Need help judging encounter challenges

[Herobizkit]

Hey gang. After the KotS debacle, I've taken over as DM. We're now in Eberron, and I'm running a Delve-style campaign which may or may not include the Chaos Scar series of adventures.

I recently ran Orc Stronghold (a level 3 Delve from the Dungeon Delve supplement) for a group of level 3 PCs:

Eladrin Bladesinger (melee-focused; a 'Striketroller')
Warforged Artificer (range-focused; a 'Leadtroller')
Shifter Life Warden with Fey Panther (reach-focused; a 'Leadefender')
Changeling Wellblade (skirmish-focused; Striker through and through)

The final fight:
[sblock]The PCs face off against:
Dire Wolf [Skirmisher 5]
two Orc Berserkers [Brute 4]
Orc Chieftain [Elite Brute 8]

The room also contained a fireplace that did 1d6 fire + 3 ongoing to creatures entering the area.[/sblock]In short, the PCs were able to efficiently take down
their foes, making great use of slides, immobilization and prone effects to burn away the wolf. The Hexblade handled one of the lesser Orcs with stick and move tactics.

The toughest Orc was locked down pretty quickly. He was also shoved into the fireplace, knocked prone, then the PCs mobbed him until he was dead. I tried to Bull Rush out, using an action point, which failed. Even after his surge ability, he was taken down with little effort.

Now, this surprised me. I expected this fight to murder them. Instead, it was a minor inconvenience. Only the Hexblade needed to spend surges and was able to do so safely thanks to his teleporting powers.

This is by far and away a HUGE improvement over our last party. I know that some of the efficiency is due to our play experience in KotS - the PCs are no longer afraid to take risks, confident that what they may try will actually work for once.

In the end, the game was FUN, WAY more fun than the Keep. So I'm happy. But I'm also curious as to what might make the PCs sweat. I'm thinking lots of minions and weaker creatures, but is there anything else that might be interesting and challenging?

 

[KarinsDad]

Leader | Striker parties are the hardest to challenge because of the volume of damage that they hand out.

One way to challenge them is to split up the party in some way. A simple pit trap can work wonders if the PC that falls cannot teleport or climb out, forcing that PC either out of some of the combat, or forcing another PC to use up time lowering a rope.

A 35 foot deep pit trap is the perfect distance to not hurt the falling PC too much, but to prevent most teleports and single round climbs. Course, forced movement will eventually put monsters into the pit, so the monsters should focus early attacks on Bull Rushes to get even more PCs into the pit (note: pits should be 10x10 on the surface, not 5x5).

Edit: Forgot to mention. Have a nasty slime of some type at the bottom of the pit.


Having a lot of minions that negate a lot of the extra striker damage combined with ranged standard foes in the back (especially shooting from above where the melee strikers cannot reach them easily) can also mess up their day.


Another option is to not have any hazards on the map. It prevents the PCs that can do forced movement from taking advantage of their surroundings.


Most encounters should just be a variety of standard encounters. But every once in a while, the DM should go out of his way to throw something in designed with the PC's abilities in mind somewhat.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Hey gang. After the KotS debacle, I've taken over as DM. We're now in Eberron, and I'm running a Delve-style campaign which may or may not include the Chaos Scar series of adventures.

I recently ran Orc Stronghold (a level 3 Delve from the Dungeon Delve supplement) for a group of level 3 PCs:

Eladrin Bladesinger (melee-focused; a 'Striketroller')
Warforged Artificer (range-focused; a 'Leadtroller')
Shifter Life Warden with Fey Panther (reach-focused; a 'Leadefender')
Changeling Wellblade (skirmish-focused; Striker through and through)

The final fight:
[sblock]The PCs face off against:
Dire Wolf [Skirmisher 5]
two Orc Berserkers [Brute 4]
Orc Chieftain [Elite Brute 8]

The room also contained a fireplace that did 1d6 fire + 3 ongoing to creatures entering the area.[/sblock]In short, the PCs were able to efficiently take down
their foes, making great use of slides, immobilization and prone effects to burn away the wolf. The Hexblade handled one of the lesser Orcs with stick and move tactics.

The toughest Orc was locked down pretty quickly. He was also shoved into the fireplace, knocked prone, then the PCs mobbed him until he was dead. I tried to Bull Rush out, using an action point, which failed. Even after his surge ability, he was taken down with little effort.

Now, this surprised me. I expected this fight to murder them. Instead, it was a minor inconvenience. Only the Hexblade needed to spend surges and was able to do so safely thanks to his teleporting powers.

This is by far and away a HUGE improvement over our last party. I know that some of the efficiency is due to our play experience in KotS - the PCs are no longer afraid to take risks, confident that what they may try will actually work for once.

In the end, the game was FUN, WAY more fun than the Keep. So I'm happy. But I'm also curious as to what might make the PCs sweat. I'm thinking lots of minions and weaker creatures, but is there anything else that might be interesting and challenging?

The MM1 isn't really balanced. The orc chieftain, for instance, isn't really an elite. IIRC, it doesn't have the ability to dish out two attacks per round. (I'm assuming the Delve didn't update the stats.)

It sounds like your party is really strong on the control, despite not having any controllers It also sounds like they used lots of dailies, so they should be powerful. I don't really know about "Delve"; was it just one encounter for the day?

IMC I build a lot of monsters from scratch. My party is strong on melee and AC, so I use lots of controllers. IMO, templars in Dark Sun are controller [leaders] and they're common foes, so I use them a lot. Next encounter though, I'm using a wizard. I doubt it'll live up to the hype, but the character card really scares me. They also have lots of healing, which I will try to control in a manner I'm suggesting to you too.

