Balancing encounters for a 6 player party - help!

[Whyareall]

Ok, so today, in the first encounter, I ran the 6 player, level 2 party against 3 wolves (CR 1 each). I guessed 1.5 times the number of monsters would be ok. But they slaughtered them, without expending a single resource.

As they've done this kind of thing before, on our 1st try of 3.5 (this was our second), (first with 6 CR 1/2 monsters, then with a CR 2 and a CR 1) I decided to put them against a CR 3 monster, a deinonychus. Dinosaur :: d20srd.org for stats.

It slaughtered them.

3 party members died, and because they were going so badly I ruled that it ate them the round after it killed them, and so drank the undead cleric's 3 potions of Inflict Light Wounds he was going to use for himself, had he not been brutally killed, which killed it. Then, due to RPing, the evil monk tried to run away to prevent being jailed (he had picked the pocket of the executioner (damn near derailing the campaign before the first quest) who went over to the ranger to demand what the hell he was doing in regard to the elf shooting through the rope that would have hanged the person on the gallows, who was innocent and loudly pleading that he was, which the ranger had realised was true by getting a nat 20 on a Sense Motive check. Anyway, the executioner let the monk travel with the party to try to get the stolen treasure back. Having realised that wasn't gonna happen, the monk fled) and the ranger gave chase. It ended with the monk out of breath, hiding, the ranger having to get close to Spot him, and those two trading blows when the ranger got too close and the monk attacked him, while the sorcerer tried to catch up with them.

So basically, how do I balance encounters for 6 PCs so that this NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN?

 

[udalrich]

A party of six at a given level is about as strong as a party of four one level higher, so you need to increase the difficulty of the encounters to compensate.

Your party is 50% larger than the standard, so you will generally want to increase the number of monster in the encounter by 50% to compensate. This works better increasing the level of the monsters for two reasons.

First, the extra strength of a larger party is because they can take more actions and have more options available. They can make six attacks per turn, which is more chances to hit and more possibly failed saves. Even a monster than can kill a party member in one turn will likely be killed by the party, because it can only take one action each round. Multiple foes generate more actions, which can both inflict more effects on the party and divide damage among party members (which helps them survive).

Secondly, a single higher level foe may have abilities that the party cannot overcome at their level, since the foe is intended to be fighting a higher level enemies.

For example, a bralani is a CR 6 outsider. As such, it should be difficult challenge for the party, but one they should (by CR calculations) be able to defeat. However, it has SR 17, which means that the spell casters won't be able to affect it most of the (rather than about half the time for a sixth level party). It also has fire and cold resistance 10 and electrical immunity, so many spell that get past the SR still won't damage it. Additionally it has DR 10/cold iron or evil, which the party almost certainly cannot bypass at second level, so the fighters will also be doing little or no damage to it. Add a 100 foot fly speed and the party will probably have trouble making attacks against it unless it chooses to come into melee.

Looking at the actual encounters, they were probably lucky against the wolves. That is equivalent to a EL 3 encounter for a standard party of 4. I'm suspecting that either the surprised the wolves or the encounter started at range. If the encounter started with six attacks from the party or a round or two of ranged attacks, the wolves were doomed. If not, did the wolves move to flank or attack the party members who were not wrapped in steel? Wolves are intelligent animals and should attack like a coordinated pack.

The deinonychus is a lesser example of the danger of a single, high level foe. It can basically always make 4 attacks around, either with a full attack or a charge and pounce. The three secondary attacks will likely miss a well-armored PC, but if it started on the rogue and the wizard (or rolled well), 1d8+2d3+2d4+10 is probably enough to drop a 2nd level player in one round.

 

[Whyareall]

Looking at the actual encounters, they were probably lucky against the wolves. That is equivalent to a EL 3 encounter for a standard party of 4. I'm suspecting that either the surprised the wolves or the encounter started at range. If the encounter started with six attacks from the party or a round or two of ranged attacks, the wolves were doomed. If not, did the wolves move to flank or attack the party members who were not wrapped in steel? Wolves are intelligent animals and should attack like a coordinated pack.

The wolves surprised the party, and even delayed in the surprise round to move to flank together, but due to the cleric's mad habit of grappling things and trying to shove potions down their throats (which I count as a touch attack with a -4 penalty), one of them couldn't move around very well.


Said cleric kept also trying to grapple the dinosaur (his player wanted a new character), which accounts for his death. And the fighter was just at the front of the line, so died to a full attack. And then the last healer, a druid, goes to... wait for it... loot their bodies. He was eaten the next round.

