Spiky and Smooth Effectiveness - Why Casters and Martial Adepts Do So Well

[Kajhera]

Introduce them to themed casters like beguilers, who are cooler anyway.

[Endarire]

My Testimony
My group was level ~9 at the moment, and we had gone through a dungeon.  I did not expect some Super Big Bad at the end (not even a Big Bad, but them's the breaks) and spent my best spells on what amounted to trivial encounters.

The end had us against one corrupted ant queen and 16 minions.  There were 4 of us, a Cleric/Crusader/RKV, an Artificer/Renegate Mastermaker, a Druid, and a Conjurer5/Swordsage1/Incantatrix3.  (I went Swordsage so I could do something besides cast support spells, which I am fond of doing.)

During this big end fight, I summoned some lantern archons to shoot their light rays at the most menacing targets, and eventually the ant queen.  Everyone else was doing HP damage almost exclusively; the Artificer and his Hand Cannon, the RKV and his polearm, the Druid and his scimitar and blast spells, and the wolf companion and his natural weapons.

We won the fight, barely, due to 3 main factors.
1: The Artificer crit repeatedly, basically one-shotting minions.
2: The RKV stabbed enough stuff to keep us living.
3: My summons did just enough damage to KO the ant queen before we all died.  The queen, in her death throes, rendered all of us unconscious with falling rocks, except perhaps the Artificer.

Had I saved my strength for the end, Evard's black tentacles would have dissected those minions.  I didn't even need to use my spells before then, but doing so was fun.

By level 9, the "rock 'em sock 'em with HP damage" notion feels outdated.  Had I been allowed a reserve feat, I would've spammed that to conserve resources while still feeling magely.  Even if I only had the reserve feat for the boss fight, that would've done a lot more than swinging my greatsword for a paltry 2d6+X damage.

[Runestar]

But plz also read the context in which I say 'no I win' button... not saying there aren't spells that can shut down an encounter, simply that a DM  knows that a wizard has force cage should take it into acount and have another encounter ready. Also, it's on the upper end of the levels I've been discussing that you have access to it.

I recall the M:TG extended tourney scene facing a similar issue some time back. Every deckbuilder basically had to ensure that their decks could stand up to the top 4 dominant archetypes, which really restricted the type of decks they could build, barring a few genius deckbuilders like Zvi.

Likewise, I find that some spells require so specific counters that it is not feasible to apply this solution to every monster the PCs face.

For example, escaping forcecage would require that your foes be colossal, or capable of casting disintegrate, teleporting, huge+and capable of squeezing through bars or equipped with a rod of cancellation. Alternatively, resign yourself to the fact that 1-2 monsters in every fight won't get to fight at all, and account for this by throwing more monsters at the party.

This seriously limits the variety of foes I can throw at the party.  

[Endarire]

As I learned in the campaign I ran from 1-21:

Initiative is important.  Very important.  If you go first, you are guaranteed a turn.

[lans]

If you believe casters don't have "I win" buttons because it's SAVE or lose, consider spells like Ghoul Glyph and Force cage.  Then it's just "lose."  There's no save involved.

JaronK

Its not quite just lose, its lose if you don't have a defense.

There are tons of defenses against Mind influencing effects, movement restrictions, I think theirs even a race that is immune to paralyze, see invisibility is obtainable, and I'm sure theres others.

The problem is that you can't protect yourself against everything.

Unless your a caster, and even then it can get hard.

As for annoying casters and not melee, you have to use caster specific or target the caster more. These are both fair to do every once in a while, but if you do it too often it becomes unfair.

[Sunic_Flames]

If I'm talking about good DM'ing, and talking about "definitely at the lower levels, but even on mid- to high (5-15) levels", I'm not expecting "an enemy with 600 HP, AC > 60, touch AC > 40, saves ~40, damage per round ~300".

As for

stuff

, it doesn't do much to invalidate my point, that with good DM'ing, caster - noncaster disparities can be made smaller. I'm rather surprised you lack the imagination to think up encounters which do exactly that.

The boss I mentioned? The party was 15-17 when they fought it, so close enough. What do ya know, they still killed him.

And it's impossible to imagine something that favors the narrowest and weakest classes in the game that is not trivially easy to the real characters.

That's how it works. If you threaten the real characters you slaughter the weaker ones.

