How do you DM High level and stay sane?! (Piratecat help!)

[Schmoe]

ZSutherland: My post is not about how to make the encounters easier/harder it's really a complaint about how much needs to be known to run an effective NPC vs PC combat at high levels. It probably doesn't help that I'm running a published scenario were the writer has used everything at his disposable like half-fiend templates, obscure defensive spells etc

I guess if I was running my own thing I wouldn't get so over the top with options and I would be more intimately familiar with opponents I create myself.

I need to get back to writing my own D&D games me thinks. Preprepared adventures, at least high level ones, seem to require more work to run effectively
Reebo

If I remember correctly, the adventure you are looking to run has probably one of the most complex battles I've ever seen and will challenge even the best DMs. It involves something like 8-10 high level, unique NPCs, each with a varied array of options. My advice would be to prep for this particular battle as much as you can to make it go more smoothly, but know that things won't be quite this daunting in most future encounters.

I DMed my last campaign up through 15th level, and even long (10+ round) battles with a 6 PC and 2 NPC party didn't take more than two hours. A short (2-3 round) battle usually wouldn't last more than 20-30 minutes. So hang in there! If you can get past this one encounter, things will get easier.

 

[Piratecat]

I'm flattered you think I can help! Now, let's see if it's true or not...

First, I'm going to give you the best advice I can about high level play. It's a three-parter. What's in the module is not necessarily the most fun. Your players will never know if you change what's in the module. Do not obsess over details.

Here's the deal. Don't fret too much about knowing the exact effect of every one of those seven lines of spells, because it's all transparent to your players. They don't know what's active and what isn't; all they know is that the bad guy is bristling with loops and whorls of magical abjuration auras. Everything else is just description on your part. So when I'm in your shoes, I look at the NPC and I say "what are the things that will really affect the PCs during the fight?"
- his AC
- his spell resistance and DR (which I may or may not remember)
- I know where to look for his immunities (which I may or may not remember)
- any spell reflection or other nifty boobytraps
- how much damage he'll probably do
- the five most fun (NOT useful or deadly, necessarily) spells or magic items that he'll want to use, and their DC
- any escape plan.

If you have a feel - not an encyclopedic feel, but a general feel - for those things, you'll be fine. Seriously. Don't worry about skills, don't worry a ton about feats, and for goodness sake when building a foe don't feel you have to get every skill point in the right place. None of your players will ever notice or care.

But what if they kill your bad guy and he turns out to have had a forgotten magic item that would have saved him? Simple - never mention it when listing loot, and give it to the NEXT bad guy they fight instead. They won't know the difference, and it didn't figure into the fight so no harm done.

When I design my own bad guys, I separate feats and abilities into PASSIVE and ACTIVE. Passive is any feat, spell effect (buffing) or ability which is active for the length of the encounter. I figure them in to the stats and then totally ignore those unless someone casts dispel magic, and by setting them aside I've halved the amount of things I need to concern myself with. Active feats and spells are things that the villain chooses to use, like power attack; I pick a few that will be cool, and don't worry too much about the rest.

When I have a complicated fight with multiple unique bad guys, I plan out about three rounds of tactics. If they live that long, I figure I'm doing pretty well.

 

[ShadowDenizen]

You're not the only one in that situation, Reebokesh! (And I'm glad I'm not alone!)

My group is also running through "Shackled City", and they're midway through "Flood Season", so they haven't hit the "power levels" yet (they're all 6th), but I'm definitely dreading it!

Thanks guys, your advice really helps!

 

[RangerWickett]

The best high-level fight I never ran:

There was supposed to be a shadowdancer assassin hiding in the ruins of an Elvish tree city, during a snowstorm. He was 20th level, and the party was 13th. The shadowdancer also had a bevy of ghost allies who were low level, but who could distract the party while he got into assassination range. It was going to be a hit-and-run fight with lots of different locations as the villain tried to lure them into an ambush. The party just needed to get a magic item he had, and he knew it, so when they got close to beating him he was going to drop a replica of the item and flee, so hopefully they would be confused long enough not to pursue.

What happened instead was that he rolled a low will save against hold person.

So my advice?

Give smart villains a ring of freedom of movement.

 

[GwydapLlew]

My group is also running through "Shackled City", and they're midway through "Flood Season", so they haven't hit the "power levels" yet (they're all 6th), but I'm definitely dreading it!

"Flood Season" IMO marks the beginning of the truly deadly combats in SCAP. How far into it are you?

 

[ForceUser]

When I design my own bad guys, I separate feats and abilities into PASSIVE and ACTIVE. Passive is any feat, spell effect (buffing) or ability which is active for the length of the encounter. I figure them in to the stats and then totally ignore those unless someone casts dispel magic, and by setting them aside I've halved the amount of things I need to concern myself with. Active feats and spells are things that the villain chooses to use, like power attack; I pick a few that will be cool, and don't worry too much about the rest.

