12th level encounters

[JoeGKushner]

So I've got some NPC's and some quests linned up for my Forgotten Realms 3.5 campaign and was wondering... at 12th level, what do you as a GM prefer to throw up against your players?

 

[Woocash]

I prefer using normal PHB races (or intelligent, non-outsider monsters) with class levels. It makes it much easier to suprise players this way - even it they memorized every page of MM, they don't know, what they enemy can do.

Sometimes, I use very strange creatures with multiple templates stacked. What about Winged Tauric Green Hag-Displacer beast? Or Fiendish 4-headed Dire bear? Or just Ghost Aboleth? They are rarely worth their CR, but make up for it with weirdness - it takes a few rounds to learn what the creature can do and what is the best way to defeat it.

And if everything else fails, there are the dragons...

 

[Darkness]

Lich Clr11/Paladin of Tyranny2 wielding a major artifact.

Well, for climactic battles, anyway.

 

[Pants]

Demons, Devils, Daemons, Frost Giants, Fire Giants, barrels full of Ogres, manipulative NPC's, nasty undead creatures (vampires, liches), lower CR dragons.

 

[Psion]

Around that level is when demons or other evil outsiders tend to rear their ugly heads in my games.

 

[Limper]

Around that level is when I let them start to hang themselves. Usually they have lists of things their character wants to do and most of the time what they want to do make the encounters write themselves barring that I use creatures with class levels.

 

[shilsen]

Goblins. Or, if I'm feeling really mean, kobolds. And no, I'm not kidding. God bless 3e and humanoids with class levels.

 

[Mark]

That game I ran in slot two of the last Chicago Gameday would be a good one for a four player 12th-level group.

 

[Pinotage]

A good combination of abilities in groups of 3 or 4 creatures, with or without class levels. To name two recent ones in my own game:

1) Elder Earth Elemental and a Drow Wizard 10
2) Deep Dwarf Cleric 7, Deep Dwarf Wizard 9, Babau x3, Invisible Stalker

I try to rotate between encounters that are particularly heavy in any area, e.g. magic heavy or combat heavy, but mostly to maintain a balance. I by far prefer to pit them against numerous lesser opponents rather than one big one.

Pinotage