Challenging my high-lvl group (NPCs and monsters; my players shouldn't read this!)

[Greybar]

Right now I use a 4x6 card for everyone in the combat (including PCs). At minimum the card has the character name and their current initiative score. I then sort the carts by initiative and walk through that. It greatly reduces the "you missed me problem"... reduce not eliminate since I still manage to do it sometimes somehow.

If I have more time, the cards also get BAB, AC, and hit points. Otherwise that info is on separate sheets. I also try to make brief tactical notes for myself ahead of time (okay: Unholy Blight at distance, then Blasphemy, then close to combat.)

The biggest problem is intelligently using the complex NPCs that you refer to. For the last little bit I simply swore off using more than one complex NPC at a time. It was just so frustrating to after the combat realized that I never used a smite or a spelllike power... or worse a Damage Reduction. So much easier when the rest of the cast simply are beefy fighters for which you really only need to decide whether or not they are using Power Attack. But I think the PCs like it better when the NPC is clever and constantly shifting with attack/defense/spells/shapeshift - more of a fun challenge.

I've got a high probability of multiple complex characters interacting in upcoming sessions, so I'm eager to hear more from others.

john

 

[Benben]

Get an assistant.

I tag-team DM where one of us does the talking and the other plays logic DM. It's allowed us to handle some complicated combats. You can split the complicated NPCs between you and your assistants which really helps with spellcasters.

 

[MerakSpielman]

You could also optimize NPCs to do just one thing, and that thing really well:

A fighter/monk optimized for Whirlwind attack.
A spellcaster min-maxed for Necromancy and who only casts necromatic spells.
A rogue with min-maxed hide and move silently scores (annoying when True Seeing can't even tell you where those damn arrows are coming from). You should be able to get them into the 40's easy.

PC, your players seem to feel challanged pretty often, but recently you've been having a bit of trouble getting them to bleed properly. They seem to finish exciting and complicated battles with few serious injuries (like the fight with the dragon). You're generally avoiding the high-powered monsters in the MM in favor of really complicated-to-run NPCs, supported by hordes of inconsiquential 1CR followers. It might be more effective to use a handful of powerful (CR 15+) monsters, all of the same kind so you don't have to worry about complicated strategies. For example, you might try something simple but nasty- like a whole troop (5 to 10 individuals) of stone golems (if you need a twist, disguise them via the mundane skill (to avoid detection) to look like stone giants) (if you want to be a rat-bastard, in an anti-magic field).

 

[Spatzimaus]

I second Benben's suggestion. The last time I was in a huge-group campaign (12 players plus followers), the DM got an assistant DM to play various NPCs in social encounters. When in combat, he handed one or two of the "unique" enemies to the assistant. So, while the main DM was trying to keep everything else straight, all he had to manage were the unskilled rabble. It really helped; the assistant had plenty of time to come up with neat strategies that made the most of their abilities, so the powerful enemies were still challenging.

Besides, it's not like you have a shortage of people on these boards who'd volunteer for the job. And, it helps if you're worried that your players know you too well... who knows what strategies a total stranger can come up with?

 

[WizarDru]

Well, for my game, we handle it differently. It really depends on your situation and who the NPCs are. In my game, I have all dependent NPCs attached to groups, and controlled by one player (with the possibility of DM override at any time).

To wit:
The 21st level Rog/Shadowdancer has three shadows. While each is a separate person, they all move on her initiative, and act under her control. They are her responsibility, and she maintains them whenever possible. Collectively, they are referred to as Team Shadow.
The cleric, on the other hand, has two Paladins as cohorts, with their mounts, and any creatures he may summon. Collectively, they are now team Sun.
The Druid, with his animal companions and summoned elementals and celestial beasties is collectively Team Earth.

For non-significant NPCs, they are reduced to flavor text, essentially, unless they hbave a way to influence the combat.

For powerful NPCs, it becomes more difficult. At higher levels, I find it becomes much less important to worry about all but the most powerful NPCs, as they can't significantly affect a battle. A 17th level NPC isn't that dangeorus to a 20th+ level party, but is terrifying to a 5th-level NPC.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Good analysis. A few possibilities:

1. It's about the children. Agar is the heir of a powerful wizard/cleric/whatever (if he's not on the family tree, perhaps Agar's great great grandmother was his illegitimate daughter but her illigitimacy was kept secret) who banished a group of devils from somewhere they want to be (probably not the prime since the pit fiend has shown up there but maybe she's just an agent) hundreds if not thousands of years ago. Only the heir of that whatever is able to undo the banishment. Agar's son or daughter would be that heir and through Agar's wife they hope to turn him to their side. Or alternatively, they just want to make sure that Agar actually begets an heir (sooner or later they'll turn someone in the line of descent but it doesn't have to be right now) so that someone is able to break the curse.

1b. They could also have been bound to serve the whatever and his descendents in the long forgotten past and they hope that Agar's son/daughter will release them from that service.

