How can my campaign continue amicably despite an indestructible nymph PC?

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I've been GMing a Pathfinder campaign that uses the monsters as PCs rules. It's been an blast, but recently things have been unbalanced.



The party's equivalent to level 12 right now, and the PC nymph has 5 levels of fighter.



This has been causing problems. The PC's AC hovers around 60 due to her Charisma 37, +3 full plate, +3 shield, the Improved Natural Armor feat. Nothing with a comparable CR is hitting her with a weapon, and spells are laughable as her Charisma bonus applies to her saves, too. Her hp aren't great, but that doesn't matter because anything that manages to hit her deals minimal damage, and she can cast her druid spells to heal herself anyway.



She isn't much of a threat, but that doesn't matter when she's got the contemplative evoker hiding behind her.



Social situations aren't just as bad—Charisma 37 tends to make a mockery of those.



The rest of the party was originally okay with the PC, but now some of them feel like it's gone too far.



How do I fix this? I really don't want to talk to the player outside of the game. I also don't want to rebuild the character myself or make the player rebuild her; it'd make the story inconsistent.










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  • 2




    You might be interested in how to Depower a high AC PC without killing the rest of the group.
    – ShadowKras
    3 hours ago










  • Just so readers are on the same page, these are the guidelines about using monsters as PCs. Which state: "For monsters with racial Hit Dice, the best way to allow monster PCs is to pick a CR and allow all of the players to make characters using monsters of that CR. Treat the monster's CR as its total class levels and allow the characters to multiclass into the core classes. Do not advance such monsters by adding Hit Dice. Monster PCs should only advance through classes.". So this nymph counts as a 12th level character.
    – ShadowKras
    3 hours ago







  • 2




    Can I ask why you don't want to talk to the player outside the game? Do you know how they feel about their character? You said some of the others feel it has gone too far have you discussed it with them outside the game?
    – linksassin
    2 hours ago










  • Also how did she end up with CHA37? The bestiary has them as CHA 25, plus she has had 1 ability increase at level 4.
    – linksassin
    2 hours ago






  • 1




    Have you been checking saves versus permanent blindness every time the nymph's fellow players look at her? What about nonhostile NPCs? A nymph taken straight is a particularly problematic PC
    – Ben Barden
    2 hours ago














up vote
3
down vote

favorite
1












I've been GMing a Pathfinder campaign that uses the monsters as PCs rules. It's been an blast, but recently things have been unbalanced.



The party's equivalent to level 12 right now, and the PC nymph has 5 levels of fighter.



This has been causing problems. The PC's AC hovers around 60 due to her Charisma 37, +3 full plate, +3 shield, the Improved Natural Armor feat. Nothing with a comparable CR is hitting her with a weapon, and spells are laughable as her Charisma bonus applies to her saves, too. Her hp aren't great, but that doesn't matter because anything that manages to hit her deals minimal damage, and she can cast her druid spells to heal herself anyway.



She isn't much of a threat, but that doesn't matter when she's got the contemplative evoker hiding behind her.



Social situations aren't just as bad—Charisma 37 tends to make a mockery of those.



The rest of the party was originally okay with the PC, but now some of them feel like it's gone too far.



How do I fix this? I really don't want to talk to the player outside of the game. I also don't want to rebuild the character myself or make the player rebuild her; it'd make the story inconsistent.










share|improve this question



















  • 2




    You might be interested in how to Depower a high AC PC without killing the rest of the group.
    – ShadowKras
    3 hours ago










  • Just so readers are on the same page, these are the guidelines about using monsters as PCs. Which state: "For monsters with racial Hit Dice, the best way to allow monster PCs is to pick a CR and allow all of the players to make characters using monsters of that CR. Treat the monster's CR as its total class levels and allow the characters to multiclass into the core classes. Do not advance such monsters by adding Hit Dice. Monster PCs should only advance through classes.". So this nymph counts as a 12th level character.
    – ShadowKras
    3 hours ago







  • 2




    Can I ask why you don't want to talk to the player outside the game? Do you know how they feel about their character? You said some of the others feel it has gone too far have you discussed it with them outside the game?
    – linksassin
    2 hours ago










  • Also how did she end up with CHA37? The bestiary has them as CHA 25, plus she has had 1 ability increase at level 4.
    – linksassin
    2 hours ago






  • 1




    Have you been checking saves versus permanent blindness every time the nymph's fellow players look at her? What about nonhostile NPCs? A nymph taken straight is a particularly problematic PC
    – Ben Barden
    2 hours ago












up vote
3
down vote

favorite
1









up vote
3
down vote

favorite
1






1





I've been GMing a Pathfinder campaign that uses the monsters as PCs rules. It's been an blast, but recently things have been unbalanced.



The party's equivalent to level 12 right now, and the PC nymph has 5 levels of fighter.



This has been causing problems. The PC's AC hovers around 60 due to her Charisma 37, +3 full plate, +3 shield, the Improved Natural Armor feat. Nothing with a comparable CR is hitting her with a weapon, and spells are laughable as her Charisma bonus applies to her saves, too. Her hp aren't great, but that doesn't matter because anything that manages to hit her deals minimal damage, and she can cast her druid spells to heal herself anyway.



She isn't much of a threat, but that doesn't matter when she's got the contemplative evoker hiding behind her.



Social situations aren't just as bad—Charisma 37 tends to make a mockery of those.



The rest of the party was originally okay with the PC, but now some of them feel like it's gone too far.



How do I fix this? I really don't want to talk to the player outside of the game. I also don't want to rebuild the character myself or make the player rebuild her; it'd make the story inconsistent.










share|improve this question















I've been GMing a Pathfinder campaign that uses the monsters as PCs rules. It's been an blast, but recently things have been unbalanced.



The party's equivalent to level 12 right now, and the PC nymph has 5 levels of fighter.



This has been causing problems. The PC's AC hovers around 60 due to her Charisma 37, +3 full plate, +3 shield, the Improved Natural Armor feat. Nothing with a comparable CR is hitting her with a weapon, and spells are laughable as her Charisma bonus applies to her saves, too. Her hp aren't great, but that doesn't matter because anything that manages to hit her deals minimal damage, and she can cast her druid spells to heal herself anyway.



She isn't much of a threat, but that doesn't matter when she's got the contemplative evoker hiding behind her.



Social situations aren't just as bad—Charisma 37 tends to make a mockery of those.



The rest of the party was originally okay with the PC, but now some of them feel like it's gone too far.



How do I fix this? I really don't want to talk to the player outside of the game. I also don't want to rebuild the character myself or make the player rebuild her; it'd make the story inconsistent.







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  • 2




    You might be interested in how to Depower a high AC PC without killing the rest of the group.
    – ShadowKras
    3 hours ago










  • Just so readers are on the same page, these are the guidelines about using monsters as PCs. Which state: "For monsters with racial Hit Dice, the best way to allow monster PCs is to pick a CR and allow all of the players to make characters using monsters of that CR. Treat the monster's CR as its total class levels and allow the characters to multiclass into the core classes. Do not advance such monsters by adding Hit Dice. Monster PCs should only advance through classes.". So this nymph counts as a 12th level character.
    – ShadowKras
    3 hours ago







  • 2




    Can I ask why you don't want to talk to the player outside the game? Do you know how they feel about their character? You said some of the others feel it has gone too far have you discussed it with them outside the game?
    – linksassin
    2 hours ago










  • Also how did she end up with CHA37? The bestiary has them as CHA 25, plus she has had 1 ability increase at level 4.
    – linksassin
    2 hours ago






  • 1




    Have you been checking saves versus permanent blindness every time the nymph's fellow players look at her? What about nonhostile NPCs? A nymph taken straight is a particularly problematic PC
    – Ben Barden
    2 hours ago












  • 2




    You might be interested in how to Depower a high AC PC without killing the rest of the group.
    – ShadowKras
    3 hours ago










  • Just so readers are on the same page, these are the guidelines about using monsters as PCs. Which state: "For monsters with racial Hit Dice, the best way to allow monster PCs is to pick a CR and allow all of the players to make characters using monsters of that CR. Treat the monster's CR as its total class levels and allow the characters to multiclass into the core classes. Do not advance such monsters by adding Hit Dice. Monster PCs should only advance through classes.". So this nymph counts as a 12th level character.
    – ShadowKras
    3 hours ago







  • 2




    Can I ask why you don't want to talk to the player outside the game? Do you know how they feel about their character? You said some of the others feel it has gone too far have you discussed it with them outside the game?
    – linksassin
    2 hours ago










  • Also how did she end up with CHA37? The bestiary has them as CHA 25, plus she has had 1 ability increase at level 4.
    – linksassin
    2 hours ago






  • 1




    Have you been checking saves versus permanent blindness every time the nymph's fellow players look at her? What about nonhostile NPCs? A nymph taken straight is a particularly problematic PC
    – Ben Barden
    2 hours ago