That is a fantastic bit of advice, for the record, and something which I do as well. If I have a shifter barbarian NPC facing off against the party, I stat him with rage and shifting baked into the stats. I don't worry about his normal stats because he's probably going to be dead before his rage ends anyway. Any evil NPC gets statted with the PASSIVE spells baked right in, and like Piratecat, I don't worry about it further unless he gets dispelled.

 

[Shallown]

I seldom use purchased modules so have the advantage of generating my own baddies which helps familiarize myself with them. Perhaps doing the old school trick of writing the NPC out yourself will help the little things stick in your head.

Also as PC said worry only about the main numbers and add and subtract as needed as the situation changes.

I try to group things SR always goes beside Saves or else I forget it. Dr goes beside hit points or else I forget it. Cleave goes beside the attack line or I forget it.

Maybe these will help

 

[ruleslawyer]

IMX, the things to do are... well, what everyone else said.

1) Round-by-round tactics: In most cases, you will already have these scripted out for you if you're using a module. If not, write out your own list; I'd go with 5 rounds rather than 10 (it's less work, and by the time you're on round 6 of combat, you'll either be at the rinse-repeat stage or you'll have to get REALLY inventive). Don't worry too much if your players adapt to the preset tactics; your NPCs don't always have to do the brilliant thing in combat.

2) Make your own NPCs. My suggestion is as follows: Stat up a few standard archetypes (the Barbarian Juggernaut, the Dreaded Sorcerer, the Silent Assassin, etc.) and get to know them well. Move the stats around (perhaps using the new stat block format, or something similar that allows you to break out things in the right order for an encounter). Then, when your PCs are facing something resembling said prefab NPC, just use the stats for that NPC in place of what's in the module. You'll already be familiar with all of its buffs, tactics, etc., so you should be able to run an effective combat without having to learn new strategies and mechanics.

3) Passive vs. active effects: VERY important. In my last campaign (high-epic level), I basically never wrote up spell lists for casters. Rather, I figured out what all the possible buffs were for an x-level spellcaster and just assumed they were in effect. The same goes for stuff like rage; as ForceUser said, there should never be a high-level barbarian who isn't raging immediately upon the start of combat. Don't try to work in all the buffs one at a time; just assume they're up at the beginning of combat (unless they have a duration measured in rounds, in which case they should be up anyway if the opponents have prep time) and then figure out what happens if they go away. IOW, work backward rather than forward.

As for active effects: You really only need the top two levels of spells for any spellcaster, and the order in which they use them should be self-evident. Don't bother writing out the rest of their prepared or known spells; it's usually not worth it.

Honestly, the new stat block provides some excellent guidelines on packaging written NPC descriptions for best effect in combat. Grouping senses, communication, protection, resistance to damage, attacks and attack options, and spells at the top is an effective way to go. In all likelihood, you'll never need to look at the bottom of the stat block.

 

[Piratecat]

Reebo, I'll tell you, I find high level play immensily fun for the reason that I can throw almost any challenge at the group and they'll find some clever way to beat it, circumvent it, contain it, or run from it. I don't have to figure out "how will they deal with this?" ahead of time. That's kind of cool, because as a DM I love being surprised by what happens in the game. If my mind is racing to catch up with their cleverness, I'm a happy man.

It's a little two dimensional, but I tend to give any bad guy a "schtick." Maybe he's "the sniveling kobold" or "the super-sneaky thief" or "the zombie who will try and eat brains." That way I know a default behavior if I'm strapped for ideas mid-combat; if I have "the troupe of cautious archers", I know they're going to run back and shoot arrows. If I have "the clever commander," I know he'll direct all the other NPCs to focus their fire on one particular PC in the hopes of dropping them.

This summary technique is also a cool idea because it gives the players handles with which they can better understand the combat. You'll delight to see how quickly they yell "get the commander!" if one guy is directing all the other troops... and I reward this behavior by making the troops less effective/more likely to break once that commander is down.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Managing temporary buffs are a tricky thing. I generally do so by placing the buff next to what it affects on the stat block. I use a horizontal statblock format that works well on notebook paper & spreadsheets with the modifiers beneath it. Example:

HP MV F/R AC t ff Grapple Attacks F R W
Wizard the Wise 225 30' 5/5 30 25 26 +11/+6 +13/8 d4+4+poison 10 5 22
regen moderate:fast heal2 +4 shield spell sleep(fort:16)
20% miss blur 1 minute/1 hour

This way if someone nukes the shield spell I scratch out the AC and make a new line minus the effect. at the bottom of the column.

I generally leave 2-3 blank rows between characters so I have room to make adjustments. It works pretty good IME but I've been using it for ~15 years so YMMV.