Is this an appropriate challenge for 6-7 level 2s? (My players stay out!)

[Amitiel]

Not my system...I take no credit. It's right here, in one of the SRD sites.

Quite possibly.

Given the PCs are 2nd level, though, they are "made of paper", so the encounters are probably on the challenging side. A good stiff wind will...._________.

Ah, I'd forgotten Hypertext had that. I find its far more fitting to tailor the EL and xp award by how difficult it was to get through the encounter rather than a static number based on the critters CR. And I don't mean difficult as in bad dice rolls.

For example:My players have a 10.9 PL according to Calculator. They at one point faced a Bloodhulk Crusher (CR8) and a 12 lvl Cleric of Vecna (human ECL12) According to the calculator this was a EL13 (Very Difficult). They walked through it in 3 rounds of combat, I didn't give them near the awards the static numbers had since despite its high EL it wasn't much of a challenge. Fast forward to a later encounter with a pair of Stone Golems (same EL 13 Very Difficult) and they nearly lost half the party. I gave them larger EXP awards for it

My point was that the static numbers alone do not reflect the actual difficulty of the encounters.

 

[James McMurray]

Ah, I'd forgotten Hypertext had that. I find its far more fitting to tailor the EL and xp award by how difficult it was to get through the encounter rather than a static number based on the critters CR. And I don't mean difficult as in bad dice rolls.

<snip example>

My point was that the static numbers alone do not reflect the actual difficulty of the encounters.

I did that for a while too, because it's impossible for the CR system to completely represent challenge levels for the vast number of parties that can be built, and with each new character level the disparity between the "norm" and the actual can grow.

I stopped after I realized that for the most part things were evening out. Fights I thought would be hard were easy, ones I though easy: hard. In the meantime the party was earning XP at an errattic rate that jumped a lot but still stayed close to the 13 encounters = 1 level equation. I opted to save myself some thinking and drop back to standard XP levels. This was back whent he game first started, and my players hadn't yet memorized the monster manual, so they didn't even realize anything had changed (or at least never mentioned it).

 

[Nail]

I stopped after I realized that for the most part things were evening out.

Excellent point.

In addition, I realized that ....well....players *like* it when their PCs level! It's fun! So it's often better to think longer term about XP: How fast/slow do I (the DM) want the PCs to level?

 

[James McMurray]

Hell, I like it when they level. Higher level monsters and NPCs have more cool toys for me to play with than lower level ones.

 

[Gerion of Mercadia]

hmm -

Party will need antitoxins and/or a healer's kit for sure to survive day 2 and 3. The larger the battle, the more likely you will have individual PC's die, because of the "gang up" factor.

The mummy can do a LOT of damage via paralasis/disease. Make sure the PC's don't get suprised by this thing. If they open up on it from a distance; a party of this size could easily destroy it; especially if they have a means of dealing fire damage at range.

Spontaneous CLW's from a couple of clerics who have some guts to get hand 2 hand with this thing and/or a paladin who hits with a smite evil are a sound "backup" plan.

 

[pawsplay]

Yeah, that's a conclusion I've started to come to independently...

It's kind of annoying because I already rolled up all the treasure and stuff for the encounters using the higher CR critters... I'm just going to keep the treasure I rolled up because it's not worth all the time and effort just make sure that they're not getting like a tenth too much treasure or something.

Treasure is by EL, not CR, anyway. And you can give out however mich you want.

 

[Nail]

So, Asmor....what's the scoop? How'd it go? Etc.

 

[Asmor]

Treasure is by EL, not CR, anyway. And you can give out however mich you want.

Really? Well, . I rolled the treasure up by CR, so for example for the 12 scorpions I rolled up 4 cr 1 treasures from the Magic Item Compendium.

Exp is by CR and not EL, right?

 

[Asmor]

So, Asmor....what's the scoop? How'd it go? Etc.

I'm running it on Sunday, so I'll let you all know.

Predictions: Players won't have characters ready. We'll get started 3 hours late. Shortly after the first encounter, they'll decide that the ashworms must be a sign of something and spend the rest of the session digging holes in the ground trying to figure out where they came from until I get frustrated and summon an earth monolith to squish them all*.

*The players, I mean, not the characters. I would never do something so petty in game.

 

[werk]

Really? Well, . I rolled the treasure up by CR, so for example for the 12 scorpions I rolled up 4 cr 1 treasures from the Magic Item Compendium.

Exp is by CR and not EL, right?

No, the opposite, as I said before. If you have a high CR creature, but reduce the challenge with lava moats, etc, this reduces the EL... Calculate XP based on EL, or, the challenge presented by the whole encounter rather than one creature in the encounter.

Also treasure shouldn't all be magic items, actually, it is rarely magic items.