2




2




You might be interested in how to Depower a high AC PC without killing the rest of the group.
– ShadowKras
3 hours ago




You might be interested in how to Depower a high AC PC without killing the rest of the group.
– ShadowKras
3 hours ago












Just so readers are on the same page, these are the guidelines about using monsters as PCs. Which state: "For monsters with racial Hit Dice, the best way to allow monster PCs is to pick a CR and allow all of the players to make characters using monsters of that CR. Treat the monster's CR as its total class levels and allow the characters to multiclass into the core classes. Do not advance such monsters by adding Hit Dice. Monster PCs should only advance through classes.". So this nymph counts as a 12th level character.
– ShadowKras
3 hours ago





Just so readers are on the same page, these are the guidelines about using monsters as PCs. Which state: "For monsters with racial Hit Dice, the best way to allow monster PCs is to pick a CR and allow all of the players to make characters using monsters of that CR. Treat the monster's CR as its total class levels and allow the characters to multiclass into the core classes. Do not advance such monsters by adding Hit Dice. Monster PCs should only advance through classes.". So this nymph counts as a 12th level character.
– ShadowKras
3 hours ago





2




2




Can I ask why you don't want to talk to the player outside the game? Do you know how they feel about their character? You said some of the others feel it has gone too far have you discussed it with them outside the game?
– linksassin
2 hours ago




Can I ask why you don't want to talk to the player outside the game? Do you know how they feel about their character? You said some of the others feel it has gone too far have you discussed it with them outside the game?
– linksassin
2 hours ago












Also how did she end up with CHA37? The bestiary has them as CHA 25, plus she has had 1 ability increase at level 4.
– linksassin
2 hours ago




Also how did she end up with CHA37? The bestiary has them as CHA 25, plus she has had 1 ability increase at level 4.
– linksassin
2 hours ago




1




1




Have you been checking saves versus permanent blindness every time the nymph's fellow players look at her? What about nonhostile NPCs? A nymph taken straight is a particularly problematic PC
– Ben Barden
2 hours ago




Have you been checking saves versus permanent blindness every time the nymph's fellow players look at her? What about nonhostile NPCs? A nymph taken straight is a particularly problematic PC
– Ben Barden
2 hours ago










4 Answers
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3
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Monsters-as-PCs causes this



Unfortunately, the rules for monsters-as-PCs don’t work. This is basically what you get when you use them.



Consider: a nymph is CR 7. She casts spells as a 7th-level druid. She doesn’t have the druid’s other class features, but those are mostly pretty mediocre—wild shape is good enough, nature bond is OK, but everything else is mostly just fluff (“ribbons” in game-design parlance). The big draw of the druid class is the spellcasting.



So by being a nymph rather than a druid, you effectively trade all your mostly-mediocre druid class features, keeping the by-far-best one, for colossal ability score bonuses, a paladin’s best class feature plus a far-superior version of one of the best of an oracle’s revelation options in unearthly grace, incredibly cheap crowd control in blinding beauty, and stunning glance for when she doesn’t feel like wasting a spell slot or getting her hands dirty. Inspiration is top-tier support for one ally, that requires zero effort on the nymph’s part. And she gets dimension door once per day because why not?



In short, if this was presented as an archetype, would you allow it? No, you probably would not. It would be preposterously overpowered. In some significant ways, this is a druid plus a paladin plus an oracle, plus absurd ability score bonuses.



Monsters were never intended to be played. Pathfinder even went so far as to eliminate shapeshifting options for doing it, in what was easily the best improvement on 3.5e to be found in the system. That means that CRs were not set with PC use in mind. It was supposed to be impossible.



So now what?



Unfortunately, you have already started a campaign with this as the premise. Your options for this are:



  • Just bite the bullet, accept it as a lesson learned, and just try to make the best of things. In combat, maybe just try to walk right past the nymph (who, despite everything, has actually squandered a lot of the opportunity here, and so has little ability to actually stop people from ignoring her). In social situations... maybe have people recognize her supernatural allure and be unwilling to work with her, forcing the other characters to handle social interaction? That kind of sucks, but it makes a certain amount of sense and one person being left out is probably better than everyone-but-one person being left out.


  • Accept it as a lesson learned, and end the campaign one way or another, and start over with a new one, not allowing monsters-as-PCs. Or even contrive some reason why the current PCs (at least the monstrous ones) have to be retired, in-character, and have the affected players write up new, non-monstrous PCs.


  • Attempt to homebrew some non-monstrous nymph.


Homebrew non-monstrous nymph



Here are my thoughts on this nymph:



First, for the race, we want a typical, playable race. Net +2 to ability scores: +2 Cha, +2 Dex, −2 Str perhaps. No native spellcasting, no dimension door spell-like ability, no bonus feats. No unearthly grace, it’s just far too good. If any DR is retained, it’s DR 2/cold iron or DR 3/cold iron, at most. Wild empathy can stay, as can the +6 bonus: it’s huge but also, who cares? Then blinding beauty, inspiration, and stunning glance can become daily-limited abilities, perhaps something like




Inspiration (Su): [...] As long as the nymph retains her favor for this creature and as long as the creature carries the nymph's token, the creature can gain a +4 insight bonus on a Will saving throw, a Craft check, or a Perform check. A bard who has a nymph for a muse in this way can instead use his bardic performance for an additional round in a day. However it is used, the nymph’s favor can only be used a number of times per day equal to her Charisma modifier.




Honestly, even that is really good. Once per day would not be unreasonable.




Stunning Beauty (Su): Once per day as a standard action, all humanoids within 30 feet of the nymph must make a Will save (DC 10 + half the nymph’s hit dice + the nymph’s Charisma modifier) or be blinded for 1d3 rounds. Creatures can avert their eyes to avoid being blinded, as if this were a gaze attack.



In addition, the nymph may single out one creature within 30 feet while using this ability. That creature must save (again, if it was already subject to the blinding effect), or be stunned for 1 round. This effect may apply to non-humanoids.




This is a powerful effect, but at 1/day it’s limited enough that maybe it’s OK. I wouldn’t feel too bad ditching the stunning effect, though, to be honest. That blinding is already really powerful.



Then we can have a druid archetype for her. Note that several oracle revelations offer Charisma-to-AC (but either replacing Dex and limited by armor’s max Dex, or only while unarmored), and the paladin’s divine grace offers Charisma-to-all-saves. Enlightened paladin gets both divine grace and confident defense, which is Charisma to AC while unarmored. But since this character is heavily-armored, allowing a druid to trade nature bond, trackless step, wild shape, and woodland stride for the nature’s whispers revelation from the nature mystery, and divine fey? grace from paladin, would be... well, it would still be ridiculously good. I probably wouldn’t allow it. But it would be closer to fair.



Then you could have a nymph 7th-level druid/5th-level fighter that is far closer to a balanced player character.






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    One option is to just not have the monsters attack her much. After the first few rounds of combat, monsters should be targeting whatever's doing the most damage, walking around her if necessary.



    In this scenario, the chance of a full tpk is quite low; the tension comes from the risk that the nymph might fail to protect one of her allies.



    Another option is to use a larger number of monsters with aoe attacks, such as breath weapons or fireball spells.




    If the above don't work for you and you need to remove the character, I had to do this once and I framed it as a victory.




    Well, I've looked at the next few scenarios and honestly they're not going to be very hard for the group. (Character) has enough armor that the monsters won't hurt her, and she can persuade her way past everything else. You guys run through the dungeon with no problem, you collect the pieces of the Doom Scarab, and you use it to vanquish the Apocalypse Demon -- it's pretty easy, actually. Congratulations: you win!
    But I still want to play this game with you guys, so let's talk about parallel universes. There's a nearby universe where everything is pretty much the same, except that it doesn't have X character in it -- your group has some other character instead. What do you say -- want to continue the game in that universe?







    share|improve this answer



























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      Out of game



      Double check the character is built within the rules



      The PC as you describe is far stronger than a standard Nymph. More than 5 levels of fighter strong. You should check that you have followed the rules correctly and if you find an error you can use this as a basis for re-building the character without breaking anything dramatically. Admit you made an error allowing it and take away abilities she should never have had in the first place.



      Some areas I have noticed just from your description (there may be more if we see the full character sheet):



      • You allowed +4 to any stat from the monster advancement rules these rules are not intended to work with the monstrous pcs rules. If you advance a monster under these rules before adding class levels you should calculate the new CR as a base to add levels to.

      • Nymphs do not have natural armour and she is therefore not eligble for the Improved Natural Armor feat.

      This will go some way to address the issue but may not solve it entirely.



      Talk to the player(s)



      You mention that some of the players aren't enjoying it, it's possible that she isn't enjoying the session either. You need to talk to her to she where she stands.



      If she doesn't want to change you can discuss with the entire group what a good solution would be. Potentially you can buff all the other characters to level out the party and then just crank the combat difficulty right up to compensate.




