Combine that with the spell Starmantle or the item Starmantle Cloak in BoED. Any nonmagical weapon including natural weapons that strikes the protected creature are automatically destroyed, leaving it unharmed. A round only lasts six seconds so making a lot of natural attacks would occur very quickly and be mostly muscle memory, so he would probably make all of his attacks before he even realizes what's going on.


Alternatively, you could just talk to the player about the problem his overpowered character is causing and let him know it needs to be toned down for the game to still be fun for everyone else.

[Nifft]

While I agree that talking to the player (and/or using a horde) is the best course of action, you could always go with:

Troll Blooded, Half Dragon (pick one: Red or Black), Human Gheden.

Spoiler: Brief Explanation

Show

Troll Blooded - Feat: Dragon 319 (Regen 1 fire/acid)*
Half Dragon - Template: MM1 or SRD (There are other ways to get elemental immunity, this is one of the easiest. Only pick one; you want this guy to take damage from something!)
Gheden - Template: Dragon 313 (Effectively immune to non-lethal damage, plus other goodies)

That should make for a difficult, (but ultimately defeatable) opponent!

*(I had thought I had seen this in a Forgotten Realms book, but I can't find it, so maybe not...)

Troll-Blooded is a Greyhawk regional feat, printed in Dragon Magazine.


Anyway, in the vein of your build (but much tougher) would be the Half-Dragon (black) War Troll (MM3), and it's specifically a Half Black Dragon because a War Troll has regeneration 9 and isn't vulnerable to Fire damage.

Put 3 of these guys as opponents. They'll drop to 400+ damage, then pop right back up in a round or two.

[Endarire]

What about preventing the PC from charging?

And +1 to talking to the player about the problem first!

[Eldariel]

There's the classic "any spellcaster with readied action can prevent your movement". And better yet, a summoner can throw endless armies of things at him and those things can also stop his actions - thus he'll have irrelevant things to kill and things that make it non-trivial while at it. Like a level 7 Wizard with Rapid Summoning summoning Dretches off SMIV who ready their action to Stinking Cloud to block the attacker. Sure, he'll probably make the save but concealment up to 5' and total concealment any further is like to ruin any attempts at a charge (or to cast spell or the like). And you get multiple Dretches per summoning; this way it's possible to literally litter the battlefield. He'll eventually splatter the first ones but by that time there'll be a horde indeed.

But yeah, obviously if it's your mistake and brokenly powerful (charging easily is in 3.X even if it doesn't compare to spellcasters), you should be the bigger man, admit you made mistakes, and discuss reworking things with the player to a point where it's manageable. Or just throw Jovocs/Shapechanged Jovocs/Polymorphed Jovocs with Assume Supernatural Ability/whatever at him and watch him explode, that can be fun too.

[frogglesmash]

If you can dumb down his fort save, then the Jovoc from MMII has a retributive aura that, when it takes damage, deals the same damage to all within 30 ft.

( DC 15 Fortitude Halves)

I once used them to "retire" a player's character.

[Eldariel]

I once used them to "retire" a player's character.

A group of Jovocs and any non-tanar'ri with Share Pain/Shield Other kinda abilities can also cause a delicious chain reaction - the Barb will probably obliterate himself no matter how good his Fort-save is (unless he has Mettle). Also, Delay Death as a spell is pretty fun, and there's Revivify too.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

DR/any type of damage that he is the only one that doesn't have?

miss chance?

Enemy have regular HP+the Damage he do as max HP?

No room to charge?

Talking to him?

[Rebel7284]

You have a number of options.

1. Work with him to tone the character down.
2. Work with the party to boost the other characters up.
3. Have his fame spread so that more enemies know that preventing charging is important.

Some ideas about how to counter him in some fights:
Item: Steadfast boots (MIC)
Spells: Blockade, Grease, Fog Cloud, etc.

Specific Builds:
Fire Elf Martial Wizard 6/Spelldancer 1/Swiftblade 3+
Between Concealment as a class feature, Greater Blink[Persisted], and Greater Mirror Image, hitting can be difficult. Heart of Earth can be discharged for DR if any attacks get through. This can also be done without persistomancy with a single buff round.