Now in that party everyone was an optimizer, and there were a lot of houserules that made casters weaker and beatsticks stronger. Well, casters still controlled the show, just the strong beatsticks weren't completely wasting their time. But in a RAW game? BMX Bandit would have been slaughtered for no action cost (literally no action cost) while the boss focused on battling Angel Summoner.

Now I'm the guy who can show up at a table with a caster one, or even two levels lower than everyone else and still kick so much ass that I surprise everyone when I tell them I'm lower level. Granted, the reason why I'm starting off lower level is because I did a lot of crafting, or because LA buyoff was in and I opted to take advantage of that with something LA 1 or 2 but even so. You're not going to impress anyone with statements such as "herp derp casters only own everything if you let them", least of all me. You're going to need some real substance to even consider your points valid and non laughable. And if they involve any of the following know that your argument is automatically invalid: Golems, Spell Resistance, Anti Magic Fields.

[BruceLeeroy]

What he's getting at, that everyone is ignoring, is that in real games of D&D, the caster/melee balance is largely a non-issue, due to the variety of things that have been mentioned (house rules, player preference, variety of encounters, endurance tests, etc).


Also, the pretentiousness of some people around here is fucking disgusting. Take a deep breath for a moment and consider the fact that other people than yourself have been playing D&D for-fucking-ever and your way of playing (even if it happens to be the standard according to the 'groupthink' found in the CharOp communities) isn't the only, or most common, or best way to play.

Plenty (if not most) of the casters I've seen in D&D throughout the years have been cliched archetypes that are moderately (practically?) optimized to fulfill a character design, rather than exploit every loophole to acquire Real Ultimate Power. I'm not bringing the Stormwind Fallacy into this, nor am I arguing that casters are not monstrously overpowered according to DnD By The Numbers. It just doesn't always affect games to the degree that the hysterical arguments and overly dramatic pronouncements found in this thread seem to assume.

[Sunic_Flames]

What he's getting at, that everyone is ignoring, is that in real games of D&D, the caster/melee balance is largely a non-issue, due to the variety of things that have been mentioned (house rules, player preference, variety of encounters, endurance tests, etc).


Also, the pretentiousness of some people around here is fucking disgusting. Take a deep breath for a moment and consider the fact that other people than yourself have been playing D&D for-fucking-ever and your way of playing (even if it happens to be the standard according to the 'groupthink' found in the CharOp communities) isn't the only, or most common, or best way to play.

Plenty (if not most) of the casters I've seen in D&D throughout the years have been cliched archetypes that are moderately (practically?) optimized to fulfill a character design, rather than exploit every loophole to acquire Real Ultimate Power. I'm not bringing the Stormwind Fallacy into this, nor am I arguing that casters are not monstrously overpowered according to DnD By The Numbers. It just doesn't always affect games to the degree that the hysterical arguments and overly dramatic pronouncements found in this thread seem to assume.

I'm talking about actual games, not just theorycraft. In actual games, casters rock the fucking house hardcore. Most of them didn't involve that much optimization on the caster side either. And what do you know, in every single one it was the casters driving the plot out of combat, and the casters winning the combats (whether or not the beatsticks also participated depends on other factors, but casters win is a constant).

The sooner you learn that I am almost always snarky, and just as often right, the better off you will be.

As for him, his arguments are trite and repetitive. It's nothing we haven't all seen before many times, and it's nothing that hasn't already been shot down just as often.

[Littha]

What he's getting at, that everyone is ignoring, is that in real games of D&D, the caster/melee balance is largely a non-issue, due to the variety of things that have been mentioned (house rules, player preference, variety of encounters, endurance tests, etc).


Also, the pretentiousness of some people around here is fucking disgusting. Take a deep breath for a moment and consider the fact that other people than yourself have been playing D&D for-fucking-ever and your way of playing (even if it happens to be the standard according to the 'groupthink' found in the CharOp communities) isn't the only, or most common, or best way to play.

Plenty (if not most) of the casters I've seen in D&D throughout the years have been cliched archetypes that are moderately (practically?) optimized to fulfill a character design, rather than exploit every loophole to acquire Real Ultimate Power. I'm not bringing the Stormwind Fallacy into this, nor am I arguing that casters are not monstrously overpowered according to DnD By The Numbers. It just doesn't always affect games to the degree that the hysterical arguments and overly dramatic pronouncements found in this thread seem to assume.

