Balancing 13th level combats
- Thread starter River
- Start date
the Jester
Legend
Well, if the spellcasters can unleash all their guns every fight of course they'll pull more than their weight. The system is balanced so an "average" fight (four persons of level x vs. an encounter of EL x) uses about 20-25% of the party's resources. Thus, the assumption goes, you'll have more than one fight between rest periods (not always true, but should be often enough that using all the casters' spells in one fight is a bad idea).
One ambush when the casters are out of spells will change your assessment of the fighters' capabilities drastically. Better yet, one session where you're attacked time after time without opportunity to rest will make the casters seem like the fifth wheels.
Finally, as others have noted, if you're always fighting other parties, you aren't meeting the variety of encounters necessary to let all the different classes shine. Clerics and paladins do best against undead (or outsiders), for instance, and fighters are downright essential against creatures with really high SR (relative to the party's casters' levels).
One ambush when the casters are out of spells will change your assessment of the fighters' capabilities drastically. Better yet, one session where you're attacked time after time without opportunity to rest will make the casters seem like the fifth wheels.
Finally, as others have noted, if you're always fighting other parties, you aren't meeting the variety of encounters necessary to let all the different classes shine. Clerics and paladins do best against undead (or outsiders), for instance, and fighters are downright essential against creatures with really high SR (relative to the party's casters' levels).
While the high gp amounts for PCs looks bizarre at first glance, it does help ensure that characters without supernatural abilities (fighters, rogues, etc) can remain competitive at high levels with those that have them. You do 1d8+8 damage, you say? Get a +6 belt of strength and whack a couple of energy enchantments on your sword, and that should make it a slightly more attractive 1d8+11+2d6. Not able to make DC 23 saves? A +5 cloak of resistance should help matters. Can't hit the flying mage? Winged boots. Etc.
River said:
Then your archers aren't doing a good job of positioning themselves. Just move out to 70' or so range, that will put them out of charge range for most creatures. They clearly need some sort of enhanced movement and there ought to be some enchantments to reduce the odds of sundering a magic item. Personally, I've always hated it when DMs take the easy way out of just sundering the PC's items at the drop of a hat.
Flying boots, other flying items or a mount that flies work well for keeping archers out of HTH range. With a mount you even get the benefit of being able to get full moves in (including a run or charge, at penalties) AND still getting a full atack action. A griffon (cohort) works pretty well at the levels you are at, particularly if you can get it advanced in HD or have class levels added to it (they are inteligent enough to take levels, I'd suggest barbarian). Also toss a saddle of expeditous retreat on it and the save enhancement items are pretty cheap (to help increase it's survivability). Just make sure you have good ride skills and make sure you get a masterwork saddle.
randomling
First Post
Just to add a random comment (it's my nature, after all...)
I'm running a sporadic campaign with 13th level (now 14th, actually!) characters. There are 6 of them so I figured that EL 15 or 16 might be a reasonable challenge for them.
They blew through it without batting an eye.
It took EL 19 (12 Colossal zombies) to do them any serious damage. 2 characters were killed - the evil, dominated fighters they'd snatched from a previous set of bad guys.
A 13th-level spellcaster is a *huge* deal (and we have 3 of them)! Wizard, druid, bard. Even the bard is formidable with magic.
I'm running a sporadic campaign with 13th level (now 14th, actually!) characters. There are 6 of them so I figured that EL 15 or 16 might be a reasonable challenge for them.
They blew through it without batting an eye.
It took EL 19 (12 Colossal zombies) to do them any serious damage. 2 characters were killed - the evil, dominated fighters they'd snatched from a previous set of bad guys.
A 13th-level spellcaster is a *huge* deal (and we have 3 of them)! Wizard, druid, bard. Even the bard is formidable with magic.
randomite said:
At high levels, situational modifiers and special abilities can have a huge effect on the outcome of a fight. Since just about everyone will be able to fly, teleport and make ranged attacks, a creature that can't do any of these is little more than a target. If it has lots of HD, that just means it's a big target.
IMC, we currently have not many spellcasters. One campaign has a level 11 paladin (with 3 or 4 levels of that in a non-spellcasting Paladin-Prestige Class) and a level 11 bard (mainly using magic for healing, performance-enhancements and some utility). Needless to say that in that campaign the combats are decided by swordplay and archery, not sorcery.
It causes longer and - imho - more cinematic fights. No save or die spells there, nor 1.5 round fights.
In the other campaign the level 14 sorceress is not dominating in combat due to a lack of diversity in her attack spells (apart from magic missile every attack spell is a fire d6-dmg type spell, no save or die spells, and not much of the powerful utiliy of a standard sorcerer (alter self instead of polymorph self or fly, invisibility instead of improved invisibility, no haste) as well as enviromental reasons (arcane casters are considered heretics that should be burned at the stake in the country the party is living in) and roleplaying reasons (the character recently became a genie bound in a bottle in the possession of another PC).
Should the DM fail to take her limitations into consideration battles would be short though - against non-fire-protected or magic resitant enemies on an open battlefield with free line of sight and no cover the opponents would be toast in short order.
It causes longer and - imho - more cinematic fights. No save or die spells there, nor 1.5 round fights.
In the other campaign the level 14 sorceress is not dominating in combat due to a lack of diversity in her attack spells (apart from magic missile every attack spell is a fire d6-dmg type spell, no save or die spells, and not much of the powerful utiliy of a standard sorcerer (alter self instead of polymorph self or fly, invisibility instead of improved invisibility, no haste) as well as enviromental reasons (arcane casters are considered heretics that should be burned at the stake in the country the party is living in) and roleplaying reasons (the character recently became a genie bound in a bottle in the possession of another PC).
Should the DM fail to take her limitations into consideration battles would be short though - against non-fire-protected or magic resitant enemies on an open battlefield with free line of sight and no cover the opponents would be toast in short order.
JacktheRabbit
Explorer
Well that is the problem right there. Your encounters sound like they are tailormade for the spellcasters to exel in. There needs to be more fights and often the fights need to include waves of smaller foes. That will weaken the spellcasters heavily and allow the melee types really exel.
River said:
Numion
First Post
My problem at high-level game are archers. 22nd level Order of the Bow initiate and 21st level cleric archer. Their attack bonuses are just outrageous, starting at aroun +50 on the first attacks. Only way the PsyWarrior or the Dwarven cleric can match up is with stonegiant forms and triple-empowered bull's strengths..
And I don't even allow bow and arrows +'ses to stack. It would be insanity if I did. It already is insanity.
The order of the bow dude is shooting for the Master of the Bow PrC which was in the Epic Dragon magazine.. wis bonuses to damage with bow
And I don't even allow bow and arrows +'ses to stack. It would be insanity if I did. It already is insanity.
The order of the bow dude is shooting for the Master of the Bow PrC which was in the Epic Dragon magazine.. wis bonuses to damage with bow
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