EL's for Parties with cohorts, followers, and hirelings
- Thread starter Davek
- Start date
Shadoe's Lady
First Post
I don't see why that wouldn't work, or are you worried about the encounter being too easy? Your players will probably at least slightly coordinate the activity of the character and his/her followers to their advantage.
(I could be wrong but maybe someone will disagree with me and give you a hand here.)
(I could be wrong but maybe someone will disagree with me and give you a hand here.)
My players tend to very effective tactics and execution, not to mention a high degree of luck. I am finding it difficult at time to present challenging encounters using the DMG EL guidelines. The encounters are either too easy or impossible. Part of this is due to DM error 
and part due to the environment/local they are currently in. Now one of them is looking at Leadership so I need to figure out an effective means of challenging them.
In the last session I had one good encounter where the 3rd lvl Fighter and 5th lvl Ranger/ 1st level Rogue were out by themselves and they got jumped by 3 half-fiend Orc Mages (Sor. lvl 3) using mage armor and magic missles, with scrolls of prot. from arrows, invis. and web. That worked quite well. (At one point the two characters were at a combined single digit HP total from a max of 81)
and part due to the environment/local they are currently in. Now one of them is looking at Leadership so I need to figure out an effective means of challenging them.In the last session I had one good encounter where the 3rd lvl Fighter and 5th lvl Ranger/ 1st level Rogue were out by themselves and they got jumped by 3 half-fiend Orc Mages (Sor. lvl 3) using mage armor and magic missles, with scrolls of prot. from arrows, invis. and web. That worked quite well. (At one point the two characters were at a combined single digit HP total from a max of 81)
jester47
First Post
My party fluctuates between four and ten people. Needless to say they steemroller a lot of stuff especially since I use slower dying and a simple wound rule. So they are very capable of taking out a lot of stuff without thinking.
Anyways, a party with hirelings and cohorts is pretty powerful. What I have discovered is that with my weird rules, a good fight is one that is made up of equivalent numbers of the same level. That is 4 level 3 PCs can take 4 CR 3 monsters. A group of four characters is supposed to have a decent fight with one creature who's CR is equivalent to the average party level. If there are twice as many in the party (including cohorts and hirelings) then you can take 2 creatures of eqivalent CR to APL. If you are using a rule tha tmakes it harder to die consider it to be another 4 people and assume that they can now take 3 monsters with CRs = APL. With two rules that make it harder to die add another 4, and another monster.
So last time I had a party of 4 3rd level PCs. Normally they would have a hard time with one Dread warroir. However we use 2 rules that make it harder to die quickly. (its the slow deaths you have to watch out for in my campaign) So that makes the party essentially a 12 person party of APL 3. that means I have 3 dread warriors, I want to make it a little tougher so I make it four dread warriors. There were only 2 party members left standing at the end of the fight and one was about to go down. It was rated as the best fight so far!
Aaron.
Anyways, a party with hirelings and cohorts is pretty powerful. What I have discovered is that with my weird rules, a good fight is one that is made up of equivalent numbers of the same level. That is 4 level 3 PCs can take 4 CR 3 monsters. A group of four characters is supposed to have a decent fight with one creature who's CR is equivalent to the average party level. If there are twice as many in the party (including cohorts and hirelings) then you can take 2 creatures of eqivalent CR to APL. If you are using a rule tha tmakes it harder to die consider it to be another 4 people and assume that they can now take 3 monsters with CRs = APL. With two rules that make it harder to die add another 4, and another monster.
So last time I had a party of 4 3rd level PCs. Normally they would have a hard time with one Dread warroir. However we use 2 rules that make it harder to die quickly. (its the slow deaths you have to watch out for in my campaign) So that makes the party essentially a 12 person party of APL 3. that means I have 3 dread warriors, I want to make it a little tougher so I make it four dread warriors. There were only 2 party members left standing at the end of the fight and one was about to go down. It was rated as the best fight so far!
Aaron.
Shadoe's Lady
First Post
Ouch! But you know they love the abuse. I didn't find EL's very useful when 3e came out either. It's hard to gauge when your party's going to be having a 'duh' evening and get themselves killed by something that shouldn't be able to. Sheer numbers or enemies arriving in waves helps make things harder on the party sometimes-they only have so many attacks per round.
Davelozzi
Explorer
I agree that a lot of times you're better off ignoting EL's and just guesstimating the old fashioned way.
However, if you want to use EL's and have a party of differing levels, cohorts, followers, etc., try using John Dell's Encounter Calculator: http://www.d20reviews.com/Eric/downloads/encounter_calculator.htm
However, if you want to use EL's and have a party of differing levels, cohorts, followers, etc., try using John Dell's Encounter Calculator: http://www.d20reviews.com/Eric/downloads/encounter_calculator.htm
drnuncheon
Explorer
Figure the ELs as for a normal party...
...and then give the monsters Leadership, too.
J
...and then give the monsters Leadership, too.
J
GoldenEagle
First Post
Another thing you can do is to have your party face mages with summoning spells. I know that ability is included in EL but it seams to add something extra. And by killing the summoned monster you are not increasing the EL because it is one of the mage's abilities
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