PCs breeze through my monster!

[Nightchilde-2]

I feel ya. Man, do I ever.

I got a better one for you. I had a recurring villain plague the PCs for 12 levels before she finally made a move. She was a very powerful lich, CR 25 (all epic and everything). The PCs were 15th level. My *plan* was to have her continue to recur until the PCs caught up with her in level and have an epic final showdown. She was supposed to (and should have) whupped up on the PCs with this encounter, only to return later to finish the job. I'd spent over a year (real time) building up just how bad this chickie had become.

(I will note at this point that, throug the PCs own cleverness, they had managed to get the lich's phylactery, which she had hidden on the shadow plane INSIDE of her son (who had been turned into a vampire), but they perfectly figured out the clues and found the phylactery).

Well, to make a long story short, one of the PCs won initiative and hit her with an arrow of undead slaying. I rolled a 1 on my save. The phylactery was destroyed soon after. 1 round, and she was 10 LEVELS higher than the party average. If she (or her pit fiend bound servant) had had a chance to act, they would have been toast.

Stupid clever players.....

 

[BlueBlackRed]

It happens to everyone.
It happens to me when I least expect it.
I've seen it happen to other DM's

I've found that creating the perfectly matched encounter is almost an artform.

I was playing in the RttToEE, Moathouse, Blue Dragon...nice tips in the book on tactics for the dragon.
The poor dragon didn't even get off its breath weapon.
(3.0 rules) We had 2 rogues on opposite sides of the dragon, so they both got sneak attacks in on the 1st round.
It flew into the air on round 2. No one got melee attacks. The wizard cast Web on the area the dragon was in (made is concentration roll for the junk in the air - nat 20). It rolled a 1 on the saving throw. DM figured that since it was so big the Web wouldn't hold, so it fell to the ground.
Next round we all got our attacks in (including both rogues). That same round it had to get up from falling. Everyone got AoO's. Bye bye dragon.

The DM had actually considered making the dragon weaker before the combat. After the combat he was much more wary of the rogues.

Later, while in the same module, we lost 1/3 of our party against a red dragon. The DM had learned, but had overcompensated.

 

[the Jester]

I feel ya. Last epic game I ran, a hellaciously powerful beastie died in the first round to a failed save vs. destruction. Damn it!

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

Maybe you could have given the Rust Monster (who rusted nothing) a minder of some kind to have taken a few blows. Dress him up like an evil wizard who looks spooky but in reality is just a guy with the fasion sense of Ming the Merciless. He could have drawn some fire.

(Now that I think about it, if I lived in a D&D style world, there is NO way I would dress cool if I were a wizard. I would dress like a civil servant, a peasant or some other 'forgettable' person.)

 

[diaglo]

the rust monster automatically rusts metal that hits him. no save. magic items too.

 

[XO]

From SRD

"Rust (Ex): A rust monster that makes a successful touch attack with its antennae causes the target metal to corrode, falling to pieces and becoming useless immediately. The touch can destroy up to a 10-foot cube of metal instantly. Magic armor and weapons, and other magic items made of metal, must succeed on a DC 17 Reflex save or be dissolved. The save DC is Constitution-based and includes a +4 racial bonus.

A metal weapon that deals damage to a rust monster corrodes immediately. Wooden, stone, and other nonmetallic weapons are unaffected."

So... A DC17 save (unless adjusted upwards for uber qualities) for "magic armor and weapons" is likely to yield little rusting when a paladin (who lends an air of divine grace to the proceedings) with Dex AND bonuses holds the line against the rust beastie !!!!

 

[diaglo]

A metal weapon that deals damage to a rust monster corrodes immediately. Wooden, stone, and other nonmetallic weapons are unaffected

when the paladin hits the rust monster his weapon is bye bye

edit: the DC 17 is for attacks from the rust monster on the paladin.

 

[Darklone]

That's one of the reasons why I prefer several rather powerful beasties instead of one really powerful one.

 

[Pinotage]

One solution to this is to reduce the number of encounters. So instead of 13 encounters to level up, make it 6 or 7. That increases the CR of the encounters, making them last longer and keeping the players on their toes. As Darklone said, a 1 against 4-6 characters of high level is rarely a good idea.

Pinotage

 

[Munin]

Another tactic I like to employ is to never, ever, allow the party to go up against the BBEG at full strength, unless the find some clever way to circumvent his defenses (always reward clever play).
Granted, this might not have saved your bacon in this case, but it is a good rule of thumb.

This does two things:
1, it softens up the pcs a bit. Remember, it's much easier to tone down an BBEG if he's too much for then than it is to strengthen him if he's too soft.
2, IMO at the higher levels magic using classes tend to dominate the game, multiple encounters balances this out, since the casters have to spread their spells out more.


Lastly, if the group enjoyed the encounter, I wouldn't worry about it. If they had fun, you did your job.