Kalashtar Wilder 11
Powers: Vigor, Share Pain.
Embedded: 11 Power Link Shard (Magic of Eberron p. 115)
Before combat, manifest Vigor and activate all Power Link shards and Wild Surge +4
You can spend 11+22+4 = 37 Power points for 185 Temporary hit points. Share with Psycrystal for another 185 Temporary HP and link up with Share Pain to use both pools. Enjoy actually having more than 400HP :)
After surviving that full attack, you can hit him with Ego Whip spending 35 PP for 9d4 Charisma damage and the ability to tell him that he's been whipped. ;)

Template:
Anything with the Mineral Warrior (Stony) Template has DR8/Adamantine which is useful if the damage comes from a number of attacks. You can improve that via Roll with It and such feats as well.

Edit:
Example with template:

Mineral Warrior Mongrelfolk Ranger 2/Stoneblessed(Dwarf) 3/Fist of the Forest 1/Deepwarden 2/ continue with Dwarf Paragon or Bear Warrior if desired.
2x Con to AC. Excellent Dr. Excellent HP. Not terrible at offense either.

[lord_khaine]

I second the nomination to talk with him about it. Its likely one of the few solutions thats not going to cause resentment if you tell him its to avoid an arms race that will ruin the fun for the rest of the party.

[Darrin]

Use lots of smaller enemies.

400+ damage is not that exciting when your enemy only has 30 HP.

This. You need to make sure your encounters have plenty of cannonfodder. Doing 400+ damage against a goblin with 6 HP means almost all of that damage is wasted. And if there are thirty goblins, chasing them all down is going to soak up his actions. Giving him a single target means he's going to tear through it in one round. All big bosses need to spend some time gloating behind a wall of minions.

[PhantasyPen]

Oh wow that's a lot of responses while I was sleeping Those asking me to talk to the player, I will probably end up doing that if nothing else works, but I'm not actually trying to stop him from using his character, I was just looking for ideas of creatures that could reasonably survive dealing with "angry miniature wolverine."

I'm also not too worried about him overshadowing the party (outside maybe two characters in particular, one of whom is brand new to RPG's in general), given that the composition as it stands currently is:

Shifter Barbarian with custom-made PrC (the problem character in question)
Beguiler Rainbow Servant/Initiate of the 7 Veils (whichever one adds the whole cleric list to your class list)
Telepath Psion
Battle Dragon Shaman
White Dragon Shaman (the new player)

[Nifft]

Shifter Barbarian with custom-made PrC (the problem character in question)
Beguiler Rainbow Servant/Initiate of the 7 Veils (whichever one adds the whole cleric list to your class list)
Telepath Psion
Battle Dragon Shaman
White Dragon Shaman (the new player)

Beguiler can enter Rainbow Servant 1 at character level 7, and you get all Cleric spells at character level 16. That leaves 4 levels for Io7V ... but it's not a natural fit.

Why have two Dragon Shamans? Heck, why have even one of those awful things?

[Pleh]

You guys are overthinking this.

Use a swarm. They are naturally immune to weapon attacks.

Not a big, big threat that will crush the barbarian, but dealing automatic damage, possibly distracting or nauseating him, and being immune to weapons makes them a hazard ubercharging has no effect against.

[Nifft]

You guys are overthinking this.

Use a swarm. They are naturally immune to weapon attacks.

Not a big, big threat that will crush the barbarian, but dealing automatic damage, possibly distracting or nauseating him, and being immune to weapons makes them a hazard ubercharging has no effect against.

Swarms are a great idea, but why would the Barbarian choose that foe?

There are several area-attackers in the party. Wouldn't one of them prefer to handle a swarm?

[PhantasyPen]

Beguiler can enter Rainbow Servant 1 at character level 7, and you get all Cleric spells at character level 16. That leaves 4 levels for Io7V ... but it's not a natural fit.

Why have two Dragon Shamans? Heck, why have even one of those awful things?

The party just hit level 16 last night actually.

And the reason we have any dragon shamans at all is because A.) I like the class, the flavor is awesome, and both of them agree. B.) They were playtesting a fix I came up with to see if we could make the class work better as a frontline unit, so far it has worked well enough.

EDIT: I like the idea of maybe tossing a swarm at him, but as Nifft said, that's really more of a threat for the casters or the Shamans.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Yeah, seems like you need to talk to the player and rein in his character more than anything.