      In Game



      Above I present how I would approach the situation. However, you have indicated you would prefer not to talk to her outside the game, or rebuild the character. If you won't consider out of game options it will be difficult to make major changes but there are a few things you can do.



      Consider the advice given in this question about de-powering a high AC character without hurting the party.



      Impose Druid limitations



      Another potential fix would be to take away some of her Nymph abilities for wearing armour. Nymph's are considered Druid Spellcasters:




      A nymph casts spells as a 7th-level druid, but cannot swap out prepared spells to cast summon spells.




      So it wouldn't be unreasonable that some abilities don't work properly while wearing armour. You could potentially impose other druid limitations on her as well at your discretion.



      Spread Rumours



      She is the most persuasive and beautiful creature to have ever walked the earth. NPCs will be aware of her. Powerful NPCs may take precautions to avoid being convinced by her, or will always start as hostile (increasing the DC). Others may seek her out, professing their love or whatever other motives they may have for wanting a Nymph as an ally (or slave).






      share|improve this answer






















      • Obligatory comment about wasting a feat to increase natural armor is a pretty bad waste of a feat.
        – ShadowKras
        1 hour ago










      • Pretty sure it's only useful for animal companions with a strict DM that will only let them take animal feats. Other than that, yes a whole feat for +1 AC is pretty terrible
        – linksassin
        1 hour ago










      • The problem isn't that its +1 AC, its that its +1 natural AC, its as bad as stacking armor AC. Dodge is pretty bad at higher levels and its recommended it is retrained later on should you take it at first level (which actually helps a little).
        – ShadowKras
        1 hour ago


















      up vote
      1
      down vote













      First, double check her stats, you certainly will notice some discrepancies and errors.



      Keep in mind that, the default nymph casts a Druid, and as such, will have her spells based on her wisdom, not her charisma. The standard nymph has 17 wisdom, which is fairly high, and the PC probably has increased this as well. But still probably not her primary stat (very likely charisma), meaning that her spells save DCs aren't that difficult to overcome. This means she has druid spells as an average 7th level druid fighting against CR 12 creatures. At best, she can only use those spells for their utility.



      Then, considering my other answer on a similar subject, you can discard the tips about targeting her saves, which are as high as overoptimized paladins and probably in the +25s and higher, and about touch AC, because the deflection bonus also applies to touch. Which leaves us with generic strategies against slow, heavy-armored, melee-focused characters:



      Difficult Terrain



      Unlike a druid, she cannot walk through vegetation or other types of difficult terrain. This leaves her vulnerable to the same tricks she could pull out (Entangle and Obscuring Mist) and also others, like Web or Black Tentacles. Spells like Darkness still can be used to great effects against her, as it allows no safe and she has no natural means of seeing in darkness or dispelling it.



      This means that a mohrg or nightshade will cause her some problems with their darkness SLAs. Invisible creatures should also keep her at bay, as she won't be able to do much against them and they can safely ignore her.



      Target CMD



      Even with her naturally high dex and good BAB, which will leave her on the high 30s of her CMD (possibly in the 40s), that is still a number easier to reach than 60 (her AC). So, monsters focused on high strength with a few good feats for combat maneuvers will manage to pull their maneuvers most of the time against her. An example of this would be a purple worm, with +36 grapple.



      Her armor's AC (+14 or so) and her shield's AC (+5 or so) should not apply to her CMD and touch AC. So, we are looking at numbers at least 20 points lower than her armor AC. For touch attacks, this number is still too high, but maneuvers usually benefit a lot more from high strength, which monsters usually got, and feats.



      Keep your distance



      As a character with druid spells available, this becomes a problem, as she has stuff like Entangle and Flame Sphere. But those low level spells won't help as much against CR 12+ creatures, which can easily pass the spells DC (again, still based on wisdom, not charisma). She may still attempt to close in with her 1/day dimension door, but that also means you can lay traps for her, such as using an illusion of being at a certain location casting spells, only to have her teleport there and attack "you", which automatically will dismiss the illusion, but too late for wasting her only mobility trick.



      As a druid, she has access to Air Walk (druid 4), so this trick may not work as often as you would like.



      And now, adding another topic to my original answer...



      Swallow her



      Being swallowed also will cause damage automatically, so you can take advantage of her weak offensive power. It won't be difficult to swallow her after a successful grapple check with that purple worm, for example.



      I would replace at least two of the worm's feats by Improved Grapple and Greater Grapple, which would allow it to attempt to grapple as a standard action, and should it succeed, attempt to swallow as a move action, which can be done instead of trying to Pin the target. And now, the creature also has +40 CMB on grapple checks.



      But even the worm's strong swallow damage can easily be avoided with only 21 AC and 20 hp to escape. Just remember that she can only use light weapons to cause damage while inside the creature's stomach.






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        4 Answers
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        4 Answers
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        up vote
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        down vote













        Monsters-as-PCs causes this



        Unfortunately, the rules for monsters-as-PCs don’t work. This is basically what you get when you use them.



        Consider: a nymph is CR 7. She casts spells as a 7th-level druid. She doesn’t have the druid’s other class features, but those are mostly pretty mediocre—wild shape is good enough, nature bond is OK, but everything else is mostly just fluff (“ribbons” in game-design parlance). The big draw of the druid class is the spellcasting.



        So by being a nymph rather than a druid, you effectively trade all your mostly-mediocre druid class features, keeping the by-far-best one, for colossal ability score bonuses, a paladin’s best class feature plus a far-superior version of one of the best of an oracle’s revelation options in unearthly grace, incredibly cheap crowd control in blinding beauty, and stunning glance for when she doesn’t feel like wasting a spell slot or getting her hands dirty. Inspiration is top-tier support for one ally, that requires zero effort on the nymph’s part. And she gets dimension door once per day because why not?



        In short, if this was presented as an archetype, would you allow it? No, you probably would not. It would be preposterously overpowered. In some significant ways, this is a druid plus a paladin plus an oracle, plus absurd ability score bonuses.



        Monsters were never intended to be played. Pathfinder even went so far as to eliminate shapeshifting options for doing it, in what was easily the best improvement on 3.5e to be found in the system. That means that CRs were not set with PC use in mind. It was supposed to be impossible.



        So now what?



        Unfortunately, you have already started a campaign with this as the premise. Your options for this are:



        • Just bite the bullet, accept it as a lesson learned, and just try to make the best of things. In combat, maybe just try to walk right past the nymph (who, despite everything, has actually squandered a lot of the opportunity here, and so has little ability to actually stop people from ignoring her). In social situations... maybe have people recognize her supernatural allure and be unwilling to work with her, forcing the other characters to handle social interaction? That kind of sucks, but it makes a certain amount of sense and one person being left out is probably better than everyone-but-one person being left out.


        • Accept it as a lesson learned, and end the campaign one way or another, and start over with a new one, not allowing monsters-as-PCs. Or even contrive some reason why the current PCs (at least the monstrous ones) have to be retired, in-character, and have the affected players write up new, non-monstrous PCs.


        • Attempt to homebrew some non-monstrous nymph.


        Homebrew non-monstrous nymph



        Here are my thoughts on this nymph:



        First, for the race, we want a typical, playable race. Net +2 to ability scores: +2 Cha, +2 Dex, −2 Str perhaps. No native spellcasting, no dimension door spell-like ability, no bonus feats. No unearthly grace, it’s just far too good. If any DR is retained, it’s DR 2/cold iron or DR 3/cold iron, at most. Wild empathy can stay, as can the +6 bonus: it’s huge but also, who cares? Then blinding beauty, inspiration, and stunning glance can become daily-limited abilities, perhaps something like




        Inspiration (Su): [...] As long as the nymph retains her favor for this creature and as long as the creature carries the nymph's token, the creature can gain a +4 insight bonus on a Will saving throw, a Craft check, or a Perform check. A bard who has a nymph for a muse in this way can instead use his bardic performance for an additional round in a day. However it is used, the nymph’s favor can only be used a number of times per day equal to her Charisma modifier.




        Honestly, even that is really good. Once per day would not be unreasonable.




        Stunning Beauty (Su): Once per day as a standard action, all humanoids within 30 feet of the nymph must make a Will save (DC 10 + half the nymph’s hit dice + the nymph’s Charisma modifier) or be blinded for 1d3 rounds. Creatures can avert their eyes to avoid being blinded, as if this were a gaze attack.



        In addition, the nymph may single out one creature within 30 feet while using this ability. That creature must save (again, if it was already subject to the blinding effect), or be stunned for 1 round. This effect may apply to non-humanoids.




        This is a powerful effect, but at 1/day it’s limited enough that maybe it’s OK. I wouldn’t feel too bad ditching the stunning effect, though, to be honest. That blinding is already really powerful.



