High AC and encounters

[Matt McNiel]

Off the top of my head some options: grapple, restrain, knock prone, spells, traps, push over cliff, bless (your monsters), blind, poison, swarm, frighten, rust monsters, ignore.

This is true, there are many ways to get around high ACs. I have a Cleric also with a high AC, I beat up everyone else & make him use up his spells, his attacks that aren't spells aren't impressive

 

[iserith]

Typically, yes, especially if you consider the abilities of the PCs before the storyline when creating the challenges.

When I create a game, I come up with story first. If there is a lich that has a MacGuffin, I ask where he got it, why he has it, and what he intends to do with it. Then I ask if he'd want to protect it. If so, what resources might he have to protect it. I craft that story, adding story elements and challenges to the tale and ONLY consider the PCs if the monster would consider those PCs. If the lich knows the PCs are coming and has time to prepare for it, he'll tailor the defenses to them. If not, I don't factor in their abilities at all (subject to the slight cheat that if they have abilities that are likely to bypass his defenses, I don't flesh out those defenses too much.

How do the PCs fit into this planning? Often, I use the goals or focuses of the party as inspiration for where to begin this construction. If the PC wizard has a goal to obtain the Staff of the Magi, I figure out where that staff is ASAP and then create a path to it - but the challenges along the way are not tailored to that PC (or the party in general. The PCs inspire, but they are not part of the calculations and machinations.

I would say that I create situations that are often challenges (combat, exploration, social interaction), the difficulty of which is set to the group's preferences. When the players interact with those situations and challenges, a story is produced. I actually can't tailor a challenge to a specific PC in my group as I use a player pool in my campaign - 8 to 10 players for 5 seats per session, and most players have more than one character. I can't know who will be at a given session, leave alone which character they will choose, so it would be fruitless for me to tailor challenges in the manner you say.

Not in the way I mean it. You're setting up a strategy game, but not really creating a deep world for their adventuring pleasure. You're focused on strategy over story.[/
Might I suggest an exercise: Try building a session worth of encounters that is fun for your group, but where no encounter is more than "medium" difficulty per the DMG standards. How can you challenge PCs without threatening their lives? I've faced a lot of serious challenges in my (real world life), but my life has only been in jeopardy a couple times.

So you've made a lot of assumptions here. First, you don't know how I set up my game. I think my players would say that my adventures and settings are plenty "deep." Second, I'm not "focused on strategy over story" if you understand how I think about story as described above. You call story what I would call situation. Story is what emerges when the players interact with the situation. So, no, I don't focus on strategy over situation. I focus on both to help produce (along with the players) an exciting, memorable story during play. Third, I design challenges that involve all pillars and often uses non-lethal stakes. In fact, I've posted many of these challenges on the forums and have argued for inclusion for more stakes than just life-or-death in many threads.

The exercise I would respectfully suggest for you is not to assume too much about how other people design and run their games. Ask instead. Like how I asked whether you'd view monsters not attacking the high-AC cleric as a validation of the player's choice or not. Because I didn't know and didn't want to assume and be completely wrong.

I mean looking at what your players are trying to do and allowing them to have success where they put in the focus. Notice: I did not say you were tailoring the game to their strengths... I said allowing them to have success. That means not gaming against their strengths, but instead creating fun encounters agnostic to their strengths and weaknesses (unless there is a story reason why an encounter would be tailored to their abilities) so that they can use the strengths they invested in obtaining.

I don't "allow" success. I set up situations that the players and characters can win or lose. Players earn success based on their choices and, in part, luck.

I do see something in your language. That is why I focused on your language in the prior post. You're apparently not seeing it the same way, however.Often, setting up difficult challenges for the PCs is playing against them. "Setting up" heavily implies you are looking at their abilities and trying to play against them. You don't need to do this to create a fun game and doing it diminishes the player choices by negating what they want to do. See my prior statements for more on this idea.

I responded to this above. I'll add that setting up difficult challenges, even with particular PC strengths and weaknesses in mind, isn't necessarily playing against them. It's just setting the difficulty of the challenges, success in which is duly rewarded.

To an extent, clearly. But what else are they?

