help, the pc's are unstoppable [Thread necromancy]

[Celebrim]

Ok, I'll chime in with my restatement of all the good advice you are recieving.

There is no such thing as an unstoppable PC. There is only such a thing as a DM that feels uncomfortable challenging a PC.

YOU ARE IN CHARGE OF THE GAME.

This party is probably capable of regularly handling CR 15-17 creatures.

In general, you should not just take a single CR 17 creature out of the book and expect it to be a good challenge. Just as your party has power gamed, you as a DM are going to need to power game back.

1) Doubling the number of monsters only add +2 to the CR (at most). In reality though, 4 well played CR 13 monsters are probably a better challange than 1 CR 17 monster - because the party will not be able to concentrate its force.

2) Against a large party like that, roll separate initiatives for each monster. If you only roll a single initiative for all foes, your party will tend to win initiative too often.

3) Doubling or tripling a creatures HD is an effective way to add alot of combat power without adding alot of CR. So 4 triple HD CR10 creatures (probably with a size increase) are probably more of a challenge than a single CR 17 monster.

4) Remember to give the monster the advantages of fighting on its home turf. Prepared defences like pit traps, glyphs of warding, forbiddance, desecrate, and so forth will up the challenge of a monster considerably.

5) Templates: Learn to love them and use them. Many are fairly undercosted when chosen well. Give them a steady diet of awakened creatures, ghost creatures, multiheaded creatures, spirit creatures, elemental creatures, shadow creatures, skeletal creatures, anarchic, axiomatic and fiendish creatures and so forth. If you haven't tried advanced axiomatic carrion crawlers, advanced axiomatic fire elemental dire lions, advanced awakened spirt dire wolves, advanced multiheaded trolls, fiendish skeletal balrogs, shadow creature white dragons, advanced fiendish chokers rouges, and the like, then you haven't even scratched the surface of what is possible.

6) Don't underestimate the power of confusion. An experienced party is going to know all the appropriate responces to any threat they can understand. Alter the appearance of creatures. Create new creatures with surprising abilities. Vary creatures when necessary.

7) In general, well played PC's will make mincemeat of anything in an arena environment. Don't give them nice simple terrain to fight in. Give uneven floors that provoke balance checks. Give them fights that occur on narrow ledges. Give them fights that occur in, near, or over water/acid/magma. Give them fights against creatures who have cover and barriers between them and the PC's. Give them fights in thick underbrush (concealment penalties, movement penalties, balance penalties). Give them fights in confined spaces (can't swing a two handed axe in a 3' diamater tunnel). Give them running fights in the darkness against foes with incredible powers of evasion (like incorporal foes). Give them fights in vast open spaces against mounted opponents with very high mobility and the ability to withstand a fireball and trade missile fire with the PC's if necessary. Don't underestimate the power of fear. If you make the PC's fear you, they will be intimidated into inaction even against foes they could otherwise take.

8) Give a creature a few levels in a PC class and some minor magic items which are of little use to the PC's. Don't forget when giving PC classes to a creature to give it a few points for a point buy to increase its attributes above the average. (Think 4th level barbarian half-dragon minotaurs are bad now, give them a 15 point buy above average stats now, masterwork equipment, and buff them with some simple magic items. Throw in a half red dragon troll 7th level cleric with a 20 point buy, and you've a challenge worthy of anyone.)

9) Min/Max the hell out of your NPC's. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Take stats off of smack down threads. Have the PC's face teams of smackdown gladiators, not mere cannon fodder. If the NPC's common thugs are 8th level fighters in masterwork platemail min maxed with polearms (combat reflexes, improved trip, ect.) or masterwork mighty longbows (rapid shot, point blank shot, precise shot, etc.) the PC's are going to take notice after awhile.

10) If all else fails, take away the PC's abilities. Take them to other planes where teleportation/scrying/fire spells/magic items/flight/'what ever it is that is bugging you' don't work or don't work as well.

There is no such thing as unstoppable PC's.

 

[Ender]

You know I've always found that there's nothing more humbling than a labyrinth full of kobold traps experts.... except maybe a dungeon that is stocked with nothing but Grintooth's best. I say knock them out one by one and string them all up in a central room. Make fun of them (through the kobolds of course) and then kill one to let them know you mean business.

 

[The Sigil]

My suggestions for "trimming the PCs down to size:"

1.) Permanent ability damage. Burnt othur fumes and ungol dust work GREAT for this, especially when combined with level-draining or ability-draining undead and/or constructs (creatures that are themselves immune to the poisonous fumes)

Ungol dust (Inhaled DC 15) Initial Damage: 1 temporary Cha, Secondary Damage: 1d6 temporary Cha + 1 permanent Cha

Burnt othur fumes (Inhaled DC 18) Initial Damage: 1 permanent Con, Secondary Damage: 3d6 temporary Con

2.) Advanced monsters that are "different" from the norm - instead of throwing a troll at them, instead throw a troll barbarian 8 that is immune to fire and acid but can be damaged by electricity at them.