1c. Maybe Agar isn't the whatever's heir yet. Maybe the devils' agents still have to kill off a half-dozen people who are ahead of Agar in the line of succession.

1d. Maybe it's not about the children. Maybe the devils will try an alternate/nontraditional wedding vow/arrangement that makes Agar's wife into his heir should he pass away, thus granting her the ability to release the devils.

1e. Maybe the devils specifically wanted to avoid option 1d because Agar's wife will be a devil after all and would make sure to extract a big price from the rest of them once she had the power to release them--that's why the devils want a nonstandard wedding arrangement that specifically stipulates that she is NOT Agar's heir. On the other hand, she wants the traditional arrangement where she is his heir. Or, alternately, she asks for a stipulation that he will release her if imprisoned or something like that and attempts to convince Agar to release only her and then to use him to negotiate a heavy price for the release of the other devils.

2. It's about the children. In this case, the devils want mortals that they can control. Perhaps some Greyhawk-like pact bars them from acting directly on the Prime but agents with human blood can do so.

2a. Maybe the deep magics of the world stipulate that those of legitimate mortal descent can operate on the prime (or do something else the devils want done) at will. Perhaps it also states that those of fiendish nature can be bound through magic if the true name given to them by their mother/father is known (this wouldn't work if there are lots of legitimate half-fiends in your world but would if there aren't). In this way, the devils would be able to compel compliance with their schemes on the prime through use of planar binding spells.

3. Maybe Agar's marriage and children are just the first step. There's an ancient prophecy that the endless blood war will cease when one legitimately born of both demon and devil leads one side to victory. The "devil" that Agar is supposed to marry is really a captured succubus. The devils then plan to marry their child to (or one of his legitimate descendants) to a devil and come up with the leader prophesied to bring them victory.

3a. Since this is supposed to be particular to Agar, maybe there's already devilish or demonic blood in his family.

3b. Or maybe it's a celestial descended fiend who will win the blood war and Agar's great granddaddy was an Aasimar.

4. Maybe it's about the marriage. There's some prophecy or other that Agar will destroy or conquer something (maybe a layer of hell), and that only his family will be spared. So, if the devils become family, they get to live.

4a. Maybe Agar's great ancestor didn't bind or banish the devils but created a weapon that would destroy them (or maybe all fiends or maybe all outsiders)--only those of his family would be spared (he was a half-fiend/tiefling/half celestial/aasimar).

4b. Maybe instead of sparing his family, it spares those under his family's protection. And in the marriage ceremony, he pledges his protection to his in laws (or is somehow construed to do so).

Anyway, food for thought.

Been thinking about Agar a bit. Nothing brilliant (or even interesting) really springs to mind.:

The demons have spent a lot of time and effort to get someone married to Agar. They were willing to wait…. Demons don’t do waiting as a matter of course. In fact I have difficulty seeing them wait unless they absolutely had to. So the demons have little power over the situation. And again it’s marriage, not control, not breeding but they are specifically having him –MARRY- a demon.

So to reverse engineer an answer:
*It’s specifically something about our favorite insane halfing arcanist. In the many years since his birth they could -easily- have found another high level alienist (or wizard) or halfing or what have you. So if they’re fulfilling a prophesy it’s linked very closely to either Agar’s family or his village.
*The demons don’t want to control agar, or rather, if they did there are many other easier ways of accomplishing this goal.
*It’s not about children or breeding something.
*Demons don’t marry themselves. Marrying is a mortal (or at least a prime) thing. So they are probably fulfilling some requirement related to the mortal world.

Marrying is basically joining together two families. It is possible that these demons are trying to join a mortal family to fulfill some sort of prophesy, or requirement.

The only thing that really seems like it melds together all of these threads (unless I’ve made a mistake) is some sort of prophesy or iron-clad-magically-enforced-rule. Anything else could have been circumvented more directly. And unless something pretty dangerous is preventing the direct route then I see a Pit Fiend as being pretty direct.

not really a cool answer but maybe this will set a spark in somebody's head.

 

[Spatzimaus]

I've been thinking more about the Agar thing. It's just too typical that he's the Chosen One, descendant of some great person, yadda yadda yadda. What I'd love to see is it have nothing to do with HIM. The marriage was arranged when he was a toddler, after all. This is going to be a bit long.

********
The Devils and Demons think long-term. Setting up plans that take centuries to come to fruition is nothing big to them. These Devils decide they might eventually need to grab more of the Outlands, or attack Sigil, or who knows what. They may not even know, they just plan for contingencies; they saw Divinations that said a time of great upheaval would be coming at around this point (Imbindarla's death), so they were setting up plans. Of course their timing was off, but those divinations were hundreds of years old, and they didn't miss by much. When the Modrons started marching early they figured it was all starting, and accelerated their plans (pushing for the marriage earlier than they had intended, among other things).

So, they figure that having a village in the Outlands full of people friendly to their cause is a good thing, right? Enter Agar's hometown. It's picked as a target for "acquisition" for reasons of position, resources, etc., nothing to do with Agar individually. If the Blood War spills over into the other planes (and Sigil) as a result of all the big disasters, they hoped to have a nice forward base already prepared.

