Balancing encounters for a 6 player party - help!

[aboyd]

Yep. 5th level wizards, 6th level sorcerers -- at that point, they gain 3rd level spells, and that's a deal-breaker for lower-level PCs. If you have a 5th level wizard NPC and he's got his first Fireball spell, he's going to bring all the PCs down by an average of 17 hit points in the first round. So even if there are 6 3rd-level PCs, odds are good that in the first round, only 4 are still standing, and it'll be pretty desperate for the remaining 4 to endure subsequent rounds of battle. All the PCs will be close to dead after just round 1.

Or, another angle: maybe that wizard doesn't have Fireball, but does have another 3rd level spell, Fly. At this point, he's dropping rocks onto the PCs heads and they'll have very limited ability to get up near him and enter melee. While the wizard is beatable, he renders the melee types obsolete or much less effective for the course of the battle, and thus it's much more difficult to win.

 

[Persiflage]

Hey, I'm new to DMing d20 system. And said grapple-happy dude was playing an Apothecary,

What's that? I mean, obviously I know what an apothecary is, but I'm not familiar with it as a class in D&D... there are so damn many these days

(could make Necromantic spells into potions),

Anyone who can cast Necromantic spells can make them into potions by the simple expedient of taking the Brew Potion feat.

and didn't get a syringe feature til level 7, rendering that particular class feature useless without some house-ruling,

A syringe feature? This class sounds... odd.

and plus i looked frigging EVERYWHERE for something about forcefully ingested potions and didn't find any,

You didn't find any rules on that because it isn't supposed to be possible; the section in the SRD that I quoted in my earlier post makes that clear. I mean, seriously, why would it be possible? How are you going to force someone to drink a freakin' pint of liquid in the middle of combat? Are we talking about a really vicious curly straw or what?

It sounds like you've got a whole load of house-rules going on before you or your group have got a grip on the actual rules, and I suspect that this is why things are getting away from you.

All the advice people on the thread have given you is good advice, but I suggest that you need to worry a bit more about the fundamental problem first: to whit, that you and your group don't know the rules of the game. House rules are great, I'm all in favour of house rules, but you have to know what the rules are before you can override them or you'll end up playing Magical Princess Tea Party.

plus he wanted to reroll, plus the sorcerer had bad spell selection, plus my players are goddamn lazy and haven't opened the PHB that I gave them, and all they know of the rules is what I've taught (in game), and I'm not the best teacher, to put it lightly, with the exception of the evil monk, and yes, they really don't have a clue. I have to direct the combat half the time.

Then you've really answered your own question. CR is the least of your worries right now.

I would suggest starting over (or at least putting the current campaign on hold) and holding a couple of "arena" sessions. Start with 1st-level characters and 1st-level challenges on a fixed battleground, and use the time to learn how combat works. You can make it interesting, by all means, but the point will be to try different combat scenarios (grappling, charging, difficult terrain, basic spellcasting approaches) and learn the rules as you go.

I've done this for novice groups before and it has worked very well. Get them to build their characters and wipe the slate clean after every encounter: all hp's restored, all spells recovered, all ammunition and other equipment unused, etc. If it helps, you can always use a flavourful background. Maybe an Adventurers' Training Camp run by a powerful wizard who's essentially running the party through Holodeck simulations by the use of powerful illusions.

Meh, just a suggestion

 

[Whyareall]

They could make Necromancy spells into potions, and only into potions. They couldn't cast them. As many Necromancy spells are offensive, use a syringe, inject an enemy with the potion, and you've just cast a Necromancy spell on them.

I would suggest starting over (or at least putting the current campaign on hold) and holding a couple of "arena" sessions. Start with 1st-level characters and 1st-level challenges on a fixed battleground, and use the time to learn how combat works. You can make it interesting, by all means, but the point will be to try different combat scenarios (grappling, charging, difficult terrain, basic spellcasting approaches) and learn the rules as you go.

