There is a lot of talk about how Wizards break the game (and they do) and about how fighters are weak (and they are) but it's become overblown a great deal. The prevalence of knowledge about tricks like Shadow Miracles, or Persisting stuff through method that is not a higher level spell slot or using calling magic at all and breaking the game has filtered backwards, and combined with a habit of playing monsters short to make the bad PCs feel good has resulted in a mentality of
Remember that this advice was also written with the blaster-mage mentality, where a moderately-challenging fight might require 3-4 spells. With a CO-mentality, you can reasonably beat pretty much any expected encounter with 1 spell, which is far fewer than your maximum by 6th level, not to mention 9th.
The fact that multiple encounters can potentially be bypassed by the same spell (overland flight vs. non-flying, non-ranged threats) only amplifies this.
Unless you have Arcane Thesis and Easy Metamagic somewhere on your sheet, you are not going to be beating CR appropriate encounters with a single spell.
So the purpose of this thread, I'm going to try to create a CR encounter arena, in which people can make parties, either as four people, or one person playing four characters, and then I will run them through a set of four CR appropriate encounters, as per the encounter guidelines, that are also at least somehow a likely set of four encounters to hit in the same day, for whatever reason. Each encounter will start with me setting the scene, as PCs are likely to do something, or trying to do something, and they will then face encounters as they run into them.
Basically, you can make your PCs, and try to beat things with one spell (or however else you want, IE team fighters are totally not underpowered can try to prove it with fighters if they want).
Now, obviously, the purpose of this is not to break the game, we all know ways to break the game, but this is to show that an actual party without the super gamebreakers can beat the party.
That said: Here is a short ban list, and if you want to use something on the same line, think about if I'm going to allow it:
1) Incantatrix
2) Tainted Scholar
3) DMM Persist
4) DweomerKeeper
5) Planar Shepard
6) Anything involving calling magic at all, or Dread Warrior.
7) Anything that involves applying a bunch of meta feats to a spell that would normally increase it several levels over your ability to cast, but is instead reduced by a lot of reductions from some combination of Arcane Thesis/Easy Meta/Practical Meta/Class abilities ect.
8) Shadowcraft Mage
9) Ur Priest/Sublime Chord anything, yes there are non game breaking Ur Priest/Sublime Chord builds. Most of them make more sense as Clerics/Sorcerers. Save me the hassle and use the Cleric/Sorcerer.
10) Anything involving the existence of a Thought Bottle.
11) Any claim to having more than WBL through any means at all.
12) Special mention for Faerie Mysteries Innate. Yes, anything that increases your HP by 5-15 HP per level, and increases your casting modifier by 1-2, and gives your more ability points to distribute to other stats is absurd. Also, Kobolds can not be Epic or Loredrakes, or ect.
13) No Leadership, and I might punch you in the face through the internet if you try to tell me what absurd creatures you have Dominated or Animated before this starts. If you want to animate something, it better be readily accessible, and usually travel in packs with a lower EL than your level, so no, your level 5 character cannot have a Fire Giant Skeleton.
14) Dragon Magazine
15) Hulking Hurler
For level, try to build parties that would make sense at every level, because where possible, I'd like to run them against several, but I will take requests for specific levels, sometimes, depending on time, and no, your level 17 9th level spells party is not as interesting to me as a level 5-13 party. And no, your level 1 Fiery Burst for 3d6 damage is also not something that interests me too much either.
32 PB for everyone, no LA buyoff or bloodlines, or anything else that fuzzes the level of your characters, and use average HP.
