Party Levels, CR, and Those Wacky Stats!

[dcollins]

I promise you Arthur wasn't 25 point buy.

I should say not. Converting from the AD&D 1st Ed. DDG, he's:
Pal 14/Brd 5; Str 20, Int 18, Wis 19, Dex 16, Con 18, Cha 18...

...which I believe back-calculates to an 87-point buy at 1st level per the DMG (or 105 points by your "1-for-1" method).


Perhaps you should try rolling dice for abilities (will that be reduced to a house rule someday?) It's exciting for players, and allows the presence of some random high abilities that shape characters "heroically".

 

[Xarlen]

Like I said above, No.

It isn't exactly fair when one PC gets 3 high stats, and then another PC's highest stat is a 12. I've never found it all that exciting. My last campaign, I gave PCs a standard aray.

I'm not taking back the Abilities method.

I'm asking how I should handle challanges and XP.

 

[hobbes]

Like I said above, No.

It isn't exactly fair when one PC gets 3 high stats, and then another PC's highest stat is a 12. I've never found it all that exciting. My last campaign, I gave PCs a standard aray.

I'm not taking back the Abilities method.

I'm asking how I should handle challanges and XP.

Something important to remember is that a party of 4 first level adventurers should be able to take out a CR 1 opponent without really breaking a sweat. With that in mind, I prefer to throw stuff at them that will give them a serious challenge and the possibility of failure (if there's no element of danger, then what's the fun?). However, I am also prepared to scale back on things a great deal if it looks like I've overestimated their ability to take what I've thrown at them. The CR are pretty much there to give you a rough guideline. If you don't exceed it things get really boring.

As far as experience goes, I try to 'rig' it so that they level up at a reasonable progression (maybe once every 2 or 3 8hr sessions). On average, the PC's actually accumulate exp. at roughly 50% of the speed listed in the DMG. I got the inspiration to do that from reading PirateCat's Story Hour, where he talked about keeping the flow of the game. It makes sense to me, as you want your players to spend some time in their characters at lower levels, since that dramatically shapes how the character acts at higher levels. In a nutshell, the philosophy I like to follow (and think it's the whole idea anyway) is this:

Use the numbers as guidelines to create a fun game. Don't worry if story you're trying to tell requires you to 'fudge' a little here and there (such as adding or subtracting HP to an opponent, or tossing in an unexpected spell-like ability).

Just don't tell the players that you're doing it!

 

[clark411]

We used standard array and standard array +3 pts (for point buy per dmg) for paladins and monks who are more stat dependant. This was done with the condition that the player locked in ten levels as a monk or a paladin (to prevent rapid multiclassing out of the class).

We liked it. We're also liking standard point buy, as thus far everything seems rather balanced. Prior to this it seemed like we were in a constant death spiral.. we started with no concept of how the rules worked (college guys calling eachother and guiding each other through the character creation CD: "keep clicking till you hit 70 or so points!")- and because of this we had monster characters. I think my Rogue Halfling was like 14, 26, 18, 14, 12, 18 by level 13, and I wasn't considered one of the Broken characters. As a normal reaction to this, our DM had to present more challenging things... which would either kill us outright or present only a mild challenge if played appropriately rather than to maximum effectiveness (ie- "DM sir, um- why are those purple metal cows with breath weapons coming at us in wedge formation???")

What it sounds like is that yer definitely beginning off the bat to feel the need to compensate for their high poweredness by jumping their foes- something which, from my experience might end up ultimately hurting the campaign severely- especially if your uber heroes suddenly find themselves being swatted regularly despite their uber qualities... having huge stats, be this metagaming or a logical progression that someone who is translated into the game as a near superhero or genius, means they'll think they can take on things. Or, perhaps this was just an isolated thing from players who honestly didn't know what they were doing (ie my group)

 

[Xarlen]

I plan on keeping them the way they are. I know what they will be dealing with, not simple challanges and such (Like I said, I'm nto putting them up against skeletons and rats).

I'm just wondering if I should treat the 'average challange' (A 1st level party's average challange is a CR 1), to a 2.

Because, not JUST Because of their stats, but due to the additional NPC. Six PCs should result in the party's Average to raise a little bit, so why not Five and then account for their stats.

Seeing as 1-3rd level get the same amount of XP for Cr 1, 2, and 3 stuff... Hrm.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

25-32 point buy makes perfectly respectable paladins and monks in my experience. Of course, 25 point buy characters are weaker than their higher point total brethren no matter what class they are but at 32 points, a Str 16, Dex 10, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 15 human paladin will be just fine alongside this companions. (25 point monks are a bit tricky--I'd probably go Str 14, Dex 13, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 14, cha 8 which doesn't look impressive until you realize that the fighter is probably Str 15, Dex 13, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 10). Characters like that are just fine with handling orcish barbarians, wererats, kobold sorcerors, and other standard first level challenges--heck, they could probably take on the manticore or hippogriffs that've been terrorizing the countryside (although some of them may die (and probably would against the manticore)--but risk is to be expected in D&D). If I want to have a really grand quest for the characters, I'll start them off at higher level rather than with higher stats.

But that's not really what you're looking for on this thread. Here's what I'd do: Treat them all as if they were one level higher for purposes of challenges and XP and see how it works. (Their stats are really high--potentially high enough to be +2 levels by themselves if your players make the most optimized use of them but it's best to start off conservative on things like this). If stuff is still too easy, go up to two. And I'd scale encounters etc by adding more monsters rather than by advancing the monsters you'd otherwise use. (Except in the case of creatures with gaze attacks (frex, Medusae or Umber Hulks) or presence effects (frex, Mummies)--the necessity to make multiple saves in the initial round could potentially devastate the party (every time I've used a mummy, half the party seems to go down to despair)).

