By Jove! That's fast!

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Gtroc

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so I have a player in my group who is playing a character that is a wee bit broken. not more than I can handle, mind you, just more than I expected. he has a wits and awareness at five dots each. snake style martial arts up to essence fangs, and he has a combo wherein he uses the awareness excellency and the snake style charm that gives you martial arts in auto successes on a join battle roll. he also has a pair of custom orichalcum hooked daiklaves, they are artifact four and they mimic that ability in the fire aspected martial arts, you know where the multiple action penalty is only the number of actions taken? anyway, I have no real problem with that, my problem is that with that combination, he tends to outshine the rest of the party. he has eight attacks per flurry and so he can go through twenty extras like they were paper, and if I keep throwing all the main villains at him then the rest of the party are going to start feeling like sidekicks. now they each have their respective niche, and they are scary in that area. however I am running a combat heavy campaign at the moment, for purposes that the players will find out soon enough. but what can I do in combat when this guy is taking on twice the number of baddies as the rest of the party together can manage? any ideas would be helpful.
 
If he's that much of a threat with his blades then maybe a coordinated attack with a disarm would soften him up without totally screwing him over, he can still fight unarmed effectively anyway right? A coordinated attack with a clinch followed by a dog pile should make things more interesting afterwards...
 
I do not have a problem with keeping him occupied, or even providing him with a challenge. what I DO have a problem with, is that the rest of the players are begining to feel like secondary characters, as he always is doing something. to their view anyway. he gets to describe loads of actions while they are sitting at one or two at most.
 
Pffft. He is the typically noobish overspecialized martial artist, in short, his style is boring and sucks. Give him one enemy who comboes a counterattack with some kind of perfect or semiperfect defense. That will probably teach him and show the others the value of hitting hard and precise over hitting often and fast.
 
I'll second that. Flurrying for large quantities of attacks isn't as strong as you might think compared to some more indepth combat techniques. Sure, it's going to mow down extras like crazy, but against well constructed (read: realistically designed to actually live within creation) antagonists it's far from the best way to go. Strong defenses and counterattacks are a wonderful example of something that will make someone trying that technique go splat. High mobility tactics can be another.


Secondarily, those hookswords are part of the problem. The power you've allowed them is compensating for one of the major weaknesses of high flurrying. There's a reason it's only cannonically allowed with the wimpiest of artifact weapons, and even then its a powerful effect. Sure, you made them artifact 4, but personally I wouldn't have allowed anything that was so obviously going to cause problems.
 
Give him a newbee Lunar with that flurry stopping charm, can't remember it's name, but against this guy it would be very very effective, that way he can have fun with a low power opponent while the others clean out the army and finish off the main bad guy.


You could also put him at the dangeous end of a crippling attack that makes it impossible for him to use two weapons together for the rest of this combat heavy part of the game.


Else force him into mass combat (remember that is the ST the rules when it's mass combat or not), if he doesn't have any war he will have to let some of the other players take over the killing and him just acting as stats - although i know from my players that he will feel really screwed in such a battle because he is nothing more than supportunit.
 
Weapon-Shattering Defense Technique in the Earth Dragon Style works particulary well against noobs who perfer function over form.  If the player is that much of an issue, destroy something of his and let him play without it (hook sword artifacts only work in pairs), it will teach him some humility and perhaps slow down his assault the next time he encounters something, the fear that his new opponents are perhaps stronger then him.  I had a player refuse to use his strongest weapon for the longest time because he was affraid his opponent might know how to shatter it like the monk 10 stories back...


Alternately... give him an opponent that is his equal.  Same dirty tricks and all just switch up weapon choices, etc... give him a taste of his own medicine.  Most players lose against themselves and most often claim that the opponents abilities were 'not legal' or 'that wasn't fair'.  I did this and then gave the player the character sheet I was using... it was a photocopy of his own.  He didn't have much to say, and took the hint.


Also you could so what I do in my games from time to time when a character like this is introduced.  That character sets the power level for everyone else.  In order to make the game a challenge and 'epic' for them I need to customize challenges to suit the power level of Mr. Broken.  The problem is the weaker PCs (who actually are interested in playing the game, not spinning a whirlwind of crimson death) often have to deal with it as well.  My table perfers this tactic, since it allows all players to get involved and it makes Mr. Broken feel just as useless as they do sometimes.


Placing the character in situations where none of his combat sklls are useful works well too, as well as social, or mind altering charms/spells.  Unbreakable Facination Kata of the Wood Dragon Style is perfect to ensure the target PC just stands there while his circle gets obliterated.  I use this one sparingly since it does not state that the charm is broken when the target is attacked, it only states that you must overcome the MDV of the charm user.  Ugly stuff.


There is more to Exalted than how many Extras you can kill.  He sounds very single minded (designed for maximum asswhoopery) so the best way to deal with him is to place him in situations where his skills will not be of any use and permit the other PCs to shine.  Everyone deserves the spotlight.
 
With his DV down from taking an 8 action flurry he is a sitting duck, have 10 extras lead by a heroic mortal, just after he made a full attack, of cause if he had bulwark stance in his combo his DV doesn’t go down.