Personally I have no issue with casters being so much more powerful than melee, I generally play casters.

That said, this being a cooperative game character balance is less important all around. Generally you only see a caster totalling entire encounters if he is set out to show how awesome he is and thus not a team player.

Also it must be said that casters of any kind don't really need to exploit anything to have "Real Ultimate Power" they have it strait away. I'm willing to bet that a Sorcerer who picks his spells by consulting a dartboard will still be more useful that a moderately optimised melee character.

[Echoes]

What he's getting at, that everyone is ignoring, is that in real games of D&D, the caster/melee balance is largely a non-issue, due to the variety of things that have been mentioned (house rules, player preference, variety of encounters, endurance tests, etc).


Also, the pretentiousness of some people around here is fucking disgusting. Take a deep breath for a moment and consider the fact that other people than yourself have been playing D&D for-fucking-ever and your way of playing (even if it happens to be the standard according to the 'groupthink' found in the CharOp communities) isn't the only, or most common, or best way to play.

Plenty (if not most) of the casters I've seen in D&D throughout the years have been cliched archetypes that are moderately (practically?) optimized to fulfill a character design, rather than exploit every loophole to acquire Real Ultimate Power. I'm not bringing the Stormwind Fallacy into this, nor am I arguing that casters are not monstrously overpowered according to DnD By The Numbers. It just doesn't always affect games to the degree that the hysterical arguments and overly dramatic pronouncements found in this thread seem to assume.

Just because it's popular doesn't mean it isn't stupid. I don't give a flying fuck how other people play, nor would I wager does Sunic. The fact that there are vast areas of the game that do not function together is a problem. Sticking your head in the sand and ignoring that with so-called gentleman's agreements is just a variant of the Oberoni fallacy.

The very fact that you need to take massive shits all over intelligent players, or force them into "gentleman's agreements" so that other players can take objectively inferior options without feeling small in the pants is wrong. That shit doesn't work, because anyone who isn't a mouth-breathing fuckwit knows what is going on and resents it. The casters resent having arbitrary bullshit limits put on them, and everyone else resents only being relevant because the casters are holding back.

[Kajhera]

I've played a psion who had his race (kobold), ability scores (13 int...), feat (don't remember...), skills (bookbinding and knowledge:religion), and powers known chosen randomly. (So were his classes, but the fact he wound up a psion/barbarian is the important part.)

He was, indeed, more fun to play than if that side of his gestalt had been a particularly optimized fighter, though I don't know if he could be considered more powerful.

[Waazraath]

What he's getting at, that everyone is ignoring, is that in real games of D&D, the caster/melee balance is largely a non-issue, due to the variety of things that have been mentioned (house rules, player preference, variety of encounters, endurance tests, etc).


Also, the pretentiousness of some people around here is fucking disgusting. Take a deep breath for a moment and consider the fact that other people than yourself have been playing D&D for-fucking-ever and your way of playing (even if it happens to be the standard according to the 'groupthink' found in the CharOp communities) isn't the only, or most common, or best way to play.

Plenty (if not most) of the casters I've seen in D&D throughout the years have been cliched archetypes that are moderately (practically?) optimized to fulfill a character design, rather than exploit every loophole to acquire Real Ultimate Power. I'm not bringing the Stormwind Fallacy into this, nor am I arguing that casters are not monstrously overpowered according to DnD By The Numbers. It just doesn't always affect games to the degree that the hysterical arguments and overly dramatic pronouncements found in this thread seem to assume.

Yes, this, thank you for formulating it better then I can.

Also it must be said that casters of any kind don't really need to exploit anything to have "Real Ultimate Power" they have it strait away. I'm willing to bet that a Sorcerer who picks his spells by consulting a dartboard will still be more useful that a moderately optimised melee character.

This is exactly one of those exagerations about caster-uberness I've been talking about earlier... just for fun, go through the books and see how many worthless spells there are.

The sooner you learn that I am almost always snarky, and just as often right, the better off you will be.

No, your a narrow minded arrogant idiot, whose world is only black and white and starts yelling, shouting and insulting when somebody has the guts to suggest that, sometimes, there might be shade of grey. I pity you. The whole "I'm the guy who can show up at a table with a caster one, or even two levels lower than everyone else and still kick so much ass..."... seriously, who the fuck do you try to impress?