The first step in the acquisition was to get some influence in the town. Since the Halflings here favor arranged marriages, they decide to find the richest, most powerful family in town that's gullible enough to agree to an arranged marriage without knowing the bride's family. Enter Agar's idiot father; he's not the richest man in town, but he was fairly influential and extremely gullible.
He agreed to an engagement to the daughter of a merchant family that had just arrived in town, after they offered to give him a cut of their business. Over the years he's made a nice bit of money from this his share in this import/export business (not knowing that his business partners are actually fiends), which has given the fiends even more influence in the town. Agar's father has also helped several other new arrivals (more Fiends) set up businesses in town, be elected to office, and so on.

The culmination of this effort was to be the marriage to Agar. In their original plan, he'd just have been a rich Halfling boy who wouldn't know the truth until he saw his kids were Half-Fiends. By that point, they'd have their claws (figuratively) so deep into the town that it'd be impossible to get them out.
What they didn't count on was his magical talent; it isn't very common in Halflings, after all, and casters of his level are even more rare. It was bad enough when he was wandering the planes by himself; he kept increasing in power, even though he was going a bit nuts. Then he joined the DoD, and who'd have thought he'd have as friends several living saints who chat with deities on a daily basis?
So, the devils realized that there's zero chance of him making it through the wedding without realizing what the bride was. Instead of allowing a public scene (err, brawl) at the wedding, they chose to tell him the truth beforehand, point out that he has no alternative thanks to the contract, and hope that he realizes it's in his family's best interests to play along. It wasn't their original plan, it's just damage control.

Although, I realized as I was writing this, it's too similar to what happened to Alix, and retreading old plotlines is bad. But you get the basic idea: make the plot have nothing to do with Agar as an individual or his family line as a whole, make it just be that when he was a toddler, his family was simply the most convenient mark in a more widespread plan. Besides, it was fun to write all that.

 

[Capellan]

Another option to all these ideas re: Agar is that the fiends want to marry one of their own to him precisely because he is friends with the DoD. That's a whole lot of firepower he can call upon. Firepower they can sue.

Why would the DoD help fiends? Well, it's a bit trite, but there's always the 'enemy of my enemy' routine. After all, in the campaign, a god just died. The very reality of the universe is in a state of flux: repercussions are being felt across all planes. Including those that are beyond mortal knowledge.

What if, somewhere beyond, things are stirring. Nightmarish things, more alien and terrible than mere fiends could ever hope to be. Creatures whose mere presence on the mortal plane would cause the very earth to bleed, the seas to boil, and the sky to rupture.

These things are now emerging into the home planes of the fiends, destroying everything they touch. Entire worlds have been lost already. More will soon fall.

Sooner or later, they will come to Spira.

Fortunately, decades ago, a powerful fiendish seer foretold this calamity - not the specific details, but the fact that it would occur. Plans were laid.

At the same time as the Pit Fiend visited Agar, dozens of other powerful individuals were being confronted with similar contracts. Iron-clad. No escape clause. Unless, of course, they were to help with the fiends' "little problem" ...


I like this idea (but then, I would ) for a couple of reasons: first, it strikes me that, in the aftermath of the battle with the White Kingdom, a new and exotic - yet also familiar - location might be a nice change of pace. After the alien environment of the underdark, other planes - strange, but in different ways to the subterranean world, and with elements of familiarity - might be a good venue to adventure.

Second, defeating the ghouls will mean that the DoD have saved the world - again (how many times is it, btw? Just the comet and this? Or more?). Any new threat either has to be completely different, or have bigger repercussions (or both). And it has to have power that is almost beyond reckoning.


(Apologies to Lovecraft for the obvious rip of 'things man was not meant to know', but when a concept works, it works).

 

[Greybar]

Just a vote that I love Capellan's idea. It also potentially lets Agar's player be front-and-center not just for the marriage but for the next arc of the campaign. I don't know about Piratecats' group, but I like to keep different people centric for different parts of the story - everyone gets spotlight time.

Of course, spotlight time isn't always healthy for the character...

john

 

[Hecabus]

Be Movie Evil

Have the wedding be as it seems, but work in a loophole that would allow one of the others in the DoD to sub in for him. For instance, maybe in the Halfling culture if the Groom cannot or will not marry his betrothed a volunteer or brother, even a brother-in-arms, may step in to marry the fiend in his place. This will give a good chance for roleplaying and a chance for Agar to skip his destiny. As an added bonus you can trick someone else into accepting the marriage, which will be the real trigger to the prophecy. I am sure that Nolin would agree to a marriage if it meant saving a friend. It would be particularly great if Nolin did agree, consimate the marriage (mandatory in most cultures) and the left his wife to continue adventuring leaving his unborn child to grow up fatherless.

I also second the notion of including the Modrons march angle, just to taunt the Dod once again.