Every time we have a fight the eclipse feels left out, every time we have a social encounter the dawn fuels left out, every time a new bit of law is discovered the twilight steels the show. The night spent an hour infiltrating an enemy camp last session, nobody else could go with him because only he had the skills.


In every aria some few characters will take most of the attention and effect, this is only a problem when there is only one field of endeavor, if your story requires that, there isn’t much I can suggest.


Edward
 
I know how it feels to be the second fiddle character in a fight. My last Dawn Caste was given second fiddle fighter behind the group's Zenith.


My recomendation is give the others a fight alone. Set up a situation where they don't have their snake-style martial artist. (Perhaps he's busy, or captured, or something.)


Give him his own fights, let them have their scene. I'm sure you can explain it to the player he's detained, thus can't participate in the fight.


Barring that, should the character not be willing/able to sit one out I say poisons. Not deadly, just something that will slow him down to the degree of the rest of your group.
 
Here's something I don't see addressed by the original post or other responses:  is it that he's ahead of the group, or that they are behind him?  In other words, is there a reason the other players don't want to step up and work on their combat efficiency so they're on par with this character?  Is there a reason they CAN'T?  Is there a reason they SHOULDN'T?


You said you are running a combat-heavy game at the moment.  If that's true, there shouldn't be any problem with other characters getting in on the act.
 
the reason they have yet to up there combat efficiency, is that he started out peaked, and they have only gotten about 20XP so far. I have a few plans for evening out the play balance. I do find the the idea of taking away the advantage from the character a bit over dramatic and crude. he went to a lot of trouble to be scary, spent a lot of points and charms to get specialized. taking away his ability to do what he has worked hard to be seems petty and childish. I find it best in games to say, "yes you can do that, however there are repercussions." and it is not that the other players are out matched. it is that in the fight his eight attacks take so much description time that they end up looking like add ons to the game.
 
Gtroc said:
it is that in the fight his eight attacks take so much description time that they end up looking like add ons to the game.
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Ask the player to keep his descriptions shorter, to condense the descriptions, or whatever.
 
Gtroc said:
the reason they have yet to up there combat efficiency, is that he started out peaked, and they have only gotten about 20XP so far. I have a few plans for evening out the play balance. I do find the the idea of taking away the advantage from the character a bit over dramatic and crude. he went to a lot of trouble to be scary, spent a lot of points and charms to get specialized. taking away his ability to do what he has worked hard to be seems petty and childish. I find it best in games to say, "yes you can do that, however there are repercussions." and it is not that the other players are out matched. it is that in the fight his eight attacks take so much description time that they end up looking like add ons to the game.
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I see that problem too, hence I made my suggestion. You are simply showing him, that the same tactic won't work against any martially inclined foe.
 
I say get him in a Five Fold Yeddim Ass Clinch...  then let's see him flurry!  No seriously, send a Clinch master at him, especially a Lunar who can shift into something monsterous to clinch him with 20 something strength...  Of course, with all his flurries... his individual attacks don't hit that hard... You could always send him up against an Antagonist with a truly ludicrous amount of armor... I.E. a Dragon Blooded with Super Heavy plate.  If he doesn't blow past 10 raw damage, then he won't even phase him.   And even if he does, unless he's going beyond 20+ RAW damage, he's looking at Essence for Damage roll.


Nemesis does have a good point though, if he's beyond the others in combat... then why haven't they stepped up to the plate?  If they don't / can't, you could always "assist" them.  A few well placed wonders, perhaps a rare-tomb on Celestial Circle spells, maybe even a dream that begins teaching one of the players about that sidereal martial art that makes creation eventually forget you...
 
With eight attacks he is going to kill a dragonblooded in superheavy plate. At essence 3 that is still 24 dice of pingdamage. On the other hand. Safety among enemies might solve the problem nicely ^^ But then, letting the other players suffer for his stupid character.


Really, just show that combat is more than pinging people to death. Most people are surprised by counterattacks... and clinching is a good idea, too. though I'd not use a lunar, I'd use a blood sucking abyssal.
 
There you go, an Abyssal Clinch-Master draining him would be a dirty trick.  Now, as per ping-damage, my understanding is that your bare minimum ping is dice equal to your essence, provided you scored more raw damage than their hardness...  Did I interpret that wrong? :?:
 
Flyck said:
There you go, an Abyssal Clinch-Master draining him would be a dirty trick.  Now, as per ping-damage, my understanding is that your bare minimum ping is dice equal to your essence, provided you scored more raw damage than their hardness...  Did I interpret that wrong? :?:
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That is correct. I was just assuming that when someone builds the lame flurry monster he makes sure to beat the hardness of common artifact armour.
 
Hmm...  maybe I've yet to see a truly heinous flurry monster... but usually mass-flurries I see run into problems against higher DVs of 7+ and Hardness 10 Super Heavy...  Oh well, clinch his arse!   :twisted:
 
i think you should just kill his dude.... I'm sure he wont mind too much besides why do we role play.... but to make dudes right... any way then the combo will be gone and available for antaganists to use later *shakes fist mightily(sp?)* you might want to warn him 1st though... hehe
 
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