        Then we can have a druid archetype for her. Note that several oracle revelations offer Charisma-to-AC (but either replacing Dex and limited by armor’s max Dex, or only while unarmored), and the paladin’s divine grace offers Charisma-to-all-saves. Enlightened paladin gets both divine grace and confident defense, which is Charisma to AC while unarmored. But since this character is heavily-armored, allowing a druid to trade nature bond, trackless step, wild shape, and woodland stride for the nature’s whispers revelation from the nature mystery, and divine fey? grace from paladin, would be... well, it would still be ridiculously good. I probably wouldn’t allow it. But it would be closer to fair.



        Then you could have a nymph 7th-level druid/5th-level fighter that is far closer to a balanced player character.






        share|improve this answer
























          up vote
          3
          down vote













          Monsters-as-PCs causes this



          Unfortunately, the rules for monsters-as-PCs don’t work. This is basically what you get when you use them.



          Consider: a nymph is CR 7. She casts spells as a 7th-level druid. She doesn’t have the druid’s other class features, but those are mostly pretty mediocre—wild shape is good enough, nature bond is OK, but everything else is mostly just fluff (“ribbons” in game-design parlance). The big draw of the druid class is the spellcasting.



          So by being a nymph rather than a druid, you effectively trade all your mostly-mediocre druid class features, keeping the by-far-best one, for colossal ability score bonuses, a paladin’s best class feature plus a far-superior version of one of the best of an oracle’s revelation options in unearthly grace, incredibly cheap crowd control in blinding beauty, and stunning glance for when she doesn’t feel like wasting a spell slot or getting her hands dirty. Inspiration is top-tier support for one ally, that requires zero effort on the nymph’s part. And she gets dimension door once per day because why not?



          In short, if this was presented as an archetype, would you allow it? No, you probably would not. It would be preposterously overpowered. In some significant ways, this is a druid plus a paladin plus an oracle, plus absurd ability score bonuses.



          Monsters were never intended to be played. Pathfinder even went so far as to eliminate shapeshifting options for doing it, in what was easily the best improvement on 3.5e to be found in the system. That means that CRs were not set with PC use in mind. It was supposed to be impossible.



          So now what?



          Unfortunately, you have already started a campaign with this as the premise. Your options for this are:



          • Just bite the bullet, accept it as a lesson learned, and just try to make the best of things. In combat, maybe just try to walk right past the nymph (who, despite everything, has actually squandered a lot of the opportunity here, and so has little ability to actually stop people from ignoring her). In social situations... maybe have people recognize her supernatural allure and be unwilling to work with her, forcing the other characters to handle social interaction? That kind of sucks, but it makes a certain amount of sense and one person being left out is probably better than everyone-but-one person being left out.


          • Accept it as a lesson learned, and end the campaign one way or another, and start over with a new one, not allowing monsters-as-PCs. Or even contrive some reason why the current PCs (at least the monstrous ones) have to be retired, in-character, and have the affected players write up new, non-monstrous PCs.


          • Attempt to homebrew some non-monstrous nymph.


          Homebrew non-monstrous nymph



          Here are my thoughts on this nymph:



          First, for the race, we want a typical, playable race. Net +2 to ability scores: +2 Cha, +2 Dex, −2 Str perhaps. No native spellcasting, no dimension door spell-like ability, no bonus feats. No unearthly grace, it’s just far too good. If any DR is retained, it’s DR 2/cold iron or DR 3/cold iron, at most. Wild empathy can stay, as can the +6 bonus: it’s huge but also, who cares? Then blinding beauty, inspiration, and stunning glance can become daily-limited abilities, perhaps something like




          Inspiration (Su): [...] As long as the nymph retains her favor for this creature and as long as the creature carries the nymph's token, the creature can gain a +4 insight bonus on a Will saving throw, a Craft check, or a Perform check. A bard who has a nymph for a muse in this way can instead use his bardic performance for an additional round in a day. However it is used, the nymph’s favor can only be used a number of times per day equal to her Charisma modifier.




          Honestly, even that is really good. Once per day would not be unreasonable.




          Stunning Beauty (Su): Once per day as a standard action, all humanoids within 30 feet of the nymph must make a Will save (DC 10 + half the nymph’s hit dice + the nymph’s Charisma modifier) or be blinded for 1d3 rounds. Creatures can avert their eyes to avoid being blinded, as if this were a gaze attack.



          In addition, the nymph may single out one creature within 30 feet while using this ability. That creature must save (again, if it was already subject to the blinding effect), or be stunned for 1 round. This effect may apply to non-humanoids.




          This is a powerful effect, but at 1/day it’s limited enough that maybe it’s OK. I wouldn’t feel too bad ditching the stunning effect, though, to be honest. That blinding is already really powerful.



          Then we can have a druid archetype for her. Note that several oracle revelations offer Charisma-to-AC (but either replacing Dex and limited by armor’s max Dex, or only while unarmored), and the paladin’s divine grace offers Charisma-to-all-saves. Enlightened paladin gets both divine grace and confident defense, which is Charisma to AC while unarmored. But since this character is heavily-armored, allowing a druid to trade nature bond, trackless step, wild shape, and woodland stride for the nature’s whispers revelation from the nature mystery, and divine fey? grace from paladin, would be... well, it would still be ridiculously good. I probably wouldn’t allow it. But it would be closer to fair.



          Then you could have a nymph 7th-level druid/5th-level fighter that is far closer to a balanced player character.






          share|improve this answer






















            up vote
            3
            down vote










            up vote
            3
            down vote









            Monsters-as-PCs causes this



            Unfortunately, the rules for monsters-as-PCs don’t work. This is basically what you get when you use them.



            Consider: a nymph is CR 7. She casts spells as a 7th-level druid. She doesn’t have the druid’s other class features, but those are mostly pretty mediocre—wild shape is good enough, nature bond is OK, but everything else is mostly just fluff (“ribbons” in game-design parlance). The big draw of the druid class is the spellcasting.



            So by being a nymph rather than a druid, you effectively trade all your mostly-mediocre druid class features, keeping the by-far-best one, for colossal ability score bonuses, a paladin’s best class feature plus a far-superior version of one of the best of an oracle’s revelation options in unearthly grace, incredibly cheap crowd control in blinding beauty, and stunning glance for when she doesn’t feel like wasting a spell slot or getting her hands dirty. Inspiration is top-tier support for one ally, that requires zero effort on the nymph’s part. And she gets dimension door once per day because why not?



            In short, if this was presented as an archetype, would you allow it? No, you probably would not. It would be preposterously overpowered. In some significant ways, this is a druid plus a paladin plus an oracle, plus absurd ability score bonuses.



            Monsters were never intended to be played. Pathfinder even went so far as to eliminate shapeshifting options for doing it, in what was easily the best improvement on 3.5e to be found in the system. That means that CRs were not set with PC use in mind. It was supposed to be impossible.



            So now what?



            Unfortunately, you have already started a campaign with this as the premise. Your options for this are:



            • Just bite the bullet, accept it as a lesson learned, and just try to make the best of things. In combat, maybe just try to walk right past the nymph (who, despite everything, has actually squandered a lot of the opportunity here, and so has little ability to actually stop people from ignoring her). In social situations... maybe have people recognize her supernatural allure and be unwilling to work with her, forcing the other characters to handle social interaction? That kind of sucks, but it makes a certain amount of sense and one person being left out is probably better than everyone-but-one person being left out.


            • Accept it as a lesson learned, and end the campaign one way or another, and start over with a new one, not allowing monsters-as-PCs. Or even contrive some reason why the current PCs (at least the monstrous ones) have to be retired, in-character, and have the affected players write up new, non-monstrous PCs.


            • Attempt to homebrew some non-monstrous nymph.


            Homebrew non-monstrous nymph



            Here are my thoughts on this nymph:



            First, for the race, we want a typical, playable race. Net +2 to ability scores: +2 Cha, +2 Dex, −2 Str perhaps. No native spellcasting, no dimension door spell-like ability, no bonus feats. No unearthly grace, it’s just far too good. If any DR is retained, it’s DR 2/cold iron or DR 3/cold iron, at most. Wild empathy can stay, as can the +6 bonus: it’s huge but also, who cares? Then blinding beauty, inspiration, and stunning glance can become daily-limited abilities, perhaps something like




            Inspiration (Su): [...] As long as the nymph retains her favor for this creature and as long as the creature carries the nymph's token, the creature can gain a +4 insight bonus on a Will saving throw, a Craft check, or a Perform check. A bard who has a nymph for a muse in this way can instead use his bardic performance for an additional round in a day. However it is used, the nymph’s favor can only be used a number of times per day equal to her Charisma modifier.




            Honestly, even that is really good. Once per day would not be unreasonable.




            Stunning Beauty (Su): Once per day as a standard action, all humanoids within 30 feet of the nymph must make a Will save (DC 10 + half the nymph’s hit dice + the nymph’s Charisma modifier) or be blinded for 1d3 rounds. Creatures can avert their eyes to avoid being blinded, as if this were a gaze attack.