The boss I mentioned? The party was 15-17 when they fought it, so close enough. What do ya know, they still killed him.

And it's impossible to imagine something that favors the narrowest and weakest classes in the game that is not trivially easy to the real characters.

....

You're not going to impress anyone with statements such as "herp derp casters only own everything if you let them", least of all me. You're going to need some real substance to even consider your points valid and non laughable. And if they involve any of the following know that your argument is automatically invalid: Golems, Spell Resistance, Anti Magic Fields.

- when I'm talking about level 1-5, but also to a lesser extend 6-15, it's pretty weak to use a level 15-17 example, isn't it?
- "it's imposible to imagine something"... for you, maybe. Too bad.

As for some "real substance"... what I sure as hell NOT will do is spent a fuckin hour designing some encounter that would be balanced for an average fighter/cleric/rogue/wizard party and post it here. Obviously, somebody will find some great spell in any book to end the encounter with. Thats prolly not a problem, there are thousands of spells. But that's not the way d&d is played in the real world either: there, you have as a DM a party from which you know what it can do, which spells are available, etc. The DM has that knowledge and can, should, use it.

What we could do is that somebody here posts a, lets say, level 7 party, and I design an encounter for them, just to prove a point.

Then again, I play 2 campaings, have next Tuesday my next normal session to DM, I have full-time job, a sweet girl that wants some attenntion and actually something better to do then spent hours to prove a point here. For those who don't believe a word I wrote and think I'm some idiot n00b who doesn't know how to optimize or how to play D&D, be my guest, for the ones who bother to actually read what I've written, think about it and maybe you can use it to your advantage.

@echoes: oberoni fallacy is bullshit. I never said there isn't a balance problem, nor dit advocate changing the rules. I just say that with good DM'ing you can make the problem smaller, without changing the rules.

I'm done here in any case, and will leave the spotlight for the OP.

[Littha]

Also it must be said that casters of any kind don't really need to exploit anything to have "Real Ultimate Power" they have it strait away. I'm willing to bet that a Sorcerer who picks his spells by consulting a dartboard will still be more useful that a moderately optimised melee character.

This is exactly one of those exagerations about caster-uberness I've been talking about earlier... just for fun, go through the books and see how many worthless spells there are.

Assuming you pick random spells:

There are 39 level 1 spells in the PHB, a first level sorcerer knows 2 there are at a conservative estimate 5 really good spells at first level.
There is about a 13% chance of picking a good one (5/39) and thus with two picks there is around a 24% chance of choosing a good spell. (60/247)
A third level sorcerer knows 3 spells, probability is 34% (3155/9139) and so on, point being as you gain more spell slots the chances of you getting a good spell increases so that eventually you will have at least one spell capable of ending an encounter properly.

[Sunic_Flames]

What he's getting at, that everyone is ignoring, is that in real games of D&D, the caster/melee balance is largely a non-issue, due to the variety of things that have been mentioned (house rules, player preference, variety of encounters, endurance tests, etc).


Also, the pretentiousness of some people around here is fucking disgusting. Take a deep breath for a moment and consider the fact that other people than yourself have been playing D&D for-fucking-ever and your way of playing (even if it happens to be the standard according to the 'groupthink' found in the CharOp communities) isn't the only, or most common, or best way to play.

Plenty (if not most) of the casters I've seen in D&D throughout the years have been cliched archetypes that are moderately (practically?) optimized to fulfill a character design, rather than exploit every loophole to acquire Real Ultimate Power. I'm not bringing the Stormwind Fallacy into this, nor am I arguing that casters are not monstrously overpowered according to DnD By The Numbers. It just doesn't always affect games to the degree that the hysterical arguments and overly dramatic pronouncements found in this thread seem to assume.

Just because it's popular doesn't mean it isn't stupid. I don't give a flying fuck how other people play, nor would I wager does Sunic. The fact that there are vast areas of the game that do not function together is a problem. Sticking your head in the sand and ignoring that with so-called gentleman's agreements is just a variant of the Oberoni fallacy.

The very fact that you need to take massive shits all over intelligent players, or force them into "gentleman's agreements" so that other players can take objectively inferior options without feeling small in the pants is wrong. That shit doesn't work, because anyone who isn't a mouth-breathing fuckwit knows what is going on and resents it. The casters resent having arbitrary bullshit limits put on them, and everyone else resents only being relevant because the casters are holding back.

