How to challenge a defensive party?

[Mengu]

Some ideas:

1. Use leaders who give attack bonuses, so your critters can begin to threaten the defenders.
2. Use controllers who knock prone, daze, blind, restrain, or give some sort of defense penalty.
3. Change up your front line monsters to have less HP, higher attack, and higher damage (see my shocktrooper role)
4. When handing player wish-list items, give offensive items before defensive items.
5. I'll repeat one of the ideas already given since I like it so much, use minions to aid another.

And I'll agree with the few others who have said they have no reason to complain about their low defenses being attacked. As long as you don't have *every* monster attacking that defense, they should expect all of their defenses to be tested in battle.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Try creating a "gauntlet" for the party to survive. It can take many possible physical forms but it essentially consists of some sort of area the party is highly motivated to travel through which is difficult to traverse and where the enemy can constantly harass the party. Instead of set piece battles where the party revs up their good defensive magics and just laughs off damage the monsters rush in for a round or two, cause the PCs to bring up a couple good powers, then they run away again. Soon enough the party will not have anything left to do that with, they'll have to either learn how to attack or give up.

The environment can be fairly hostile as well, slowly wearing away at the party or at least hampering their easy recovery of powers etc.

Traps would be another obvious element. Every now and then a snare, pit trap, or deadfall triggers, followed by a few monsters lobbing in an attack or two before running away.

See the problem with a defensive force of any kind is that it effectively surrenders the choice of when and where to join battle to the enemy. It can't control the engagement. It may be very hard to beat in a straightforward sense, but it will also be very difficult for it to actually WIN when pitted against a moderately clever foe.

 

[Sanzuo]

Don't give up!

Your players should be able to play the party they want.

Let them use their abilities

Give them critters to wail on with their cool mark abilities. Low-level lurkers are best since they can dish out some damage but don't last very long, and they do it in melee. Alternatively give them a high level brute who will be able to consistently hit and do damage but also be easy to hit himself. You know what their defenses and attack bonuses are.

Combat should be FAST and DANGEROUS

• Lay down a lot of environmental dangers; fire pits, spike traps, piranha pools.
• Pepper the area with artillery minions along with whatever else your using. Ranged minions are handy because they can pick away at a party and are dangerous if ignored.
• Have your monsters fight recklessly. Have them take risks if it means getting in an extra hit. If you're designing your own monsters give them abilities like; lowering their defenses for extra hit/damage and stuff like that.
• Avoid status effects like stun and daze on the players. Anything that takes away their actions can be a drag and make combat drag. Instead consider things that grant combat advantage and movement around the battlefield. Push the players into that piranha pool!
• No fight should merely be a slug-fest. Have some kind of sub-objective in the encounter, such as shutting down portals that are spewing out endless amounts of demons, or activating a magical shield to stop the deadly plague cloud from enveloping the town.

 

[KarinsDad]

I would think that Skirmishers would be the best type of creature to throw at a defensive party. They tend to hit high and hard, but have low hit points. Whereas defenders have high hit points and hit low. In a way, they are perfect opposites to each other.

Skirmishers are average foes. Average to hit, average AC, average hit points, average damage, average everything. They are the baseline against which all other monster roles are measured.

Their defining feature is their mobility, but if you use them against defenders, they become non-mobile. There are no squishes in the back ranks for them to use their mobility against. So they just become an average foe with nothing special going for them.

Brutes on the other hand are the monsters' version of defenders (actually, soldiers are, but brutes are a second-best version of defenders...). They are designed to soak a lot of damage, ie. stikers. So a defender versus brute fight would be long and draggy.

Brutes are the easiest to hit. So although they have a lot of hit points, it really doesn't matter. The players feel good cause they are hitting often and the Brute will go down about as fast as many other monster roles.

Brutes have about 25% (5 to 4 ratio) more hit points than an average monster, but get hit 60% instead of 50% (6 to 5) (at least vs. AC which Defenders target). The PC dpr ratio is about the same and PC conditions work more often since they hit more often.

 

[Hejdun]

Use fewer monsters of a higher level. The higher level means that your monsters have a higher attack bonus and might do something meaningful. Against a normal party, a swarm of minions of level-2 is almost worthless because they can't hit. Against a party of defenders, minions have to be level+2 or so before they can be really effective. That or look for minions that can give each other a boost somehow, particularly to hit. In generally, it's better to have 1 monster who can be quite effective than 2 monsters who do nothing but miss all combat. Missing is boring for the PCs and the DM.

 

[Blackbrrd]

Just go ahead and hit them where it hurts. It isn't your fault they only optimized AC.

I had great fun in one fight where I had some eladrin who teleported the enemy on hit. That really annoyed the defender, because he was never close to his mark when it was attacked.

Your job isn't to let them have easy fights, it's to make them interesting. Clearly you are bored out of your wits as it is. Start your next session with a bad-ass encounter that really makes them sweat. The run a couple of easy encounters to lull them into a false sense of security and bring out another medium-hard encounter. If they still have dailies/healing surges left, just hit them with all you have got. At least one of the characters should go down before they beat the crap out of the opponents and/or make them flee in terror. (The next session can be relatively mild without too many dangers, they will be coasting of that last big fight. )

Beating somebody in a hard fight is WAY more interesting than just walking all over somebody.

 

[frankthedm]

timed fights with the goal of covering ground rather than killing foes.

 

[kerbarian]

They get upset and complain a lot when a attack their weakness, but don't bullying.

The group is currently at level 12 and in combat their main concern is not being hit

One thing you could point out to them is that as they increase in level, monsters will attack non-AC defenses more often (supporting statistics; look under attacks). Focusing on AC works pretty well in heroic tier, but now that they're in paragon, it will be less effective. So it's not just you picking on their weak defenses -- the game starts to change at paragon.

 

[Starfox]

PS - The Mean DM in my says to gun for the weakest and when he dies encourage him to bring in something that is a little more. . .lively, but I don't think that is *good* advice.

I find that when PCs die and come back with a new character, they always come back with more defensive characters.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Just a tip. Don´t make it too obvious that you only picked monsters that attck their weakness.

Use normal encounters. If you know you can´t really threaten them, use monsters of equal level, no higher encounters of such monsters which just lengthen combats... even consider running away.

Next fight: use the runaway monsters. If appropriate, use monsters that will attack their weaknesses.

So: th party can´t complain, because the enemies know what they are facing. A party of heavy armored melee guys. If you have time to prepare as monster, you can mix some alchemists fires, use ranged weapons and gluepods. and soon you can get some free hits on them.