            In addition, the nymph may single out one creature within 30 feet while using this ability. That creature must save (again, if it was already subject to the blinding effect), or be stunned for 1 round. This effect may apply to non-humanoids.




            This is a powerful effect, but at 1/day it’s limited enough that maybe it’s OK. I wouldn’t feel too bad ditching the stunning effect, though, to be honest. That blinding is already really powerful.



            Then we can have a druid archetype for her. Note that several oracle revelations offer Charisma-to-AC (but either replacing Dex and limited by armor’s max Dex, or only while unarmored), and the paladin’s divine grace offers Charisma-to-all-saves. Enlightened paladin gets both divine grace and confident defense, which is Charisma to AC while unarmored. But since this character is heavily-armored, allowing a druid to trade nature bond, trackless step, wild shape, and woodland stride for the nature’s whispers revelation from the nature mystery, and divine fey? grace from paladin, would be... well, it would still be ridiculously good. I probably wouldn’t allow it. But it would be closer to fair.



            Then you could have a nymph 7th-level druid/5th-level fighter that is far closer to a balanced player character.






            share|improve this answer












            Monsters-as-PCs causes this



            Unfortunately, the rules for monsters-as-PCs don’t work. This is basically what you get when you use them.



            Consider: a nymph is CR 7. She casts spells as a 7th-level druid. She doesn’t have the druid’s other class features, but those are mostly pretty mediocre—wild shape is good enough, nature bond is OK, but everything else is mostly just fluff (“ribbons” in game-design parlance). The big draw of the druid class is the spellcasting.



            So by being a nymph rather than a druid, you effectively trade all your mostly-mediocre druid class features, keeping the by-far-best one, for colossal ability score bonuses, a paladin’s best class feature plus a far-superior version of one of the best of an oracle’s revelation options in unearthly grace, incredibly cheap crowd control in blinding beauty, and stunning glance for when she doesn’t feel like wasting a spell slot or getting her hands dirty. Inspiration is top-tier support for one ally, that requires zero effort on the nymph’s part. And she gets dimension door once per day because why not?



            In short, if this was presented as an archetype, would you allow it? No, you probably would not. It would be preposterously overpowered. In some significant ways, this is a druid plus a paladin plus an oracle, plus absurd ability score bonuses.



            Monsters were never intended to be played. Pathfinder even went so far as to eliminate shapeshifting options for doing it, in what was easily the best improvement on 3.5e to be found in the system. That means that CRs were not set with PC use in mind. It was supposed to be impossible.



            So now what?



            Unfortunately, you have already started a campaign with this as the premise. Your options for this are:



            • Just bite the bullet, accept it as a lesson learned, and just try to make the best of things. In combat, maybe just try to walk right past the nymph (who, despite everything, has actually squandered a lot of the opportunity here, and so has little ability to actually stop people from ignoring her). In social situations... maybe have people recognize her supernatural allure and be unwilling to work with her, forcing the other characters to handle social interaction? That kind of sucks, but it makes a certain amount of sense and one person being left out is probably better than everyone-but-one person being left out.


            • Accept it as a lesson learned, and end the campaign one way or another, and start over with a new one, not allowing monsters-as-PCs. Or even contrive some reason why the current PCs (at least the monstrous ones) have to be retired, in-character, and have the affected players write up new, non-monstrous PCs.


            • Attempt to homebrew some non-monstrous nymph.


            Homebrew non-monstrous nymph



            Here are my thoughts on this nymph:



            First, for the race, we want a typical, playable race. Net +2 to ability scores: +2 Cha, +2 Dex, −2 Str perhaps. No native spellcasting, no dimension door spell-like ability, no bonus feats. No unearthly grace, it’s just far too good. If any DR is retained, it’s DR 2/cold iron or DR 3/cold iron, at most. Wild empathy can stay, as can the +6 bonus: it’s huge but also, who cares? Then blinding beauty, inspiration, and stunning glance can become daily-limited abilities, perhaps something like




            Inspiration (Su): [...] As long as the nymph retains her favor for this creature and as long as the creature carries the nymph's token, the creature can gain a +4 insight bonus on a Will saving throw, a Craft check, or a Perform check. A bard who has a nymph for a muse in this way can instead use his bardic performance for an additional round in a day. However it is used, the nymph’s favor can only be used a number of times per day equal to her Charisma modifier.




            Honestly, even that is really good. Once per day would not be unreasonable.




            Stunning Beauty (Su): Once per day as a standard action, all humanoids within 30 feet of the nymph must make a Will save (DC 10 + half the nymph’s hit dice + the nymph’s Charisma modifier) or be blinded for 1d3 rounds. Creatures can avert their eyes to avoid being blinded, as if this were a gaze attack.



            In addition, the nymph may single out one creature within 30 feet while using this ability. That creature must save (again, if it was already subject to the blinding effect), or be stunned for 1 round. This effect may apply to non-humanoids.




            This is a powerful effect, but at 1/day it’s limited enough that maybe it’s OK. I wouldn’t feel too bad ditching the stunning effect, though, to be honest. That blinding is already really powerful.



            Then we can have a druid archetype for her. Note that several oracle revelations offer Charisma-to-AC (but either replacing Dex and limited by armor’s max Dex, or only while unarmored), and the paladin’s divine grace offers Charisma-to-all-saves. Enlightened paladin gets both divine grace and confident defense, which is Charisma to AC while unarmored. But since this character is heavily-armored, allowing a druid to trade nature bond, trackless step, wild shape, and woodland stride for the nature’s whispers revelation from the nature mystery, and divine fey? grace from paladin, would be... well, it would still be ridiculously good. I probably wouldn’t allow it. But it would be closer to fair.



            Then you could have a nymph 7th-level druid/5th-level fighter that is far closer to a balanced player character.







            share|improve this answer












            share|improve this answer



            share|improve this answer










            answered 23 mins ago









            KRyan

            208k23517903




            208k23517903






















                up vote
                1
                down vote













                One option is to just not have the monsters attack her much. After the first few rounds of combat, monsters should be targeting whatever's doing the most damage, walking around her if necessary.



                In this scenario, the chance of a full tpk is quite low; the tension comes from the risk that the nymph might fail to protect one of her allies.



                Another option is to use a larger number of monsters with aoe attacks, such as breath weapons or fireball spells.




                If the above don't work for you and you need to remove the character, I had to do this once and I framed it as a victory.




                Well, I've looked at the next few scenarios and honestly they're not going to be very hard for the group. (Character) has enough armor that the monsters won't hurt her, and she can persuade her way past everything else. You guys run through the dungeon with no problem, you collect the pieces of the Doom Scarab, and you use it to vanquish the Apocalypse Demon -- it's pretty easy, actually. Congratulations: you win!
                But I still want to play this game with you guys, so let's talk about parallel universes. There's a nearby universe where everything is pretty much the same, except that it doesn't have X character in it -- your group has some other character instead. What do you say -- want to continue the game in that universe?







                share|improve this answer
























                  up vote
                  1
                  down vote













                  One option is to just not have the monsters attack her much. After the first few rounds of combat, monsters should be targeting whatever's doing the most damage, walking around her if necessary.



                  In this scenario, the chance of a full tpk is quite low; the tension comes from the risk that the nymph might fail to protect one of her allies.



                  Another option is to use a larger number of monsters with aoe attacks, such as breath weapons or fireball spells.




                  If the above don't work for you and you need to remove the character, I had to do this once and I framed it as a victory.




                  Well, I've looked at the next few scenarios and honestly they're not going to be very hard for the group. (Character) has enough armor that the monsters won't hurt her, and she can persuade her way past everything else. You guys run through the dungeon with no problem, you collect the pieces of the Doom Scarab, and you use it to vanquish the Apocalypse Demon -- it's pretty easy, actually. Congratulations: you win!
                  But I still want to play this game with you guys, so let's talk about parallel universes. There's a nearby universe where everything is pretty much the same, except that it doesn't have X character in it -- your group has some other character instead. What do you say -- want to continue the game in that universe?







                  share|improve this answer






















                    up vote
                    1
                    down vote










                    up vote
                    1
                    down vote









                    One option is to just not have the monsters attack her much. After the first few rounds of combat, monsters should be targeting whatever's doing the most damage, walking around her if necessary.



                    In this scenario, the chance of a full tpk is quite low; the tension comes from the risk that the nymph might fail to protect one of her allies.



                    Another option is to use a larger number of monsters with aoe attacks, such as breath weapons or fireball spells.




                    If the above don't work for you and you need to remove the character, I had to do this once and I framed it as a victory.




                    Well, I've looked at the next few scenarios and honestly they're not going to be very hard for the group. (Character) has enough armor that the monsters won't hurt her, and she can persuade her way past everything else. You guys run through the dungeon with no problem, you collect the pieces of the Doom Scarab, and you use it to vanquish the Apocalypse Demon -- it's pretty easy, actually. Congratulations: you win!
                    But I still want to play this game with you guys, so let's talk about parallel universes. There's a nearby universe where everything is pretty much the same, except that it doesn't have X character in it -- your group has some other character instead. What do you say -- want to continue the game in that universe?







                    share|improve this answer












                    One option is to just not have the monsters attack her much. After the first few rounds of combat, monsters should be targeting whatever's doing the most damage, walking around her if necessary.



