DM Tricks to Challenge Tough PCs with Weaker Enemies

[the Jester]

Granted, I've only skimmed this thread, but one thing I don't think I've seen mentioned is cover & concealment.

If your low-CR bad guys can get an AC bonus by fighting from behind a barrier, they should.

If they have a way to kick up a dust storm, smash open a huge bag of flour, raise up the mist or some such, they should.

An AC bonus- or, better, a miss chance- really helps the side with the larger number of folk on it the most. If you're using lower CR monsters, there is a real chance that it's the bad guys.

 

[Darklone]

Interesting. Do you think this can work against large parties as well? I've got 8 players and I've pretty much given up trying to challenge them using a single high CR creature. The 'best' I can hope for is getting to act first and take out one or more characters in the first round. There's rarely a second round unless it's an ambush situation.

Unfortunately, it's ALSO difficult to challenge them using lots of low CR creatures. Again, if it's an ambush situation with the enemies being able to surround the party and spread out and/or can use cover, it's slightly better, but not by much.

Depends what low CR is for you. My NPC mooks usually have 2-6 HD. In the example above with ca. 15 PCs, I have 30 mooks level 1-4.

So, it looks like using balanced CRs (or a mix of CRs - IF it is difficult to initially identify the more powerful ones) might work best against large parties. What also seems to work well is using several waves of enemies - but that's no longer really a single encounter.

Does anyone else have experience in / advice on challenges for large parties?

See above. My last PC groups had about 10 PCs, were usually pretty bad at team work though. Still, I ended up at the same as Celebrims proposal: Bigger groups of CR -2 to -4 creatures. See halfling ambush above, ftr1/rog1 dudes against nearly the same number of PCs with a few more levels.

Now and then I challenge them with teams of NPCs that have more class levels than the PCs... but this ends up pretty badly if the group splits up... or the PCs have more luck than possible. See sig story. I had two NPCs who were pretty much twinked out to challenge the whole group... and ended up in a fight between the two buffed NPCs and two PCs without spells.

 

[phindar]

So you are making a series of assumptions here.

I'll think you'll find, Celebrim, that we're all making a series of assumptions here. Having a discussion pretty much requires it. Unless you start out by learning every single facet of the game you are critiquing, I would have to assume you're assuming something. So don't say it like its a bad thing. Or at least, don't assume its a bad thing.

 

[Land Outcast]

I'll think you'll find, Celebrim, that we're all making a series of assumptions here. Having a discussion pretty much requires it. Unless you start out by learning every single facet of the game you are critiquing, I would have to assume you're assuming something. So don't say it like its a bad thing. Or at least, don't assume its a bad thing.

Not that I have the right to determine what goes on about this side-argument, but people: cut it, please.

The points about "is it tactics or technology?" and "is it being creative or just giving them more raw power?" have been made clear and their importance acknowledged.

I'm not looking at anyone here, but the conversation has turned into an argument and doesn't substantially add to the thread.

Thank you for choosing ENairlines, have a pleasant flight

***

 

[mmadsen]

But is it really asymmetical warfare or is it just that the DM is more inclined to give himself the benefit of the doubt and taking care of his own? Asymmetical welfare.

It's one thing to not be following the enemies rules, and another thing to not be following the laws of physics. Asimulational warfare.

I bring it up, because this reaction is exactly the same as the reaction from the Blue Force commanders, who were playing the conventional American forces, to the unconventional "out of the box" tactics of the Red Force commander, in the Millennium Challenge 02 wargame:

For instance—and here is where he displayed prescience—Van Riper used motorcycle messengers to transmit orders to Red troops, thereby eluding Blue's super-sophisticated eavesdropping technology. He maneuvered Red forces constantly. At one point in the game, when Blue's fleet entered the Persian Gulf, he sank some of the ships with suicide-bombers in speed boats. (At that point, the managers stopped the game, "refloated" the Blue fleet, and resumed play.) Robert Oakley, a retired U.S. ambassador who played the Red civilian leader, told the Army Times that Van Riper was "out-thinking" Blue Force from the first day of the exercise.​

 

[shilsen]

Not that I have the right to determine what goes on about this side-argument, but people: cut it, please.