Well, there's a problem with 25-32 point buy. Mainly classes that rely on several stats (paladins, Monks mainly) suffer very badly.

The monk needs to spread himself around. Otherwise he can't be hit but he can't hit either. He can hit but he'll get hit more often. A lot of the Monk's stuff requires good things in other areas.

Not to mention, true they are 1st level, but it just doesn't Feel very heroic when your highest stat is a 14. You're a pushover. I promise you Arthur wasn't 25 point buy. I want to do some Princess Mononoke/LotR style journeying, questing, doing the Hero thing from the very Start. Not fighting rats and skeletons.

And the party will Not get access to large amounts of magic. This isn't a high-fantasy game. It isn't LOW magic, because they all Will get magic, just not in buckets; they have to adventure to 'wake' their magic, or put XP into it.

 

[Xarlen]

Well, a paladin is immune to Mummy rot and Fear, so...

No, I don't plan on putting them against That. Though, at the moment, I can't think of a Lot of thing to challange them with (Maybe bandits? Not sure). But I've got ideas. However, the BBEG is still allowable (I'm thinking a 5th level fighter/rogue, around there, with magical output; With the paladin swinging at +6, not a bad choice).

 

[Darklone]

I'd give all monsters a 5hp kickoff starter. Easy to include.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

With the fighters doing 2d6+6 damage (minimum 7, average 13) at +7 to hit, an extra 5 hp for all the monsters will hardly make any difference to the paladin unless the monsters have between 9 and 13 hit points. Then it will usually give the monster an extra round to live. On the other hand, if there's a wizard in the party, that extra 5 hp is as much as his magic missile spell can possibly do. So he might as well stop trying. (Unless he's using sleep/color spray etc which he may very well be doing at low levels).

Anyway, that comes very close to just plain taking away the PCs abilities. Do they do an extra 3 hp damage/swing? Lets give the NPCs 3 more hit points per hit die. There, problem solved.

Except that the other PCs who don't deal 13 point/hit on average will now be less able to deal with the monsters than the paladin since their HP are all being calibrated to his damage level.

Far better, in my mind to add an extra 50% to the number of monsters. Ordinarily two orcs? Make it three. Etc. For the BBEG, you might want to add more hit points of give him four more points of con (or use the same 90+ point buy for him if you're really mean) but not for the ordinary foes.

I'd give all monsters a 5hp kickoff starter. Easy to include.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I wouldn't recommend that. A fifth level fighter/rogue (2/3 maybe) with magical support? He should eat the paladin for breakfast and quite possibly the rest of the party as well. This is where the problem that others and I mentioned comes up: appropriate challenges for their level are weak because the party has much more offense but harder challenges will tend to eat them for breakfast because, despite level 2-3 quality offenses, their hit points are still level 1 and their ACs are probably no higher than level 2.

So take a sample 32 point Ftr 2/Rog 3
HP 38; Init +7, AC 20 (24 with haste, 27 with shield, 31 with haste and shield); Atk +9 melee (1d8+3 longsword) or +10 ranged (1d8+3 mty +2 comp longbow); SA Sneak Attack +2d6; SQ: Evasion, Uncanny Dodge; AL CE; SV Fort +7, Ref +7, Will +5; Str 16, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 10
Skills and feats: Bluff +8, Climb +1, Decipher Script +5, Disable Device +6, Hide +9, Jump +8, Move Silently +9, Open Lock +7, Sense Motive +6, Tumble +11, Use Magic Device +10; Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Weapon Focus: Longsword, Power Attack, Cleave.
Equipment: +1 chain shirt with armor spikes, +1 ring of protection, masterwork buckler, +1 cloak of resistance, Masterwork longsword, masterwork dagger, Masterwork Mighty [+3] Composite Longbow, 20 masterwork arrows, Potion of Cure moderate wounds, 2 potions of cure light wounds, potion of invisibility, potion of haste, 4 scrolls of Shield (clvl 1)

In the first round, he's likely to win initiative and drop the party's wizard to -6 (average damage: 14 assuming the wizard has 18 con) with a sneak attack (because he's nervous about color spray, etc) and either cleave into the paladin or someone else (and he'll drop the paladin too on average damage--assuming anything less than an 18 con for the paladin) if in melee or prepare to flank with his magical flunky. If he's feeling really threatened, he might open up by drinking his potion of haste and reading his scroll of shield (50% chance of success but if he fails, he's got several others and getting the shield up in the next round) which would give him an AC of 30--even the paladin would need to roll 20's to hit him. After that, since he's immune to Command and Sleep (5 HD) and the worst color spray could do is stun him (which would be inconvenient but not the end of the world, he'd probably walk over the rest of the party too. Even assuming the average member of the party has AC 20, he'd have a very good chance of dropping 2 party members a round with cleave. And that's without including any flunkies or support other than the standard wealth for a 5th level NPC.

Were the party 2nd or 3rd level, they'd stand a fairly good chance of prevailing since it would take the villain two attacks to drop any PC (except a wizard) and at 3rd level, the PCs would get access to things like Sound Burst, Hold Person, Glitterdust, and Tasha's Hideous Laughter which could exploit his weak will save and make him much more susceptible to attack or Web which would probably slow him down long enough for the haste to wear off.

Well, a paladin is immune to Mummy rot and Fear, so...

No, I don't plan on putting them against That. Though, at the moment, I can't think of a Lot of thing to challange them with (Maybe bandits? Not sure). But I've got ideas. However, the BBEG is still allowable (I'm thinking a 5th level fighter/rogue, around there, with magical output; With the paladin swinging at +6, not a bad choice).