But I don't know all the little details about how it reached this point. If you're set on shutting down his high damage and/or want to turn it back upon him, you don't need any Zodars or swarms or oozes or whatever, or even worry about his Fort save.

Just a guy. Preferably a cleric, otherwise he'll need the support of one. Delay Death spell (Spell Compendium) lasts for round/level (and could probably be DMM Persisted if you use that cheese), during which, the creature with it cannot die from hp damage, no matter how deep in the negatives it goes. Combine with Diehard feat (or Beastland Ferocity, a druid 1st level spell also in SpC) so he can actually act while in the negatives. Then give him a retributive amulet from MIC. Immediate action 3/day, after being damaged by a melee attack, the attacker takes half the damage he dealt to you, no save or anything, and it's only 9000 gp.

There's also tons of ways to mess up a charge attack in general. I had a Goliath character devoted to wrecking other big melee brutes. Features included Pounce (Barbarian Spirit Lion Totem), Cometary Collision feat (counter a charge with your own first to intercept them and attack, and ending their charge movement at you), Steadfast Boots (can set vs. charge for 2x damage w/ any 2H weapon), Shock Trooper feat (self-explanatory), and Knockback (cause why stop at full attacking for x2 damage when you can stop them from even fighting back against you afterwards?).
Or just have a small character w/ huge dex and Counter Charge from Tome of Battle if you just want to shut down the charge....

[ShurikVch]

Animated 5' adamantine cube is a CR 2 Medium-sized Construct with hardness 20 and 2400 hit points
According to Encounter Calculator, even 12 such Cubes would be only EL 9 - thus you can make encounter of "4 - 6 Cubes for Barbarian + something else for the rest of the party"

[PhantasyPen]

Yeah, seems like you need to talk to the player and rein in his character more than anything.

But I don't know all the little details about how it reached this point. If you're set on shutting down his high damage and/or want to turn it back upon him, you don't need any Zodars or swarms or oozes or whatever, or even worry about his Fort save.

Just a guy. Preferably a cleric, otherwise he'll need the support of one. Delay Death spell (Spell Compendium) lasts for round/level (and could probably be DMM Persisted if you use that cheese), during which, the creature with it cannot die from hp damage, no matter how deep in the negatives it goes. Combine with Diehard feat (or Beastland Ferocity, a druid 1st level spell also in SpC) so he can actually act while in the negatives. Then give him a retributive amulet from MIC. Immediate action 3/day, after being damaged by a melee attack, the attacker takes half the damage he dealt to you, no save or anything, and it's only 9000 gp.

There's also tons of ways to mess up a charge attack in general. I had a Goliath character devoted to wrecking other big melee brutes. Features included Pounce (Barbarian Spirit Lion Totem), Cometary Collision feat (counter a charge with your own first to intercept them and attack, and ending their charge movement at you), Steadfast Boots (can set vs. charge for 2x damage w/ any 2H weapon), Shock Trooper feat (self-explanatory), and Knockback (cause why stop at full attacking for x2 damage when you can stop them from even fighting back against you afterwards?).
Or just have a small character w/ huge dex and Counter Charge from Tome of Battle if you just want to shut down the charge....

(Emphasis mine)

#1: Not necessarily looking to render him impotent, just make sure he doesn't one-shot something. An ideal solution in my mind would be an enemy for him to "duel" with away from the party.
#2: I might look more into this idea, this could be closer to what I'm looking for depending on how that spell works. (Persistent spell DMM is only cheesy if you're pumping all your turn undead into fueling it IMO.)
#3: I'd rather avoid that, but now I suppose I know how to kill off his character if need be.

[PhantasyPen]

Animated 5' adamantine cube is a CR 2 Medium-sized Construct with hardness 20 and 2400 hit points
According to Encounter Calculator, even 12 such Cubes would be only EL 9 - thus you can make encounter of "4 - 6 Cubes for Barbarian + something else for the rest of the party"

This... fits rather well with the current story arch's "Dragon" character, will definitely look into this.

[Nifft]

Animated 5' adamantine cube is a CR 2 Medium-sized Construct with hardness 20 and 2400 hit points
According to Encounter Calculator, even 12 such Cubes would be only EL 9 - thus you can make encounter of "4 - 6 Cubes for Barbarian + something else for the rest of the party"

You're able to kill the Ubercharger with six-sided dice.

That's just brutal.

At least dress them up as Modrons.