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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Design Debate: 13th-level PCs vs. 6- to 8-Encounter Adventuring Day
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<blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 6862164" data-attributes="member: 6785785"><p>[MENTION=5834]Celtavian[/MENTION] I fully understand finding useful tactics, I find that to be a fun aspect of my game. But I am not on a search for the perfect collection of proven tactics, which is what it sounds like your group is doing. Don't they find it boring to constantly be playing the same tactics every encounter? Sure, I suppose in one campaign the devilsight warlock could be player by Mike instead of Tim, but that only changes things up so much. As a group, it sounds like at some point you guys will have a set party composition and then no one will ever deviate from that composition for any reason. </p><p></p><p>I think that's why folks are saying you need to vary up the encounters a bit. It seems to me you either need to impose some restrictions at the start of the campaign that would limit the player choices and force some different choices. I don't know if that would fly with your group, though...so if that's not an option, then you need to do something else to challenge them, which would basically mean you need to incorporate elements that take away their advantages or add more complications, or that favor the enemies. </p><p></p><p>Regarding the demon warband....I would think that any Marilith would recognize a group of powerful mortals compared to easy fodder. So even drunk on bloodlust of easy slaughter, I would see her reining in her troops rather than leading a foolish charge against the "mere mortals". Maybe have a couple of the troops charge foolishly and have the PCs slaughter them, and then have the rest of the enemies act with tact. </p><p></p><p>Your PCs never ever ever act without tact. If you limit their enemies in this way, that's a huge swing toward the PCs. </p><p></p><p>And the demonic warband is certainly a viable concept. But "demonic" is a catch all phrase covering just about every level of the game. The squad you described sounded pretty capable. But if they were not, then maybe beef it up. Have a balor and two mariliths, and then the secondary things like vrocks and hezrou and so on. There's going to be a composition you can come up with that would be an appropriate challenge for them without having to alter stats or rely on environmental aspects. </p><p></p><p>Even better, have them lay waste to the demon warband. Those demons simply get sent back to their home plane. They report what happened....and their unique demon boss then spends some time scrying the PCs and finding out about them in other more mundane ways. After some time, he sends a group of demons designed to specifically target and eliminate the PCs. Provide them with some gear that will allow them to treat the PCs the way the PCs treat every encounter. </p><p></p><p>That will likely break the game in the other direction since you have any and all tools at your disposal, while the PCs are bound by class, race, and what you choose to grant them. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>No not really, you're probably right. However, I don't use the encounter difficulty guidelines at all, and we long ago abandoned XP in favor of a more milestone based leveling system. So it's probably easier for me to make changes like that because I don't worry about all that stuff. I just want to challenge my players. </p><p></p><p>However, I would likely plan that kind of thing ahead. Or at least the possibility of it....see how the first two rounds go, and then if it's heavily in the PCs favor, have these additional 3 demons show up. That kind of thing.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="hawkeyefan, post: 6862164, member: 6785785"] [MENTION=5834]Celtavian[/MENTION] I fully understand finding useful tactics, I find that to be a fun aspect of my game. But I am not on a search for the perfect collection of proven tactics, which is what it sounds like your group is doing. Don't they find it boring to constantly be playing the same tactics every encounter? Sure, I suppose in one campaign the devilsight warlock could be player by Mike instead of Tim, but that only changes things up so much. As a group, it sounds like at some point you guys will have a set party composition and then no one will ever deviate from that composition for any reason. I think that's why folks are saying you need to vary up the encounters a bit. It seems to me you either need to impose some restrictions at the start of the campaign that would limit the player choices and force some different choices. I don't know if that would fly with your group, though...so if that's not an option, then you need to do something else to challenge them, which would basically mean you need to incorporate elements that take away their advantages or add more complications, or that favor the enemies. Regarding the demon warband....I would think that any Marilith would recognize a group of powerful mortals compared to easy fodder. So even drunk on bloodlust of easy slaughter, I would see her reining in her troops rather than leading a foolish charge against the "mere mortals". Maybe have a couple of the troops charge foolishly and have the PCs slaughter them, and then have the rest of the enemies act with tact. Your PCs never ever ever act without tact. If you limit their enemies in this way, that's a huge swing toward the PCs. And the demonic warband is certainly a viable concept. But "demonic" is a catch all phrase covering just about every level of the game. The squad you described sounded pretty capable. But if they were not, then maybe beef it up. Have a balor and two mariliths, and then the secondary things like vrocks and hezrou and so on. There's going to be a composition you can come up with that would be an appropriate challenge for them without having to alter stats or rely on environmental aspects. Even better, have them lay waste to the demon warband. Those demons simply get sent back to their home plane. They report what happened....and their unique demon boss then spends some time scrying the PCs and finding out about them in other more mundane ways. After some time, he sends a group of demons designed to specifically target and eliminate the PCs. Provide them with some gear that will allow them to treat the PCs the way the PCs treat every encounter. That will likely break the game in the other direction since you have any and all tools at your disposal, while the PCs are bound by class, race, and what you choose to grant them. No not really, you're probably right. However, I don't use the encounter difficulty guidelines at all, and we long ago abandoned XP in favor of a more milestone based leveling system. So it's probably easier for me to make changes like that because I don't worry about all that stuff. I just want to challenge my players. However, I would likely plan that kind of thing ahead. Or at least the possibility of it....see how the first two rounds go, and then if it's heavily in the PCs favor, have these additional 3 demons show up. That kind of thing. [/QUOTE]
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Design Debate: 13th-level PCs vs. 6- to 8-Encounter Adventuring Day
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