I've tried. They don't get immersed, which is all that keeps them paying attention half the time.

 

[pawsplay]

Hey, thanks! I never really thought of anything but just using monsters out of the MM, and maybe statting up a villain.

And does anyone know what the CR of a PC is? Is it just the ECL?

Technically, the CR of one character with a PC class is their level. It's not their ECL; some ECL races don't justify the same bump in CR (e.g. drow have +2 ECL, but CR is just level + 1).

 

[aboyd]

What's that? I mean, obviously I know what an apothecary is, but I'm not familiar with it as a class in D&D...

I just searched for it and it's not appearing in any of the main books from WotC. Maybe it's a splat book from a third party. In any case, it sounds very much not playtested at all, because...

A syringe feature? This class sounds... odd.

...of this. I'm not sure that syringes are a tool I'd necessarily even have in the period of time I usually emulate in my games. But beyond that, a class that relies on injecting someone in combat is stupid just in concept alone. I mean, the idea of someone running into melee, people attacking with swords and axes, and runs up, grabs an arm, finds a vein, and squirts the poison in fully is absurd. To me, and maybe this is just me, it sounds like the kind of thing a kid would dream up after playing a combat medic in an online game.

To do such a thing in my game, I'd require the PC to initiate a grapple. This would, I suspect, be thwarted most of the time by the AOO which causes most grapples to fail. But if the PC got past that, I'd require another round for a pin. So, more grapple checks. Then and only then could the player try the injection, which would require -- you guessed it -- another grapple check.

So the apothecary would need to be well armored or highly nimble just to avoid all the opening AOOs that he/she is exposed to. Then the apothecary would need to be incredibly strong and probably heavy on feats that help with grapples, just to keep succeeding on all the checks that are required.

I suppose if the apothecary could pull it off, it would be cool -- a man rushes into armed combat with only a shot, tackles a combatant, holds him down and finds a vein while the enemy is punching, squirming, and generally resisting and manages to forcibly inject the enemy with poison. That's pretty impressive.

It's just that to do something that impressive, that logic-defying, I would require pretty realistic checks. I wouldn't just give it to the player, even at the higher levels the OP is talking about.

I'm all in favour of house rules, but you have to know what the rules are before you can override them or you'll end up playing Magical Princess Tea Party.

I think they're already at that point. I could be wrong.

 

[Whyareall]

I think they're already at that point. I could be wrong.

I make one rule so that one player's class can get its basic premise before level 7, and I don't realise at the time that some Large creatures are 2x1, not 2x2 (messing up my perception of its size), and suddenly I'm not playing D&D?

By your logic as I see it, 4e is as far removed from D&D as football is. I could be wrong.

 

[Whyareall]

Double post. Internet explorer's being buggier than a cheap motel. And ofc, they won't put Firefox on the uni computers.

 

[Jhaelen]

I make one rule so that one player's class can get its basic premise before level 7, and I don't realise at the time that some Large creatures are 2x1, not 2x2 (messing up my perception of its size), and suddenly I'm not playing D&D?

By your logic as I see it, 4e is as far removed from D&D as football is. I could be wrong.

Since I have no clue what you are talking about, your game must be similar to football

So, is this apothecary a class you invented? What kind of campaign setting are you using? Maybe something in the victorian age? I get a vaguely Call-of-Cthulhu-esque vibe from what you've written.

 

[Whyareall]

Since I have no clue what you are talking about, your game must be similar to football

So, is this apothecary a class you invented? What kind of campaign setting are you using? Maybe something in the victorian age? I get a vaguely Call-of-Cthulhu-esque vibe from what you've written.

Well, originally tried WoW RPG, but one of the players was extremely anal-retentive about the 'lore' that was broken (for example, the -existence of hand crossbows-). So I said fine, we'll play 3.5, but people can keep their characters if they want, and not have to roll up new ones. Apothecary is a path of the Healer class.