frankthedm
First Post
Classed NPCs have to use every point of INT they have, have cherry picked feats from the best splat the campaign allows, be mounted and be taking potions like they were vials of crack cocaine.Creamsteak said:
DMs - how often do you "tailor" your encounters to the party?
- Thread starter NewJeffCT
- Start date
howandwhy99
Adventurer
Never. My players find their own encounters. Why the would I force combat upon them?
MoogleEmpMog said:
That is certainly true. One or two good rolls, or a couple of rounds of missing an easy target, can really change a combat around. I saw a 2hp goblin outlast a 2nd level dwarf fighter with 24hp just because the guy playing the dwarf kept missing, while the goblin would hit for 4-6 points of damage every other round or so...
Creamsteak
Explorer
Definitely a traditional alternative. They have a bajillion gold to blow on consumables, it's not like he wants THEM using those.frankthedm said:
Hussar said:
I think the PCs end up with a 12.6667 average for their ability scores. Any NPCs of note will be similarly designed, but not your run-of-the-mill 1st level warrior town guardsman.
No action points yet, though I've proposed using them as bonuses for good work in game and/or good role-playing of their characters.
The PCs were in a town, so most of their opponents were human - so, sleep against 4 first level commoners or warriors is devastating when 3 of them most likely will fail their save (considering the two sorcerers both have an 18 CHA) I made the comment to them that the next town guardsmen they encounter will be either elves, or undead, or better yet, undead elves!
The link was helpful - thanks
Lord Zardoz
Explorer
NewJeffCT said:
Your post title and your comments imply two questions.
1) How often do you run encounters above the suggested CR?
2) How often do you exploit your parties weaknesses in combat?
For the first, I run encounters that are harder than the suggested CR damn near all the time. What you have to keep in mind about the CR system is that it assumes a dungeon environment where the players will have multiple encounters in one day without resting. 1 Fighter of Level X against a party of Level X is not a huge deal. But do that encounter 3 or 4 times in one day, and some of the players may be pretty banged up.
I eyeball my encounters based mostly on how hard I want the fight to be, and how durable the opponents will be. Encounters against single opponents are always easier than those against multiple lower opponents unless the solo opponent has an AC about 15 points higher than your primary melee guys typical to hit bonus (forcing the fighter to need a 16 or better to hit on a standard attack), and if he has about 8 times your parties average level in Hp. Alternately, the fight may work out if most of the party cannot attack him directly (he flies and your party does not. He has strong damage reduction). If this is not the case, the party will mob him and murder him.
I think that a good guide line is that if you have 3 to 5 monsters that can eat 3 to 5 hits each, your good. Alternately, if you can guarantee 6 rounds of combat, your also good.
Now, customizing an encounter to your parties tactics is not something you should rely on doing. If you make it a habit, you will just annoy your players and risk a TPK. But if you can justify it and do it without going for full on overkill, you can run some memorable combats.
You can get away with justifying a tailored encounter if you can explain how the opponents know how the party goes about killing things. Doing that is also easy. Run a fight with some bad guys, and have some bad guys run away and report back. If this happens a few times, than you can deliver a tailored beating.
My players had managed to have a few fights where opponents escaped. This just came back to bite them. My players have a few tricks going for them. I have a sorcerer who has made a habit of going invisible and then casting alot of Summon Monster spells. I have a Cleric who has a very high AC. I have a fighter with mounted combat feats and an impressive damage output. I have a ranger who is capable at either ranged combat or melee. They were accompanied by a 5th level Rogue and a 5th level NPC fighter in the Red Hand of Doom. Wyrmlord Koth survived the first encounter, as did a few other opponents.
So during a raid encounter Koth laid out his vengeance. At his disposal were 2 Doom Hand Clerics, 5 Baaz Draconians, and 1 Sivak. The guard captain split off from the party to handle other raiders. The players dispatched the raiders with ease, but the guard captain bit it at the hands of the Sivak who took the captains form. The Sivak then led the players to Koth, who was somewhat pre-buffed. The Baaz were invisible.
The mounted combat fighter charged the spell caster, and everyone else did their typical thing. For the first round, the 'Guard captain' drank a potion, which I said was a Bulls Strength.
Then things started to go right off the rails for the players.
Koth blasted out a lightning bolt, killing the figters horse, and the fighter, and damaging the ranger. The first cleric (whom the PC's did not realize were spell casters until that point) hit a Hold Person on the fighter, which the fighter did make a save for. The other cleric cast Shield Other and spent most of the rest of the fight healing either himself or Koth. The Sivak charged the spell caster, assuming his true form, and started attacking. The Sivak had reach, strong spell resistance, and was doing 3d6+5 damage with a Large Greatsword. And it had drank a See Invisiblity potion. The sorcerer was now in mortal danger. The cleric and the ranger were each surrounded by Baaz. And in the next round, one of the Clerics cast a silence spell on an allies weapon to keep the cleric from casting anything.
The rest of the fight was amazingly close. I blasted the mounted combat fighter with a bunch of Scorching Ray spells, and kept Koth healed. If I had not missed on two of those attacks, I probably would have killed the fighter. I attacked the sorcerer a few times, and had the sorcerer neutralized for almost all of the fight. I would have gotten a kill if the gnome rogue had not rushed in and distracted by Sivak, scoring 1 sneak attack. The Sivak killed the gnome the next round. The Sivak also managed to miss a few attacks on the sorcerer, who finally lucked out and scored with a Hideous laughter on the Sivak, which also required a successful caster check to penetrate the spell resistance, and that the Sivak fail a save on which he had a +9 bonus.
The fight finally ended with the fighter, ranger, and sorcerer all very nearly dead, and out of most spells having gone through two fights. The gnome Rogue NPC is also now dead (was knocked to -9 and failed to stabilize). On top of that, Koth managed to escape again. The players can expect the fights to get more difficult since it is a sure thing that their descriptions have been widely circulated as well as what they tend to do.
END COMMUNICATION
Hussar
Legend
NewJeffCT said:
No worries. I wasn't so concerned about the average stats, but, to total point buy value. 35 point buy characters are easily a full level over a 25 point buy character for example. The fact that your two sorc's have 18 Cha makes them very potent for example. In any case, all that's detailed in the other thread.
But, in any case, undead elven guards are just cool.
Hussar said:No worries. I wasn't so concerned about the average stats, but, to total point buy value. 35 point buy characters are easily a full level over a 25 point buy character for example. The fact that your two sorc's have 18 Cha makes them very potent for example. In any case, all that's detailed in the other thread.
But, in any case, undead elven guards are just cool.
well, I've seen different "bases" for a point buy system - 8, 9 or 10. So a 35 point system with a base of 10 makes for a very powerful character (avg of almost 16). However, 35 points with a base of 8 still makes for a very strong character, but not quite as powerful (avg score of almost 14)