                    In this scenario, the chance of a full tpk is quite low; the tension comes from the risk that the nymph might fail to protect one of her allies.



                    Another option is to use a larger number of monsters with aoe attacks, such as breath weapons or fireball spells.




                    If the above don't work for you and you need to remove the character, I had to do this once and I framed it as a victory.




                    Well, I've looked at the next few scenarios and honestly they're not going to be very hard for the group. (Character) has enough armor that the monsters won't hurt her, and she can persuade her way past everything else. You guys run through the dungeon with no problem, you collect the pieces of the Doom Scarab, and you use it to vanquish the Apocalypse Demon -- it's pretty easy, actually. Congratulations: you win!
                    But I still want to play this game with you guys, so let's talk about parallel universes. There's a nearby universe where everything is pretty much the same, except that it doesn't have X character in it -- your group has some other character instead. What do you say -- want to continue the game in that universe?








                    share|improve this answer












                    share|improve this answer



                    share|improve this answer










                    answered 1 hour ago









                    Dan B

                    32.5k758124




                    32.5k758124




















                        up vote
                        1
                        down vote













                        Out of game



                        Double check the character is built within the rules



                        The PC as you describe is far stronger than a standard Nymph. More than 5 levels of fighter strong. You should check that you have followed the rules correctly and if you find an error you can use this as a basis for re-building the character without breaking anything dramatically. Admit you made an error allowing it and take away abilities she should never have had in the first place.



                        Some areas I have noticed just from your description (there may be more if we see the full character sheet):



                        • You allowed +4 to any stat from the monster advancement rules these rules are not intended to work with the monstrous pcs rules. If you advance a monster under these rules before adding class levels you should calculate the new CR as a base to add levels to.

                        • Nymphs do not have natural armour and she is therefore not eligble for the Improved Natural Armor feat.

                        This will go some way to address the issue but may not solve it entirely.



                        Talk to the player(s)



                        You mention that some of the players aren't enjoying it, it's possible that she isn't enjoying the session either. You need to talk to her to she where she stands.



                        If she doesn't want to change you can discuss with the entire group what a good solution would be. Potentially you can buff all the other characters to level out the party and then just crank the combat difficulty right up to compensate.




                        In Game



                        Above I present how I would approach the situation. However, you have indicated you would prefer not to talk to her outside the game, or rebuild the character. If you won't consider out of game options it will be difficult to make major changes but there are a few things you can do.



                        Consider the advice given in this question about de-powering a high AC character without hurting the party.



                        Impose Druid limitations



                        Another potential fix would be to take away some of her Nymph abilities for wearing armour. Nymph's are considered Druid Spellcasters:




                        A nymph casts spells as a 7th-level druid, but cannot swap out prepared spells to cast summon spells.




                        So it wouldn't be unreasonable that some abilities don't work properly while wearing armour. You could potentially impose other druid limitations on her as well at your discretion.



                        Spread Rumours



                        She is the most persuasive and beautiful creature to have ever walked the earth. NPCs will be aware of her. Powerful NPCs may take precautions to avoid being convinced by her, or will always start as hostile (increasing the DC). Others may seek her out, professing their love or whatever other motives they may have for wanting a Nymph as an ally (or slave).






                        share|improve this answer






















                        • Obligatory comment about wasting a feat to increase natural armor is a pretty bad waste of a feat.
                          – ShadowKras
                          1 hour ago










                        • Pretty sure it's only useful for animal companions with a strict DM that will only let them take animal feats. Other than that, yes a whole feat for +1 AC is pretty terrible
                          – linksassin
                          1 hour ago










                        • The problem isn't that its +1 AC, its that its +1 natural AC, its as bad as stacking armor AC. Dodge is pretty bad at higher levels and its recommended it is retrained later on should you take it at first level (which actually helps a little).
                          – ShadowKras
                          1 hour ago















                        up vote
                        1
                        down vote













                        Out of game



                        Double check the character is built within the rules



                        The PC as you describe is far stronger than a standard Nymph. More than 5 levels of fighter strong. You should check that you have followed the rules correctly and if you find an error you can use this as a basis for re-building the character without breaking anything dramatically. Admit you made an error allowing it and take away abilities she should never have had in the first place.



                        Some areas I have noticed just from your description (there may be more if we see the full character sheet):



                        • You allowed +4 to any stat from the monster advancement rules these rules are not intended to work with the monstrous pcs rules. If you advance a monster under these rules before adding class levels you should calculate the new CR as a base to add levels to.

                        • Nymphs do not have natural armour and she is therefore not eligble for the Improved Natural Armor feat.

                        This will go some way to address the issue but may not solve it entirely.



                        Talk to the player(s)



                        You mention that some of the players aren't enjoying it, it's possible that she isn't enjoying the session either. You need to talk to her to she where she stands.



                        If she doesn't want to change you can discuss with the entire group what a good solution would be. Potentially you can buff all the other characters to level out the party and then just crank the combat difficulty right up to compensate.




                        In Game



                        Above I present how I would approach the situation. However, you have indicated you would prefer not to talk to her outside the game, or rebuild the character. If you won't consider out of game options it will be difficult to make major changes but there are a few things you can do.



                        Consider the advice given in this question about de-powering a high AC character without hurting the party.



                        Impose Druid limitations



                        Another potential fix would be to take away some of her Nymph abilities for wearing armour. Nymph's are considered Druid Spellcasters:




                        A nymph casts spells as a 7th-level druid, but cannot swap out prepared spells to cast summon spells.




                        So it wouldn't be unreasonable that some abilities don't work properly while wearing armour. You could potentially impose other druid limitations on her as well at your discretion.



                        Spread Rumours



                        She is the most persuasive and beautiful creature to have ever walked the earth. NPCs will be aware of her. Powerful NPCs may take precautions to avoid being convinced by her, or will always start as hostile (increasing the DC). Others may seek her out, professing their love or whatever other motives they may have for wanting a Nymph as an ally (or slave).






                        share|improve this answer






















                        • Obligatory comment about wasting a feat to increase natural armor is a pretty bad waste of a feat.
                          – ShadowKras
                          1 hour ago










                        • Pretty sure it's only useful for animal companions with a strict DM that will only let them take animal feats. Other than that, yes a whole feat for +1 AC is pretty terrible
                          – linksassin
                          1 hour ago










                        • The problem isn't that its +1 AC, its that its +1 natural AC, its as bad as stacking armor AC. Dodge is pretty bad at higher levels and its recommended it is retrained later on should you take it at first level (which actually helps a little).
                          – ShadowKras
                          1 hour ago













                        up vote
                        1
                        down vote










                        up vote
                        1
                        down vote









                        Out of game



                        Double check the character is built within the rules



                        The PC as you describe is far stronger than a standard Nymph. More than 5 levels of fighter strong. You should check that you have followed the rules correctly and if you find an error you can use this as a basis for re-building the character without breaking anything dramatically. Admit you made an error allowing it and take away abilities she should never have had in the first place.



                        Some areas I have noticed just from your description (there may be more if we see the full character sheet):



                        • You allowed +4 to any stat from the monster advancement rules these rules are not intended to work with the monstrous pcs rules. If you advance a monster under these rules before adding class levels you should calculate the new CR as a base to add levels to.

                        • Nymphs do not have natural armour and she is therefore not eligble for the Improved Natural Armor feat.

                        This will go some way to address the issue but may not solve it entirely.



                        Talk to the player(s)



                        You mention that some of the players aren't enjoying it, it's possible that she isn't enjoying the session either. You need to talk to her to she where she stands.



                        If she doesn't want to change you can discuss with the entire group what a good solution would be. Potentially you can buff all the other characters to level out the party and then just crank the combat difficulty right up to compensate.




                        In Game



                        Above I present how I would approach the situation. However, you have indicated you would prefer not to talk to her outside the game, or rebuild the character. If you won't consider out of game options it will be difficult to make major changes but there are a few things you can do.



                        Consider the advice given in this question about de-powering a high AC character without hurting the party.



                        Impose Druid limitations



                        Another potential fix would be to take away some of her Nymph abilities for wearing armour. Nymph's are considered Druid Spellcasters:




                        A nymph casts spells as a 7th-level druid, but cannot swap out prepared spells to cast summon spells.




                        So it wouldn't be unreasonable that some abilities don't work properly while wearing armour. You could potentially impose other druid limitations on her as well at your discretion.



                        Spread Rumours



                        She is the most persuasive and beautiful creature to have ever walked the earth. NPCs will be aware of her. Powerful NPCs may take precautions to avoid being convinced by her, or will always start as hostile (increasing the DC). Others may seek her out, professing their love or whatever other motives they may have for wanting a Nymph as an ally (or slave).






