Help with encounters, DM needing help.

[Naoki00_]

I'm assisting my friend by Co-DMing his first campaign, and he's having some issues with balancing out the encounters against our party, as he's underestimated what they have mostly because neither of us really understood how powerful each one happens to be.

The environment is a highly magic forest ruled by a supreme and primal element (quasi-deity almost), and her High Priest who is the main antagonist though either they will likely never face, but in the case they do fight the high priest this is her classes for the reference of the good people-

Druid/3, Verdant Lord/4, Shifter/6 Str:17, dex: 26, con:18, Int:19, Wis: 26, Cha: 25

Now the players however are what was surprising to him, these are them, all are level 6

Archer/6 (basically a homebrew we made, like a fighter but only archer feats with a sniper ability for holding aim for consecutive turns), this character however has wings with perfect mobility- this is my character whom I play nerfed, I'm there mostly to keep the story rolling in case of total derailment.

A death Knight/4 Sword Wraith paragon/2, based arounf heavy armor and unarmed combat, deal str damage on every hit and has a large number of extra attacks from feats and items.

A Fighter/1 Warblade/2 Dirvish/3, neither of us knew much about this build but at first it looks innocent enough, and he didn't explain it's full abilities until combat happened

And lastly the DM's character which is the weakest, a bard variant specializing it spearmanship and slight battlefield control, does get cha to attack and damage instead of str though.

The monster we encounter would be partly fused with the plants, or just be plants and insects and similar, though a large number of drow live in the forest as in this version of continuity this is their birthplace...can anyone hole with ideas on monsters to use and strategies the Dm can use?

 

[anest1s]

How is he supposed to challenge you, if you know everything about the enemy he makes

 

[Herobizkit]

My only suggestion would be multiple weaker opponents, 2-3 times the number of the party...

And status effects. Every PC is a warrior that will likely have either a poor Reflex or Will save. Drow use poison, but Fort is likely everyone's best save, so consider that.

Aberrations. Use them. They make PC's nervous.

Also, Undead and Demons. Monsters with specific DR can be vexing.

Driders. Because Drow.

And Heck, throw in some evil Fey and Plants.

Your 'throw-away' monsters will be your mooks, mostly Humanoids and Giants. Don't be shy with using PC-friendly races as opponents, either.

Also, for tradition's sake, you need to run at least one Drow/Mindflayer/Beholder fight.

 

[Naoki00_]

How is he supposed to challenge you, if you know everything about the enemy he makes

only I know mostly what it'll be, since he'll often change them without my knowledge for that reason, but I help with things since this is his first major campaign and he doesn't entirely know what he's doing yet, while I've DM'd for the group before

 

[Gilladian]

For one thing, it sounds like the PCs may be a TOUCH overpowered for a new DM. Also, did you start at 6th level?

I would probably suggest, if it is a possibility at this point, that you reboot the campaign. Start the characters over at 1st or 2nd level. And only allow core books, or core +1 book per player.

And then limit players to 1 class and 1 prestige class. At least until say, 10th level.

This keeps characters more under control, less likely to be coming up with rules-breaking combos of class, feats, etc...

Or if you don't want to reboot, just have the DM talk honestly with the whole group, explaining the problems he's having, and ask the character(s) who is significantly overpowered to rebuild his character and tone it down. Explain that otherwise, the campaign is on a train-wrecking course, and you are afraid it will happen sooner than later.