Do your PCs ever completely outclass the enemy?

[Sammael]

More and more often as the PC level increases. To do otherwise would be a suspension of disbelief for me. After all, high-level characters are more rare than their low-level counterparts. Right now, my 15th-16th level PCs are up against a powerful wizard and his four generals. One of the generals is a high-level hobgoblin monk/fighter/kensai/dervish, but the bulk of his army is still composed of regular hobgoblin warriors. Of course, I don't expect the party to fight them, but even the elite hobgoblins are level 6 fighters or so, and the PCs have little trouble dealing with them.

 

[Henry]

...instead the whole thing was over in one round and they were left wondering whether or not a fight had even been necessary. (Which I won't reveal here, in case Henry is reading. )

Sometimes you just gotta stomp the spider if you're unsure it's poisonous.


I like to interject encounters like that every now and again - because for some of the players, it's as much a reward as a challenging fight, especially if the odds look impossible to the people they're saving. The 7th level PCs roll into a village, and a band of 20 1 HD orcs is terrorizing the place. Even if on paper it looks evenly matched, those PCs are going to mow the orcs into mulch, and the 4 PCs are going to look like heroes in the face of terrible odds, and celebrated as such by the village.

 

[clark411]

As much as I try, my players regularly outclass the opponents I've had them face. They're good tacticians and have really well designed characters who are good at the thwacky. Personally I have neither the time nor the interest to put into matching their optimization skills, and so the best they face is a nasty templated core monster with maybe one or two feat switches that are appropriate.

Only time I feel they've truly been outclassed has been by their own silly choices- over-optimization at the expense of their other needs- like say.. buying a dern ranged weapon.

 

[lukelightning]

In my campaign this is a result of the players "ganging up on me" (in a good way) and the fact that players know their characters' capabilities inside and out.

You see, while I believe I am an adequate D&D tactitian, I am often "in command" of opponents that I have used for the very first time; I'm familiar with their abilities and stuff, but not to the extent that the players know their own characters. Plus they have the advantage of 4 brains versus my one; when the going gets tough one of the players is bound to think of a way to defeat the enemies.

I don't find this a problem; it adds to the fun.

 

[Dark Dragon]

Quite often the encounters IMC outclass the party (2 - 6 levels above the average party ECL). But no TPK so far. The players know that I expect some planning before or even during a fight to even the odds. And it worked quite well so far.
From time to time there's an encounter where the PCs can show their power to low-level folk. This gives a lot of fun unless the encounter results in a simple slaughter (which rarely happens because there is a paladin in the group).

 

[diaglo]

we tend to bite off more than we can chew. actually, i can't remember the last encounter we had that felt like we outclassed the enemy. the threat of reinforcements or other more powerful aid showing up tends to make many of the encounters we should breeze through so much more challenging than they really are.

6 12-13th lvl PCs against 4 4th lvl guards and a 6th lvl rogue turned into a mass combat with a 10th lvl fighter, 10th lvl cleric, 8th lvl sorcerer, and 2 4th lvl barb trolls. with the knowledge that the BBEG and his other minions were still around the corner.

 

[Umbran]

The nature of the EL system forbids a fair fight.

This is not true at all. You can have fair fights, and even fights against superior foes - last time I looked, the DMG recommendation was for about 5% of fights to be ones the PCs need to run from, and another significant portion of thoroughly "fair" fights. YOu'll just have substantially fewer of these fights between levels, is all.

I think it's rather difficult to keep dramatic tension up if the party really overpowers the foe. So, I do tend to have fewer battles at more even odds. This works fine for me, actually - the fights are riskier, deadlier, and the players don't get complacent.

There's still the occasional time when the party is the highly superior force, but I don't design many that way.

 

[Kid Socrates]

I've had two of these recently -- I've found they're beneficial from many standpoints.

One party raided a castle on a mysterious continent to save their traveling party (a bunch of NPCs they cared about). They're level 11, and there's three of them. They had just finished fighting a dragon, three undead well-armed guards that kept sacrificing their bodies to fuel the dragon further, a huge airship battle, and three cadaver collectors. Then they get inside, and face down about seventy guards, who were noticeably poorly-outfitted, and seemed rather outmatched. These guys were standard guards, because no one ever gets inside the walls, so the highest was 3rd level. They mopped through them like privates in Dynasty Warriors.

The other party, 10th-level characters, fought a rather fearsome dragon... that they had reduced significantly by destroying four unholy altars underneath the city, dropping all the dragon's stats by 8 or something ridiculous than that. Since they had been the ones to weaken it, they felt even more powerful, and still unleashed their most powerful attacks on it to really mop the floor with it.

I've found that a few battles like this make the players braver with their characters. If they felt that they were always about to die, they wouldn't take awesomely cinematic chances or trash-talk the BBEG when he shows up to trash-talk them. Plus, one of my players is new to gaming, so these help boost her confidence as a player, and in knowing that her strategies are working.

I tend to follow these kinds of battles up with the really rough ones, so they're feeling confident and trust in their abilities, and rise to the challenge.

 

[DonTadow]

I was posting on a thread in the Rules Forum where there was a small tangent on the subject of PCs getting into fights where they are substantially superior to the opposition. I've always figured that the PCs should have a few such fights at rare intervals. Not only does it underline the status quo nature of my game (it's not as if the NPCs level up just because PCs do), but it also lets the PCs strut their stuff and really get a sense of how far they are ahead of the hoi polloi.

For example, as I posted in the other thread, one of the most enjoyable fights for the then 7th lvl PCs in one of my Eberron games was when they interrupted a mugging by four 2nd lvl muggers, who then made the mistake of attacking the PCs. A couple of the PCs politely got out of the way (barely bothering to defend themselves as they did so) so that the others could get to the muggers, and spent the time the fight took (maybe 3 rds, only because they were intentionally prolonging it) rolling smokes and making bets on how soon each mugger would go down, how soon they'd run, how far they'd get, etc. It was a hoot!

Do you do the same, or do your PCs never have such encounters?

I call them "feel good encounters" and I usually put them in at the beginning or end of an adventure arc, or during a bit of downtown after which the pcs have accomplished a major task. By this time they are just leveling up, but may have lost a party member, magic items or both in the process. They need a good "feel good" encounter at this point.

I use the encounter to preview new npcs, preview the assortment of new beasts and monsters in the land or introduce a new story element.

 

[Drowbane]

As many posters have already chimed in with... there is alot to be said for wiping up a swarm of Mooks. Its very theraputic.

example: A few years back, I had a lvl 10 Dwarven Fighter stand over a fallen comrade... fighting off a veritable army of Orcs. The other PC got nailed by a few nasty Crits early in the fight, and dropped to -3. The Dwarf stood his ground, against insane numbers of 1hd Orcs. My Dwarf barely survived, but it made for a brilliant scene.