I would suggest lots of artillery. IMO, artillery are strikers, and should have options to do more damage. Combat advantage is not enough, unless they're actually lurkers, as you can't flank from range. An example is a gnoll (!) warlock in Threats to Nentir Vale, who has the warlock curse ability. It's an at-will minor action that gives bonus damage (against any single opponent, not just the closest one), but only lasts until the end of the next turn. Still, that's free damage, which you shouldn't sneeze at. Also, if your PCs have abilities that daze opponents, they'll be happy, as they can keep trying to daze or otherwise steal said warlock's actions in order to keep the damage they're taking lower. (In my next encounter, one or more of the opponents will be crossbowmen who effectively have the martial version of the warlock's curse. One of my PCs can dish out some daze...)

In addition you use more but slightly weaker monsters. It's a good thing you used lots of brutes, as they're easy to hit (with AC, anyway, but that's hard on anyone who attacks NADs).

And if you're using old monsters, drop elites to normal (cut hit points and defenses) and use the MM3 guidelines to set their damage properly.

 

[S'mon]

I'm impressed - the Orc Hill Fort is the weakest Delve in the book, IMO, and sounds like you guys had a great time.

Be sure to update damage expressions - baseline monster level +8. Elites should do (IMO) +50% vs a single target, or x2 if they have to hit different targets. Solos likewise should be around x3 single-target damage (with multiple attacks) or x5 if over a bunch of PCs.

 

[Herobizkit]

The MM1 isn't really balanced. The orc chieftain, for instance, isn't really an elite. IIRC, it doesn't have the ability to dish out two attacks per round. (I'm assuming the Delve didn't update the stats.)

And you'd be right. The Chieftain was basically a huge wad of HP that offered some select boosts to his Orc allies.

It sounds like your party is really strong on the control, despite not having any controllers It also sounds like they used lots of dailies, so they should be powerful. I don't really know about "Delve"; was it just one encounter for the day?

The Bladesinger is 'technically' a Controller; the Warden has a lot of 'fight me or else' abilities and uses his Form of Winter's Herald and reach to make terrain his beeotch.

A delve is a 3-5 room dungeon that can be played in one short session. It's what WotC is (was?) running every Wednesday at your FLGS.

I would suggest lots of artillery

That looks like a great option. I made one fight with a "mage" Controller and "cleric" Controller and it turned out really exciting. More artillery and controller support.

And if you're using old monsters, drop elites to normal (cut hit points and defenses) and use the MM3 guidelines to set their damage properly.

I shall have to look that up.

 

[Herobizkit]

I'm impressed - the Orc Hill Fort is the weakest Delve in the book, IMO, and sounds like you guys had a great time.

They got to keep the fort as their reward.

 

[Dragon Sin-Camealot]

Everyone has their idea. How experienced of a player did you want it from or did you want advice in general.

I do keep hazards on my maps. The enemy is immue to the traps like in many adventures. Also, some monsters tend to explode when they die.

I created a monster that can punish someone if they damage it too quickly. I created another monster than gets more powerful the more damaged it is.

4E has these themes already. Like you get 5 temp HP when bloodied. In any circumstance there's a way to turn a disadvantage into an advantage.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I have been running a striker/leader party since 4e came out.. and let me tell you it can be really challenging to set it up right. You run a very fine line between total annihilation and cakewalk. The good news is the higher level they get, the wider that line gets.

For instance, game last friday night at 24th level.. I had only 4 of the 6 players present {striker/ranger two weapon, striker/invigorating build, leader/warlord, leader/bard}
They went up against a boss fight in which the main bad guy was dishing out 50 to 60 points of damage per turn to at least two targets. Latter when he was bloodied, he upped that to 60 to 90 on average.
The Fighter went below zero three times, the bard went down twice, and the ranger and warlord were both bloodied.

That was to give you an idea that this isn't just random advise.

For 4e encounters I follow Stalker0's guide to the Anti-Grind and a couple of standard practices:

1) Use the hard encounter template as written in the DMG and ignore XP value.
2) for each player above 5, add a standard monster to the mix
3) Alter the stats for standard monsters to match the character levels, plus or minus 4
4) Elites and Solo's should be within 2 levels of the PCs
5) In Paragon, standard monsters should not exceed 2 levels above the PCs and Elites and Solo's should not exceed the PC level
6) In Elite, standard monsters no not exceed the PC level and Elites/Solos do not exceed 2 levels lower

7 )Use MM3 damage expressions!
8) Use terrain, traps, and in-combat skill challenges to mix it up. Use stunt items {like a Ballista} that both sides can use and fight over
9) Make sure your bad guys have enough space! My experience with Delve nights was that the rooms tended to be too small to allow maneuver tactics. I often doubled the size of the rooms for mobile bad guys.
10) Minions for the win!!!! and demi-minions {with a threshold of 5 + 1/2 level or hit points equal to a standard monster bloodied value and normal attack damage {this kinda punishes your strikers and favors your controllers.. so be wise with using this}




I use 5 and 6 because strikers and leaders tend to be squishy and higher level monsters hit ratios are mean. The BBEG on Friday could hit the Bard on a 6 or better. {of course, he could only hit the Ranger on a 15 or better... }
I use 10 because I have two focused strikers and the leaders often just sit in the back and wait for the blood to finish flying. They have taken an Elite out in one round before

 

[the Jester]

I'd say that the single biggest thing that will make fights exciting and dangerous is to update your monsters to MM3 standards. (A lot of earlier monsters, especially from the MM, have mathematical flaws, especially in their damage and defenses.)

 

[Herobizkit]

Now, I keep hearing this "MM3" standards, and I even got a PM about it, but I still don't see this "magical formula" people keep talking about.

Where is this math calculated? Is there a page number to read? A guide? Did the updates automatically happen in the D&D Insider tools?