I really don't know. My choices are my choices. The monsters do what I say. It would be troubling if they didn't.

This is the crux: Does the story influence the strategy, or the strategy influence the story? Which is better? Is it s ROLE PLAYING game or a role playing GAME.

If you go with the rpG, you're making a mistake. Why? Because there are a lot of better games out there for pure strategic fun. Boradgamegeek can point you to thousands of hours of amazing games. I can give you a lot of suggestions, too - including Gloomhaven. If you have not checked it out, you should.

If you go with RPg, then you don't want to be justifying your monster decisions so that they can make choices that are harder for the PCs. You want the story to guide the strategy. You want the monsters to (often) make suboptimal combat decisions because it is more interesting for them to be serving their non-combat/opposing goals, or because they just don't have the mental capacity to make the optimal choice.

Think about it this way: A lot of people really love published adventures. Why? They're not tailored to the PCs. The challenges in them are written with no concern to the actual party that will undertake the adventure.

When people talk about playing Castle Ravenloft, the idea of a Dragonborn Wild Sorcerer Hermit is not the first thing that leaps to my mind. The challenges of the adventure are not crafted to that PC type...

...but that is what makes it fun for that PC to venture into that adventure. They bring something... unexpected? ... to the game. The bad guys are not prepared for her unique capabilities. That tells a great story.

We don't need to metagame - and that is the right word (making choices based upon their game statistics rather than based upon the story) - against the PCs to make a good game, and metagaming against them often frustrates them.

YMMV. You may play at a table where the PCs really just care about strategy games and want you to focus only on what would be a good challenge at the table. They may tune out the second combat ends and tune back in only when combat begins, asking, "So what are we fighting? I missed everything the DM said in the last 30 minutes... there was a Giggazorasaurus nearby and I was trying to catch it with my Pokeballs because I just got a bunch of dust." If so, you can continue focusing on being their opposition and maintain the status quo... but I encourage you to try my way with them for a few weeks. You might find that they tune out less in the time between combats and that you're all having even more fun. I've seen this turn in many groups over the decades... I speak from experience. Just trying to help. Hopefully, food for thought.

I go with RPG. Where there is a balance between the roleplaying and the game. These things don't have to be at odds. Roleplaying is playing a role. The players determine how their characters act, think, and what they say. The DM controls the NPCs and monsters, determining how they act, think, and what they say.

And my monsters may choose to avoid the high-AC cleric and beat up the low-AC wizard because of reasons I'm free to imagine and establish. The players can then make choices to stop that monster from doing so, if they wish.

 

[jgsugden]

I would say that I create situations that are often challenges (combat, exploration, social interaction), the difficulty of which is set to the group's preferences. When the players interact with those situations and challenges, a story is produced. I actually can't tailor a challenge to a specific PC in my group as I use a player pool in my campaign - 8 to 10 players for 5 seats per session, and most players have more than one character. I can't know who will be at a given session, leave alone which character they will choose, so it would be fruitless for me to tailor challenges in the manner you say.



So you've made a lot of assumptions here...

I responded based upon your words. A quick post never reveals the whole picture, but your message and direction seem pretty consistent and evidence the concerns I addressed. I don't think I'm entirely off with my comments.

I'd suggest coming back to the thread in a week or so and seeing if you find something of value here.

 

[iserith]

I responded based upon your words. A quick post never reveals the whole picture, but your message and direction seem pretty consistent and evidence the concerns I addressed. I don't think I'm entirely off with my comments.

I'd suggest coming back to the thread in a week or so and seeing if you find something of value here.

Wow.

You responded based upon your assumption of what my game is like and what my process is. You are entirely off with your comments, start to finish. That being the case, I can find no value in your assumptions or any comments based on them, now or in the future.

But I thank you for answering my original question.

 

[TheSword]

@jgsugden. You’re making a lot of assumptions about the way the game is ‘meant to be played’ but these opinions are not universally held.

There is an old and established tradition of tailoring adventures to the capabilities and interests of your groups. Doing so isn’t metagaming in the common sense of the word - which is characters acting with knowledge they couldn’t have in game. The DM isn’t a character. They are the architect of the adventure. The DMG is full of advice on the subject. It’s worth a good read before stating what d&d is or isn’t.