Plus Fucking One.

Not to mention we're not even discussing optimized casters here. Just ones that realize blasting sucks, and these other spells don't. That's it. That's the only assumption required.

I primarily play in a place that has a majority basket weaver population, and guess what? I can count the number of casters I've seen that don't try and solve a problem of the combat variety with Color Spray, or Glitterdust, or whatever other save or lose is appropriate on one hand. And of the ones that don't, one already had one full party kill that was fiated away and nearly had a second to what would otherwise be reasonable encounters, one was playing in a game where the difficulty bar was set so low that they were largely ignoring their top FOUR levels of spells and still winning easily (and was a blastificer, so it really wasn't a low level spell), and... I don't remember any others. That's how rare it is.

In any case the problem is the beatsticks, not everyone else. They're the only odd ones out. After all, monsters have save or loses too, or are better beatsticks. Often both at the same time. Which means they're the only ones that can't keep up, and therefore any fix not aimed at making them not suck automatically fails. Because if those casters ever stop casting win spells... the party stops winning. And since the best case scenario for a loss is that you die, obviously this is not feasible.

The sooner you learn that I am almost always snarky, and just as often right, the better off you will be.

No, your a narrow minded arrogant idiot, whose world is only black and white and starts yelling, shouting and insulting when somebody has the guts to suggest that, sometimes, there might be shade of grey. I pity you. The whole "I'm the guy who can show up at a table with a caster one, or even two levels lower than everyone else and still kick so much ass..."... seriously, who the fuck do you try to impress?

Hi Welcome

Arrogance is unfounded confidence. My confidence is at exactly the level it should be.

If narrow minded means telling the truth, I guess you're right. But that's not what words mean, so you fail.

Idiot is a term that accurately describes someone making flat earth claims and does not accurately describe the guy smiting them for those claims. Now guess which is which?

Finally, I'm not posting to impress anyone. I'm posting to illustrate just how awesome casters are.

- when I'm talking about level 1-5, but also to a lesser extend 6-15, it's pretty weak to use a level 15-17 example, isn't it?
- "it's imposible to imagine something"... for you, maybe. Too bad.

Hi Welcome

15-17 is close to 15. I said this.

Just because your delusioned mind imagines a scenario in which the god tier characters are pressed hard, but the gimps aren't slaughtered at a glance doesn't mean such is actually possible. It means you need your meds.

As for some "real substance"... what I sure as hell NOT will do is spent a fuckin hour designing some encounter that would be balanced for an average fighter/cleric/rogue/wizard party and post it here. Obviously, somebody will find some great spell in any book to end the encounter with. Thats prolly not a problem, there are thousands of spells. But that's not the way d&d is played in the real world either: there, you have as a DM a party from which you know what it can do, which spells are available, etc. The DM has that knowledge and can, should, use it.

Hi Welcome

90% of the best spells in the game are core only. Further, those spells are broad enough that with no foreplanning, a character can blast through the day and still defeat the enemies they face easily. Even if the DM decides to metagame like crazy, like you describe it doesn't fucking matter. You can't counter everything, not even close.

Then again, I play 2 campaings, have next Tuesday my next normal session to DM, I have full-time job, a sweet girl that wants some attenntion and actually something better to do then spent hours to prove a point here. For those who don't believe a word I wrote and think I'm some idiot n00b who doesn't know how to optimize or how to play D&D, be my guest, for the ones who bother to actually read what I've written, think about it and maybe you can use it to your advantage.

And yet, you have plenty of time to be wrong. On the Internet.



Hi Welcome

[Echoes]

@Waazaraath: hence variant, dumbass. "There's not really a problem if you just arbitrarily stack the deck against some characters" is just a reflavoring of the Oberoni fallacy and you know it.

You still haven't addressed the fact that there is no legitimate way to properly challenge casters without crushing the non-casters without bullshit.

[snakeman830]

Only time I've ever had casters seriously strained and not necessarily beatsticks was when the party procrastinated too long and were on a running clock to stop the BBEG.  They didn't have time for the casters to rest and regain spells and, not surprisingly, it nearly resulted in a TPK.  Only reason it didn't was because the entire group had Fast Healing to keep them on their feet curteosy of a Dragon Shaman.

