As a player/DM do you prefer one powerful monster or many weaker ones?

[Kelleris]

I prefer to use one or two powerful monsters, with unusual conditions to give them more tactical flexibility and avoid the "accidental cakewalk" factor as much as possible - randomly fluctuating portals bringing in neutral creartures, innocent bystanders, a split party, that sort of thing. I like this both because it's easier to run one monster and make the combat flavorful, and because I like players to come up with creative spell and ability uses for me to adjudicate ("You want to use the sorcerer's web spell as a trampoline to get up to the dragon? Okay...").

I've been trying to run larger groups lately, though, but it goes a bit against the grain.

 

[Tuzenbach]

3,267 Kobolds should do the trick. We'll see what eight, 10th level characters are REALLY WORTH. LoL

 

[MerricB]

My preferred encounter is with a powerful foe with many lesser minions (sword-fodder).

The sword fodder are just tough enough to delay the PCs long enough that the Big Bad can do a few interesting things. With spellcasters, such a tactic is essential, I feel.

Cheers!

 

[Thanee]

I use both, either on their own or mixed and matched.

A single powerful opponent needs some tricks to divide the party's attention away from himself, since usually fighting multiple high-powered PCs is a pretty bad way for one NPC. Or the one opponent needs a considerably high defense.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Adrienne]

I'm a newbie-ish GM who's been running a 3.0/3.5 game for about six months, and my sense of tactics is developing pretty sluggishly. For a while, leery of accidentally killing characters, I've erred on the side of lots of weak antagonists. This worked okay, but was getting boring because the party sorcerer frequently wins initiative and torches half or more of the mooks before they even get a shot at the group. The most recent fight I actually ran was a gauth beholder with two ettercap minions, and it worked great for me. The ettercaps' web and poison abilities meant that the party had to devote some attention to them, and the gauth's mobility meant that they couldn't just pile on it in melee. So, I'm liking the approach of a boss-type with weaker sidekicks.

 

[S'mon]

A mix is best. Problem with single powerful creatures, as has been said, is that they will kill PCs far more often than a group of weaker creatures at same EL. So fights with the single BBEG, especially if he's several EL over party level, tend to be either easy wins for the party or humiliating defeats with lots of permanently-dead PCs. Rarely a TPK though, at least in my campaign, some surviving PCs always flee.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

A mixture of both is appropriate for any campaign. IMHO there are more flaws with running single large creatures than running lots of low level creatures. The big one that usually comes up is that magic is usually either really powerful or really lame when there is only one opponent.

A lot of spells tend to disable a single target in some fashion. Either entangle them, blind them, or stun them. If these spells work against a single oponent, than the combat is lame. If they never work, playing a spell caster gets really frustrating really quickly. There doesn't seem to be a happy middle ground either, so it's tough.

In the last game I played in regularly, there was way too much of the latter. We would be up against a handful of foes all of whom were meant to hit the AC monster of the party, overcome the spell reistance of the high level monk, challange the uber optimized caster in landing any of his spells, be hard to hit by the uber combat monster - A generalist was useless, and the combats were incredibly tedious. Roll to hit, check the blink, the fortification, the spell resistance, the energy resistance, the uber save, the damage reduction, then they cast heal as a free action on their turn. :\

Fighting a horde of weinies might get boring eventually, but boy would I like to try it for a while....

As a DM, I try to hit a middle ground since I don't want to make things as bad as I had them, but I feel for my characters when the majority of the time is me rolling for everyone else. If the oponents are true weinies, I use some shortcuts to determine the effectiveness of mass missle fire, but still.

Kahuna Burger

 

[D+1]

I prefer many stronger ones. Actually, it is a truism that single monsters for ANY encounter tend to be less effective for all purposes. PC's can gang up on single monsters and use highly direct tactics. It makes for shorter, less interesting fights than those with multiple opponents. Multiple opponents tends to mean longer, more tactically varied, and overall more memorable fights.

For example, I always avoid pitting the PC's against the sole BBEG as the climactic battle. It's never as good, never as satisfying, as the one just BEFORE that against the last of all his minions collected together: all the fighters, mages, assassins, and monsters of varying sizes, abilities, and general threats. Better that they fight the BBEG with an assortment of bodyguards and dregs of his crumbled power structure. Even though they may go down fast, with minimal effect against the PC's it makes the encounter itself more interesting because of their presence and participation.

 

[d20Dwarf]

There's a problem in 3e that most of the big bad creatures are both tough and devastatingly effective at destroying PCs. I often long for monsters that are tough as hell but don't have attack bonuses of +30 with 4 claws, 2 rakes, and a bite. That way the PCs can have an epic battle and get knocked around without fear of dying from every single hit.

 

[S'mon]

There's a problem in 3e that most of the big bad creatures are both tough and devastatingly effective at destroying PCs. I often long for monsters that are tough as hell but don't have attack bonuses of +30 with 4 claws, 2 rakes, and a bite. That way the PCs can have an epic battle and get knocked around without fear of dying from every single hit.

I agree w this - 3e PCs lack the resilience of earlier editions when dealing with enemies, as damage seems to increase at least in line with hp. I suppose one can construct NPCs who have lots of hp & good saves but weak offense, they seem to make among the best foes. The NPC who killed 3 PCs in a round (Harecules from Lost City of Gaxmoor) was a bane of my campaign.