Stratagey and story are not mutually exclusive. By forcing a choice between ROLEPLAYING game and roleplaying GAME you’re making a distinction we don’t need to make. For many people it’s a Roleplaying Game. As simple as that.

I can only assume you don’t realise how patronizing it is to tell someone to go and play a board game because they’re playing D&D wrong... as if D&D was ever about one thing.

 

[jgsugden]

... The DMG is full of advice on the subject. It’s worth a good read before stating what d&d is or isn’t.

Good advice. Start with chapter 3 and see how long you have to read before they address strategy and mechanics. "Fundamentally, adventures are stories."

Stratagey and story are not mutually exclusive...

I never said they were. I am arguing for strategy that fits the story, instead of story that fits the strategy.

Seriously. Chapter 3 is a great place to start.

 

[TheSword]

Good advice. Start with chapter 3 and see how long you have to read before they address strategy and mechanics. "Fundamentally, adventures are stories." I never said they were. I am arguing for strategy that fits the story, instead of story that fits the strategy.

Seriously. Chapter 3 is a great place to start.

I could start at chapter 3 as you suggest.1

Or I could start at the introduction and read the page called “know your players.” It lists Acting, Exploring, Instigating, Fighting, Optimizing, Problem solving, and Storytelling as common player preferences and suggests ways to satisfy them.

Incidentally every credible published adventure I have seen has a paragraph suggesting you change things if desired to suit your own party/campaign.

I think you’re tied up in semantics. The strategy element is part of the story. You are trying to suggest they are separate things. The story is the river and the actions the PCs take are the water. There is no distinction between the two. If the cleric PC had a high AC then that becomes both part of the story and the strategy. If the DM puts an encounter with a rust monster then that becomes part of the story and the strategy.

Who cares where the inspiration for the encounter comes from. Is it memorable, is it interesting, is it exciting. The rest is far less important.

 

[jgsugden]

I could start at chapter 3 as you suggest.1

Or I could start at the introduction and read the page called “know your players.” It lists Acting, Exploring, Instigating, Fighting, Optimizing, Problem solving, and Storytelling as common player preferences and suggests ways to satisfy them.

Right. So what part of that page supports the ideas of building encounters that negate the strengths a player has built into their PC? You know your players to please your players, and designing encounters that negate the things they want their characters to do and figuring out a justification as to why the encounter was built that way .... not so much a player pleaser.

As for the rest, you can read my prior discussion that fully addresses your concerns.

And I still suggest you take the time to read chapter 3 ... about constructing adventures ... as it was directly on point to the topic ... of how to build your games... and it does not suggest strategy before story.

 

[TheSword]

Right. So what part of that page supports the ideas of building encounters that negate the strengths a player has built into their PC? You know your players to please your players, and designing encounters that negate the things they want their characters to do and figuring out a justification as to why the encounter was built that way .... not so much a player pleaser.

It depends where you stand on the concept of difficulty. Satisfaction comes from achievement and achievement requires effort to attain it. Therefore difficulty should be tailored to the party. A DM decides whether to use goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears or fiendish bugbear vampires depending on the difficulty required. Some parties will find some challenges dramatically harder or easier.

The methods you suggest in your earlier posts of designing encounters independently of the party usually result in large numbers of uninspiring encounters. I much prefer a smaller number of more challenging combats. A lot of the fights in published adventures even when level appropriate would would last less than 3 rounds and result in no expenditure of resources for a relatively experienced party. As both a player and a DM this gets dull quick.

Secondly there is more than one person at the tables enjoyment to consider. The other players would probably like the cleric to take some share of the burden of risk. In my experience characters with combat abilities that dramatically exceed the rest of the party are seldom fun to play next too.

When a character extenuates a strength then undoubtably leave weaknesses, spreading risk to take these into account is only fair. Adding a rust monster (one not an army) adds an element of jeopardy to character and vulnerability which reminds them they are mortal and gives them some real skin in the fight. They have something to fear. As Ned says, that’s the only time we can be brave.

 

[jgsugden]

Seriously. Chapter 3.