 

[billd91]

I would not recommend increasing the CR of individual creatures. What I would suggest is designing the encounter for a 4-PC party and generally doubling the number of creatures in the encounter... assuming the layout of the encounter area enables them to get into the fight.

 

[aboyd]

I mostly agree with billd91. The only exception I would add is that I think you *may* throw slightly higher CR enemies at a big party. However, I would qualify that by saying only slightly higher CR than normal, and I'd expect the DM to do a good job of inspecting the creature's abilities to make sure that it doesn't have some party-killing feature that low-level parties cannot overcome.

One way I've found to do this is to simply give humanoids a few levels of warrior or fighter. That way a single monster is stronger, but not with something scary like damage reduction or magical abilities that are difficult for low-level groups to beat. The monster is simply tougher.

If I know ahead of time what spells would be intimidating but not result in a TPK, I might assign a level or two of sorcerer to the creatures. I did this for the Sih'hel in the Castle Whiterock mini module. The party was stronger than expected, so I gave a few of the Sih'hel levels of sorcerer, and treated them sorta like tribal shamans. When the PCs showed up and started wiping everyone out, I had the sorcerers all unleash magic missiles. Since the party couldn't avoid the magic missiles, it was pretty scary for them to all take unavoidable damage under a barrage of missiles. However, it was low damage, and they killed off the Sih'hel quickly before any of the party members died.

Just remember, you want the combat to be surprising and fun and edgy, not monotonous, drawn out, and hopeless. Good luck!

 

[pawsplay]

To be honest, it sounds like the PCs kind of choked. I mean, come on, one CR 3 dinosaur? I've seen four person parties that can take one down. If the cleric wants to try to dose things with potions instead of just casting inflict light wounds, well... what can you do? Admittedly, Deino there has a nice charge attack, but it's going to be difficult to charge except on open ground... in which case they should see him coming.

I regularly used average party level +2 or +3 encounters against my players in groups of three or four, and they usually thrashed the monsters (and the exceptions tended to be when they underestimated their foes). My guys would probably have spotted the thing coming, dropped a grease under it as it attacked, then wasted it with ranged attacks. And these are not hardcore powergamers; one of my players is my wife, who was frequently nursing a newborn during the game.

Grappling with potions, looting your own fallen comrades, not blocking movement by full-attacking melee monsters... there is NOTHING you can do to stop a TPK from occuring again. The PCs are suicidal. You could probably use a weaker monster with similar tactics and still kill them.

 

[ValhallaGH]

one of my players is my wife, who was frequently nursing a newborn during the game.

I do believe that that is the most hardcore gaming story I have ever heard.

Congratulations on having your awesome spouse.

 

[Whyareall]

To be honest, it sounds like the PCs kind of choked. I mean, come on, one CR 3 dinosaur? I've seen four person parties that can take one down. If the cleric wants to try to dose things with potions instead of just casting inflict light wounds, well... what can you do? Admittedly, Deino there has a nice charge attack, but it's going to be difficult to charge except on open ground... in which case they should see him coming.

I regularly used average party level +2 or +3 encounters against my players in groups of three or four, and they usually thrashed the monsters (and the exceptions tended to be when they underestimated their foes). My guys would probably have spotted the thing coming, dropped a grease under it as it attacked, then wasted it with ranged attacks. And these are not hardcore powergamers; one of my players is my wife, who was frequently nursing a newborn during the game.

Grappling with potions, looting your own fallen comrades, not blocking movement by full-attacking melee monsters... there is NOTHING you can do to stop a TPK from occuring again. The PCs are suicidal. You could probably use a weaker monster with similar tactics and still kill them.

At the time when the looting of fallen comrades was occurring, it was clear we weren't gonna win. We were in a cave, with the dinosaur blocking the exit, the fighter and cleric were already down, and one of the characters had cast Cause Fear on it, allowing him, the ranger and the monk to escape. The druid stayed behind to loot the corpses, even though I told him in no uncertain terms that the dinosaur would come back, and he would die. And yes, the cleric and druid wanted to reroll, so were suicidal. The fighter just got a bad hit with a full attack.

 

[Jhaelen]

So basically, how do I balance encounters for 6 PCs so that this NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN?

You don't. There's no failproof way to design encounters. Live and learn. Experience will help, but there are no guarantees - and that's a good thing!

 

[frankthedm]

Watching damage output will be a primary concern at low level. Pounce-O'matic meat grinders and two handed weapon wielders will crush characters if met early before HP accumulate.