                        share|improve this answer














                        Out of game



                        Double check the character is built within the rules



                        The PC as you describe is far stronger than a standard Nymph. More than 5 levels of fighter strong. You should check that you have followed the rules correctly and if you find an error you can use this as a basis for re-building the character without breaking anything dramatically. Admit you made an error allowing it and take away abilities she should never have had in the first place.



                        Some areas I have noticed just from your description (there may be more if we see the full character sheet):



                        • You allowed +4 to any stat from the monster advancement rules these rules are not intended to work with the monstrous pcs rules. If you advance a monster under these rules before adding class levels you should calculate the new CR as a base to add levels to.

                        • Nymphs do not have natural armour and she is therefore not eligble for the Improved Natural Armor feat.

                        This will go some way to address the issue but may not solve it entirely.



                        Talk to the player(s)



                        You mention that some of the players aren't enjoying it, it's possible that she isn't enjoying the session either. You need to talk to her to she where she stands.



                        If she doesn't want to change you can discuss with the entire group what a good solution would be. Potentially you can buff all the other characters to level out the party and then just crank the combat difficulty right up to compensate.




                        In Game



                        Above I present how I would approach the situation. However, you have indicated you would prefer not to talk to her outside the game, or rebuild the character. If you won't consider out of game options it will be difficult to make major changes but there are a few things you can do.



                        Consider the advice given in this question about de-powering a high AC character without hurting the party.



                        Impose Druid limitations



                        Another potential fix would be to take away some of her Nymph abilities for wearing armour. Nymph's are considered Druid Spellcasters:




                        A nymph casts spells as a 7th-level druid, but cannot swap out prepared spells to cast summon spells.




                        So it wouldn't be unreasonable that some abilities don't work properly while wearing armour. You could potentially impose other druid limitations on her as well at your discretion.



                        Spread Rumours



                        She is the most persuasive and beautiful creature to have ever walked the earth. NPCs will be aware of her. Powerful NPCs may take precautions to avoid being convinced by her, or will always start as hostile (increasing the DC). Others may seek her out, professing their love or whatever other motives they may have for wanting a Nymph as an ally (or slave).







                        share|improve this answer














                        share|improve this answer



                        share|improve this answer








                        edited 1 hour ago

























                        answered 1 hour ago









                        linksassin

                        9711




                        9711











                        • Obligatory comment about wasting a feat to increase natural armor is a pretty bad waste of a feat.
                          – ShadowKras
                          1 hour ago










                        • Pretty sure it's only useful for animal companions with a strict DM that will only let them take animal feats. Other than that, yes a whole feat for +1 AC is pretty terrible
                          – linksassin
                          1 hour ago










                        • The problem isn't that its +1 AC, its that its +1 natural AC, its as bad as stacking armor AC. Dodge is pretty bad at higher levels and its recommended it is retrained later on should you take it at first level (which actually helps a little).
                          – ShadowKras
                          1 hour ago

















                        • Obligatory comment about wasting a feat to increase natural armor is a pretty bad waste of a feat.
                          – ShadowKras
                          1 hour ago










                        • Pretty sure it's only useful for animal companions with a strict DM that will only let them take animal feats. Other than that, yes a whole feat for +1 AC is pretty terrible
                          – linksassin
                          1 hour ago










                        • The problem isn't that its +1 AC, its that its +1 natural AC, its as bad as stacking armor AC. Dodge is pretty bad at higher levels and its recommended it is retrained later on should you take it at first level (which actually helps a little).
                          – ShadowKras
                          1 hour ago
















                        Obligatory comment about wasting a feat to increase natural armor is a pretty bad waste of a feat.
                        – ShadowKras
                        1 hour ago




                        Obligatory comment about wasting a feat to increase natural armor is a pretty bad waste of a feat.
                        – ShadowKras
                        1 hour ago












                        Pretty sure it's only useful for animal companions with a strict DM that will only let them take animal feats. Other than that, yes a whole feat for +1 AC is pretty terrible
                        – linksassin
                        1 hour ago




                        Pretty sure it's only useful for animal companions with a strict DM that will only let them take animal feats. Other than that, yes a whole feat for +1 AC is pretty terrible
                        – linksassin
                        1 hour ago












                        The problem isn't that its +1 AC, its that its +1 natural AC, its as bad as stacking armor AC. Dodge is pretty bad at higher levels and its recommended it is retrained later on should you take it at first level (which actually helps a little).
                        – ShadowKras
                        1 hour ago





                        The problem isn't that its +1 AC, its that its +1 natural AC, its as bad as stacking armor AC. Dodge is pretty bad at higher levels and its recommended it is retrained later on should you take it at first level (which actually helps a little).
                        – ShadowKras
                        1 hour ago











                        up vote
                        1
                        down vote













                        First, double check her stats, you certainly will notice some discrepancies and errors.



                        Keep in mind that, the default nymph casts a Druid, and as such, will have her spells based on her wisdom, not her charisma. The standard nymph has 17 wisdom, which is fairly high, and the PC probably has increased this as well. But still probably not her primary stat (very likely charisma), meaning that her spells save DCs aren't that difficult to overcome. This means she has druid spells as an average 7th level druid fighting against CR 12 creatures. At best, she can only use those spells for their utility.



                        Then, considering my other answer on a similar subject, you can discard the tips about targeting her saves, which are as high as overoptimized paladins and probably in the +25s and higher, and about touch AC, because the deflection bonus also applies to touch. Which leaves us with generic strategies against slow, heavy-armored, melee-focused characters:



                        Difficult Terrain



                        Unlike a druid, she cannot walk through vegetation or other types of difficult terrain. This leaves her vulnerable to the same tricks she could pull out (Entangle and Obscuring Mist) and also others, like Web or Black Tentacles. Spells like Darkness still can be used to great effects against her, as it allows no safe and she has no natural means of seeing in darkness or dispelling it.



                        This means that a mohrg or nightshade will cause her some problems with their darkness SLAs. Invisible creatures should also keep her at bay, as she won't be able to do much against them and they can safely ignore her.



                        Target CMD



                        Even with her naturally high dex and good BAB, which will leave her on the high 30s of her CMD (possibly in the 40s), that is still a number easier to reach than 60 (her AC). So, monsters focused on high strength with a few good feats for combat maneuvers will manage to pull their maneuvers most of the time against her. An example of this would be a purple worm, with +36 grapple.



                        Her armor's AC (+14 or so) and her shield's AC (+5 or so) should not apply to her CMD and touch AC. So, we are looking at numbers at least 20 points lower than her armor AC. For touch attacks, this number is still too high, but maneuvers usually benefit a lot more from high strength, which monsters usually got, and feats.



                        Keep your distance



                        As a character with druid spells available, this becomes a problem, as she has stuff like Entangle and Flame Sphere. But those low level spells won't help as much against CR 12+ creatures, which can easily pass the spells DC (again, still based on wisdom, not charisma). She may still attempt to close in with her 1/day dimension door, but that also means you can lay traps for her, such as using an illusion of being at a certain location casting spells, only to have her teleport there and attack "you", which automatically will dismiss the illusion, but too late for wasting her only mobility trick.



                        As a druid, she has access to Air Walk (druid 4), so this trick may not work as often as you would like.



                        And now, adding another topic to my original answer...



                        Swallow her



                        Being swallowed also will cause damage automatically, so you can take advantage of her weak offensive power. It won't be difficult to swallow her after a successful grapple check with that purple worm, for example.



                        I would replace at least two of the worm's feats by Improved Grapple and Greater Grapple, which would allow it to attempt to grapple as a standard action, and should it succeed, attempt to swallow as a move action, which can be done instead of trying to Pin the target. And now, the creature also has +40 CMB on grapple checks.



                        But even the worm's strong swallow damage can easily be avoided with only 21 AC and 20 hp to escape. Just remember that she can only use light weapons to cause damage while inside the creature's stomach.






                        share|improve this answer


























                          up vote
                          1
                          down vote













                          First, double check her stats, you certainly will notice some discrepancies and errors.



                          Keep in mind that, the default nymph casts a Druid, and as such, will have her spells based on her wisdom, not her charisma. The standard nymph has 17 wisdom, which is fairly high, and the PC probably has increased this as well. But still probably not her primary stat (very likely charisma), meaning that her spells save DCs aren't that difficult to overcome. This means she has druid spells as an average 7th level druid fighting against CR 12 creatures. At best, she can only use those spells for their utility.



                          Then, considering my other answer on a similar subject, you can discard the tips about targeting her saves, which are as high as overoptimized paladins and probably in the +25s and higher, and about touch AC, because the deflection bonus also applies to touch. Which leaves us with generic strategies against slow, heavy-armored, melee-focused characters:



                          Difficult Terrain



                          Unlike a druid, she cannot walk through vegetation or other types of difficult terrain. This leaves her vulnerable to the same tricks she could pull out (Entangle and Obscuring Mist) and also others, like Web or Black Tentacles. Spells like Darkness still can be used to great effects against her, as it allows no safe and she has no natural means of seeing in darkness or dispelling it.