The points about "is it tactics or technology?" and "is it being creative or just giving them more raw power?" have been made clear and their importance acknowledged.

I'm not looking at anyone here, but the conversation has turned into an argument and doesn't substantially add to the thread.

Thank you for choosing ENairlines, have a pleasant flight

***

Thank you.

 

[fafhrd]

Tucker's Threadcrap, nigh unstoppable.

 

[Celebrim]

I bring it up, because this reaction is exactly the same as the reaction from the Blue Force commanders...

Excuse me? Can you explain that again??? What do you mean by 'this'?

I'm well aware of the exercise in question, and I don't see how it is relevant much less a reasonable responce to what I said - if you are indeed responding to me. I can only conclude from your comments that you neither understand what I've been saying nor do you understand the excercise in question. In the latter case, that's hardly surprising, since the Slate article gets several key elements of the excercise wrong. For example, Van Riper's 'red' forces didn't represent Iraq - the represented Israel. And Van Riper's tactic for destroying the blue fleet didn't (mainly) involve suicide bombers (he's playing for Israel), but massed cruise missiles.

To be brief:

What was different about Van Riper's role in the game and a DM's role in the game?
Did the referee agree that Van Riper's tactics worked? How is that different than the referee acting as a player?
What is the difference between using motorcycle messengers to transmit orders, and ruling that those motorcycle messengers could fly at 6000 mph?
What is the difference between Van Riper using plausible resources at hand like motorcycles, and inventing some new resource out of whole cloth like say mobile laser cannons in order to obtain the result desired?

Again, it is one thing to do things within the rules of the simulation (which in the real world are the 'laws of physics' ) that the enemy doesn't expect and isn't prepared for, and quite another to within the simulation to have different rules apply to different sides. Different tactics imply assymetrical warfare, but different sets of rules imply something else altogether.

 

[mmadsen]

Excuse me? Can you explain that again??? What do you mean by 'this'?

The commander of the conventional forces is analogous to the PCs. The commander of the ragtag unconvential force is analogous to Tucker, running the kobolds.

Certainly it complicates things that Tucker, who is running the kobolds, is also the DM, who must referee the whole scenario -- I readily admit that -- but I think the point stands that the commander of the by-the-book team is always going to argue vehemently that the out-of-the-box team is doing things that just aren't possible, or practical, or realistic.

 

[Celebrim]

...but I think the point stands that the commander of the by-the-book team is always going to argue vehemently that the out-of-the-box team is doing things that just aren't possible, or practical, or realistic.

Except that that is not what the referees in the game in question ruled. The referees allowed Van Ripper's tactics to work. Large portions of the Blue Fleet sunk. Van Ripper was allowed to win. The referees then said, "Well, you won. That was interesting. Let's reset the game and see what else we can learn." If you read the article, you'll see that nobody was particularly annoyed by that (although I'm sure some blue forces Commanders were embarassed, and Van Ripper who wanted to bask in the glory), at least noone actually quoted. You are caught up in political spun document that has little to do with the excercise in question (as the whole comparison to Saddam should make clear), and you are making a comparison that isn't valid because I've pretty much demonstrated already that 'Tucker's Kobolds' weren't following the 'rules' and that if they had been following the rules that the tactics described wouldn't have worked. I then made suggestions for how to do actual assymetrical warfare that would have been within the rules, and not merely breaking them. My point is that there is nothing creative about breaking the rules. Real life doesn't let you 'break the rules', because God/the Universe is not ammendable to change just because you'd prefer it. What is creative is doing what you are able to do with what you have, which Van Ripper did and was allowed to do.

Believe me when I tell you that the real Navy brass, not the Navy brass of Slate's mythic universe, are very concerned with the results of Van Ripper's exercise and are doing thier best to learn from it. Again, the referees did NOT say, "No, that simply wouldn't work."