[juton]

Some of the bile I'm seeing directed towards Waazraath is a bit uncalled for. I've seen campaigns where it was normal to have 12-15 encounters between rests, in such a situation you see casters hold back so the mundanes can hack up the popcorn. That's usually a DM working kind of hard to make melee relevant, another DM will let players rest whenever they want and we all know under that category Caster are going to be the uber. I think Waazraath has gotten lucky in that he's gotten a group that doesn't require a high level of optimization to play, that's not a slight, I wish I could play in a game where I wasn't required to have a full casting progression to be able to participate.

I also wanted to interject that my experience with Clerics is that they are not CoDzilla until level 7-9 (depending on optimization), their biggest problem is that their spell list is largely 'boring', things like Hold Person work but don't paint as exciting an image as electrocuting them until they fall down or catch on fire. Druids on the other hand are CoDzilla from level 1, even in a competent group a Riding Dog is at least half a fighter and better than a monk, the more I think about it the more I think it's unfair that I get too play two awesome characters where most players are stuck with just one adequate one.

[Endarire]

Juton: I agree in general.  I play in a generally low op game where the DM stopped DMing because I effectively soloed 10 CR7s at level 7 with energy missile, metamorphosis, Overchannel, and White Raven Tactics.  I never got to finish my turn because the DM got very angry and resigned from DMing before I could launch my second turn's worth of energy missiles.

If a well-built full caster/manifester is out to prove himself, he will win!

Also, regarding Clerics:  They don't feel very uber at low levels.  Clerics are meant to cast as well as doing melee/archery/necromancy.  Doing only one doesn't work well.

I played a level 8 full BAB character (Ranger/Barbarian/Fighter/Crusader/Warblade) whose best trick was healing the party in combat.  That was about the extent of the character, and after one big fight, I had spammed my best tricks.  I longed to return to casterhood where I could do so much more.

[LordBlades]

What he's getting at, that everyone is ignoring, is that in real games of D&D, the caster/melee balance is largely a non-issue, due to the variety of things that have been mentioned (house rules, player preference, variety of encounters, endurance tests, etc).

Actually, from my own experience with groups that said melee-caster balance was a non-issue, in many cases it just wasn't perceived as such (many people that deny caster vs. no-caster issues are not very familiar with the intricate workings of the game). For example, I hooked up with some random dudes once for a demo game at a FLGS opening. I rolled a wizard and some other dude rolled a ranger. After one encounter where the enemy support was puking their guts out in Stinking Cloud, enemy melee was stuck in Evard's Black Tentacles and most of them were also slowed, the ranger player went like (see, told you rangers are good? your wizard didn't kill a single one of them).

Also, just because a thing it's not a problem in your own campaign, doesn't mean it's not a problem in others. 'I can fix it' does not equal 'it isn't broken'

[Sunic_Flames]

Some of the bile I'm seeing directed towards Waazraath is a bit uncalled for. I've seen campaigns where it was normal to have 12-15 encounters between rests, in such a situation you see casters hold back so the mundanes can hack up the popcorn. That's usually a DM working kind of hard to make melee relevant, another DM will let players rest whenever they want and we all know under that category Caster are going to be the uber. I think Waazraath has gotten lucky in that he's gotten a group that doesn't require a high level of optimization to play, that's not a slight, I wish I could play in a game where I wasn't required to have a full casting progression to be able to participate.

I also wanted to interject that my experience with Clerics is that they are not CoDzilla until level 7-9 (depending on optimization), their biggest problem is that their spell list is largely 'boring', things like Hold Person work but don't paint as exciting an image as electrocuting them until they fall down or catch on fire. Druids on the other hand are CoDzilla from level 1, even in a competent group a Riding Dog is at least half a fighter and better than a monk, the more I think about it the more I think it's unfair that I get too play two awesome characters where most players are stuck with just one adequate one.

He gets hated on so badly not only because he is a presumptuous git in what he presents as his points but in how he presents them as well. He acts as if he is more experienced than us all, when in fact he behaves more like a Paizil who has gotten themselves lost somehow.

Like for example the 12-15 encounter thing. Even if you ignore the fact that any party of level 5 or higher can fight about 4 and rest and repeat, doesn't change the fact the beatstick's HP are gone in two rounds. He's not lasting that long. And it's his life on the line if he doesn't, so he's calling for a Rope Trick the loudest. And then there's CoDzilla, who actually can deal with that.