                          This means that a mohrg or nightshade will cause her some problems with their darkness SLAs. Invisible creatures should also keep her at bay, as she won't be able to do much against them and they can safely ignore her.



                          Target CMD



                          Even with her naturally high dex and good BAB, which will leave her on the high 30s of her CMD (possibly in the 40s), that is still a number easier to reach than 60 (her AC). So, monsters focused on high strength with a few good feats for combat maneuvers will manage to pull their maneuvers most of the time against her. An example of this would be a purple worm, with +36 grapple.



                          Her armor's AC (+14 or so) and her shield's AC (+5 or so) should not apply to her CMD and touch AC. So, we are looking at numbers at least 20 points lower than her armor AC. For touch attacks, this number is still too high, but maneuvers usually benefit a lot more from high strength, which monsters usually got, and feats.



                          Keep your distance



                          As a character with druid spells available, this becomes a problem, as she has stuff like Entangle and Flame Sphere. But those low level spells won't help as much against CR 12+ creatures, which can easily pass the spells DC (again, still based on wisdom, not charisma). She may still attempt to close in with her 1/day dimension door, but that also means you can lay traps for her, such as using an illusion of being at a certain location casting spells, only to have her teleport there and attack "you", which automatically will dismiss the illusion, but too late for wasting her only mobility trick.



                          As a druid, she has access to Air Walk (druid 4), so this trick may not work as often as you would like.



                          And now, adding another topic to my original answer...



                          Swallow her



                          Being swallowed also will cause damage automatically, so you can take advantage of her weak offensive power. It won't be difficult to swallow her after a successful grapple check with that purple worm, for example.



                          I would replace at least two of the worm's feats by Improved Grapple and Greater Grapple, which would allow it to attempt to grapple as a standard action, and should it succeed, attempt to swallow as a move action, which can be done instead of trying to Pin the target. And now, the creature also has +40 CMB on grapple checks.



                          But even the worm's strong swallow damage can easily be avoided with only 21 AC and 20 hp to escape. Just remember that she can only use light weapons to cause damage while inside the creature's stomach.






                          share|improve this answer
























                            up vote
                            1
                            down vote










                            up vote
                            1
                            down vote









                            First, double check her stats, you certainly will notice some discrepancies and errors.



                            Keep in mind that, the default nymph casts a Druid, and as such, will have her spells based on her wisdom, not her charisma. The standard nymph has 17 wisdom, which is fairly high, and the PC probably has increased this as well. But still probably not her primary stat (very likely charisma), meaning that her spells save DCs aren't that difficult to overcome. This means she has druid spells as an average 7th level druid fighting against CR 12 creatures. At best, she can only use those spells for their utility.



                            Then, considering my other answer on a similar subject, you can discard the tips about targeting her saves, which are as high as overoptimized paladins and probably in the +25s and higher, and about touch AC, because the deflection bonus also applies to touch. Which leaves us with generic strategies against slow, heavy-armored, melee-focused characters:



                            Difficult Terrain



                            Unlike a druid, she cannot walk through vegetation or other types of difficult terrain. This leaves her vulnerable to the same tricks she could pull out (Entangle and Obscuring Mist) and also others, like Web or Black Tentacles. Spells like Darkness still can be used to great effects against her, as it allows no safe and she has no natural means of seeing in darkness or dispelling it.



                            This means that a mohrg or nightshade will cause her some problems with their darkness SLAs. Invisible creatures should also keep her at bay, as she won't be able to do much against them and they can safely ignore her.



                            Target CMD



                            Even with her naturally high dex and good BAB, which will leave her on the high 30s of her CMD (possibly in the 40s), that is still a number easier to reach than 60 (her AC). So, monsters focused on high strength with a few good feats for combat maneuvers will manage to pull their maneuvers most of the time against her. An example of this would be a purple worm, with +36 grapple.



                            Her armor's AC (+14 or so) and her shield's AC (+5 or so) should not apply to her CMD and touch AC. So, we are looking at numbers at least 20 points lower than her armor AC. For touch attacks, this number is still too high, but maneuvers usually benefit a lot more from high strength, which monsters usually got, and feats.



                            Keep your distance



                            As a character with druid spells available, this becomes a problem, as she has stuff like Entangle and Flame Sphere. But those low level spells won't help as much against CR 12+ creatures, which can easily pass the spells DC (again, still based on wisdom, not charisma). She may still attempt to close in with her 1/day dimension door, but that also means you can lay traps for her, such as using an illusion of being at a certain location casting spells, only to have her teleport there and attack "you", which automatically will dismiss the illusion, but too late for wasting her only mobility trick.



                            As a druid, she has access to Air Walk (druid 4), so this trick may not work as often as you would like.



                            And now, adding another topic to my original answer...



                            Swallow her



                            Being swallowed also will cause damage automatically, so you can take advantage of her weak offensive power. It won't be difficult to swallow her after a successful grapple check with that purple worm, for example.



                            I would replace at least two of the worm's feats by Improved Grapple and Greater Grapple, which would allow it to attempt to grapple as a standard action, and should it succeed, attempt to swallow as a move action, which can be done instead of trying to Pin the target. And now, the creature also has +40 CMB on grapple checks.



                            But even the worm's strong swallow damage can easily be avoided with only 21 AC and 20 hp to escape. Just remember that she can only use light weapons to cause damage while inside the creature's stomach.






                            share|improve this answer














                            First, double check her stats, you certainly will notice some discrepancies and errors.



                            Keep in mind that, the default nymph casts a Druid, and as such, will have her spells based on her wisdom, not her charisma. The standard nymph has 17 wisdom, which is fairly high, and the PC probably has increased this as well. But still probably not her primary stat (very likely charisma), meaning that her spells save DCs aren't that difficult to overcome. This means she has druid spells as an average 7th level druid fighting against CR 12 creatures. At best, she can only use those spells for their utility.



                            Then, considering my other answer on a similar subject, you can discard the tips about targeting her saves, which are as high as overoptimized paladins and probably in the +25s and higher, and about touch AC, because the deflection bonus also applies to touch. Which leaves us with generic strategies against slow, heavy-armored, melee-focused characters:



                            Difficult Terrain



                            Unlike a druid, she cannot walk through vegetation or other types of difficult terrain. This leaves her vulnerable to the same tricks she could pull out (Entangle and Obscuring Mist) and also others, like Web or Black Tentacles. Spells like Darkness still can be used to great effects against her, as it allows no safe and she has no natural means of seeing in darkness or dispelling it.



                            This means that a mohrg or nightshade will cause her some problems with their darkness SLAs. Invisible creatures should also keep her at bay, as she won't be able to do much against them and they can safely ignore her.



                            Target CMD



                            Even with her naturally high dex and good BAB, which will leave her on the high 30s of her CMD (possibly in the 40s), that is still a number easier to reach than 60 (her AC). So, monsters focused on high strength with a few good feats for combat maneuvers will manage to pull their maneuvers most of the time against her. An example of this would be a purple worm, with +36 grapple.



                            Her armor's AC (+14 or so) and her shield's AC (+5 or so) should not apply to her CMD and touch AC. So, we are looking at numbers at least 20 points lower than her armor AC. For touch attacks, this number is still too high, but maneuvers usually benefit a lot more from high strength, which monsters usually got, and feats.



                            Keep your distance



                            As a character with druid spells available, this becomes a problem, as she has stuff like Entangle and Flame Sphere. But those low level spells won't help as much against CR 12+ creatures, which can easily pass the spells DC (again, still based on wisdom, not charisma). She may still attempt to close in with her 1/day dimension door, but that also means you can lay traps for her, such as using an illusion of being at a certain location casting spells, only to have her teleport there and attack "you", which automatically will dismiss the illusion, but too late for wasting her only mobility trick.



                            As a druid, she has access to Air Walk (druid 4), so this trick may not work as often as you would like.



                            And now, adding another topic to my original answer...



                            Swallow her



                            Being swallowed also will cause damage automatically, so you can take advantage of her weak offensive power. It won't be difficult to swallow her after a successful grapple check with that purple worm, for example.



                            I would replace at least two of the worm's feats by Improved Grapple and Greater Grapple, which would allow it to attempt to grapple as a standard action, and should it succeed, attempt to swallow as a move action, which can be done instead of trying to Pin the target. And now, the creature also has +40 CMB on grapple checks.



                            But even the worm's strong swallow damage can easily be avoided with only 21 AC and 20 hp to escape. Just remember that she can only use light weapons to cause damage while inside the creature's stomach.







                            share|improve this answer














                            share|improve this answer



                            share|improve this answer








                            edited 37 mins ago

























                            answered 51 mins ago









                            ShadowKras

                            46k366122




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