3.) As mentioned before, LOTS of summoned monsters. Preferably when the PCs are in a disadvantageous situation - remember, arrow slits are great for arrows - and even better as a line-of-effect for summoning monsters out of nowhere. Send the PCs through a cave with "arrow slits" along the sides and a secret corridor running the length of the cave. The denizens of the cave? Two dozen kobolds with one level of sorcerer and one kobold with six levels of sorcerer. Arm these kobolds with wands of fireball, lightning bolt, and summon monster III.... did I mention the wands are cursed? They only function within ten feet of a kobold, making them useless for PCs (a result of 61-64 on the cursed item/intermittent functioning table). The PCs will get no XP for killing the summoned monsters - or the kobolds - and it will chew up their hit points and so forth. As a kicker, the wands are likely to be useless to the PCs. For even more nasty fun, make these undead kobold sorcerers and have vials of burnt othur scattered all over the cave - and have the sorcerers target the vials from time to time instead of the PCs. Nasty fun.

4.) Have you considered the fun of siccing a horde of fiendish rust monsters advanced to maximum Hit Dice on the PCs? Bonus points for applying the Beast of Xvim template (Monsters of Faerun) on top of the fiendish template. Even better than Mord's disjunction.

5.) A fire giant with a few levels of fighter whose favorite pastime is sundering his opponents' weapons is always fun (especially when he's inside an A-M Field). For more nastiness, give him a few levels in Feral Ravager from Librum Equitis - he can keep the PCs from closing to melee range.

6.) The ever-popular doppelganger/possess a party member or ten bit... when the PCs are fighting amongst themselves, they may have a tendency to "pull punches."

7.) Sunder, sunder, sunder! Every foe knows the PCs and their prowess... and knows of the great power invested in their weapons. Foes try to separate the PC from his weapon using sunder, disarm, trip, entangle, anything. Remember, a stunned character drops what he's holding. The best part is, PCs are usually reluctant to Sunder back for fear of damaging "the loot."

8.) Peruse the boards for "broken" combos and throw them at your players. Maybe start with a bunch of clerics with the Madness domain...

--The Sigil

 

[Utrecht]

Also, play to thier weaknesses.

The Barbarian, fighter and rogue have abysmall Will Saves - they are screaming for a domionation (or heck even a sleep spell) imagine that 90 hit points per round agains the enchanter......

Have the enchantor make Fort Saves - incorporal undead popping up through the floor amd making touch attacks.

The Cleric and Druid - have them make Reflex Saves While the rogue will find most the of the traps - will he find all of them?????

 

[The Sigil]

Above all, remember that when you're playing the Big Bad Evil Guy, feel very free to pull NO punches...

This was beautifully put in Mystery Men...

"I kill my own men! I don't care! That's why evil will always have the advantage... you good guys are always so bound by the rules."

*Don't* break the game rules, but make sure your villains have no compunctions "breaking the rules" - and don't feel bad about stacking the deck WAAAAAY in their favor to knock the PCs down a peg or two.

--The Sigil

 

[jdavis]

I've always been of the opinion it is ok for the DM to fudge or break any rule so long as the purpose is for enhancing game enjoyment. If a encounter is going real well but somebody gets in a good critical and kills the monster too soon it ends up being a letdown, your monsters don't have to die just because they are out of hitpoints, you can bend the rules to make sure the monster dies at the appropriate time and is a significant challenge. As the DM you are also responsible for keeping the game enjoyable, just don't allow your module to be ruined, if you planned the encounter too weak then it is never to late to increase the challenge. As long as the players are having fun it's ok, under no circumstances should they ever find out you have fudged anything, but if what you are looking for is memorable combat and exciting encounters sometimes you have to bend the rules or switch things up on the fly to keep it exciting. In the movies nobody ever disarms the nuclear bomb with 2 hours left, it's always done at the very last second, your main bad guy being killed in the second round of combat sort of dampens the thrill of the fight, don't be afraid to stick a Heal potion in his pocket on the fly or having that killing blow only take him down to 1 hp instead of evicerating him, giving the villian that last special attack with a evil gleam in his eye is worth alot more than having him getting beaten down like a old lady getting mugged, its all about game enjoyment.

 

[Desdichado]

I'm not sure exactly what you're question is. You mention in the subject line that the PCs are unstoppable, but you mention in the text of your first message that you're having trouble balancing encounters to either not be too easy or way too difficult. If the former is your question, there's always stuff that's more powerful you can throw at them. If the latter, my sympathies. That's my big complaint with d20 and the reason I have little patience for anything other than one-offs in levels higher than 10 or so.

 

[Celebrim]

Joshua Dyal: I don't deny D20 starts to have balance issues at around 10th level that become increasingly extreme as party level increases, but I don't necessarily think that the problem he has with balance (if that is what it is) is wholly due to the D20 system. He has a relatively large party. As the number of players increase, any system faces this problem. In order to challenge the party as a whole, the challenge has to become increasingly difficult for each member of the party alone. In a party of 4, you represent roughly 1/4th the resources of the party. In a party of 8, you represent only 1/8th of the resources of the party. If a particular encounter uses up 1/4 of a parties resources, it is more likely in the larger party that all the resources of one party member are consumed. If something unexpected happens, or something happens to concentrate the force of the foes against a single party member, player death is the likely result in any large party facing 'balanced' challenges. This would be true even if the party was 1st level.

 

[Desdichado]

Yes, that is also a consideration. We play in a group of 7 (sometimes -- our gaming isn't very consistent right now.) Last time I DMed, I killed a PC fairly easily as well, even with a challenge that was nominally below their level. But I'm a firm believer in the "concentration of force" strategy -- the poor PC got in the way first, and my half-fiend ogre fighter hardly even looked at anyone else 'til she was a blot on the floor.

 

[holomachamp]

wow, i never expected this much help. you guys must have a lot of experience under your belts to come up with this stuff. i appreciate your time.