What happens when the party is not only short on numbers, but diversity as well?

[Engilbrand]

I would recommend checking out the Wraith Recon books. It's about playing the game as a strike force. Tom Clancy's D&D, basically.
I run for 2 players. One is a Changeling Bard. The other is a pure Ranger. I don't really hold anything back. I use what I want, and they go with it. That can make some dangerous encounters, but it's a blast.

 

[Calzone]

I'm currently DM'ing a campaign with 2 PCs. They are both strikers, 1 barbarian, 1 sorceror MC bard. They've been through a handful of combat encounters so far, and though there have been some tense moments, there hasn't been a TPK yet.

When designing my encounters I really watch the action economy: If the enemy can bring many more actions per turn than the party, or if they can deny a lot of mobility or actions to the party, that's bad.

I like to use brutes, skirmishers, and artillery for the most part, because they can hit hard but go down pretty fast too. For instance, the barbarian took a level lower elite brute to just shy of bloodied with one attack, but not before the brute had hit the barbarian for about a third of his health, too.

Break large combats up into a few waves of a couple of creatures, but with no chance to rest in between. The damage output of the strikers can down the 1-2 enemies fast without taking too much damage, but the constant trickle of foes makes combat more intense.

Also, objective-based combat can be a lot of fun for small groups. The encounter with the brute above also included about eight minions. The catch? The minions were trying to steal a crate the PCs were carrying with them. It was heavy, so it took several of them to move it, and the rest were playing a rear guard action to buy time to escape with the crate. Since all the monsters weren't focused on killing the PCs, the encounter was manageable, even with so many creatures.

A DMPC helps make combat less swingy. I've paired the 2 strikers with a shielding swordmage DMPC for now who helps soak damage for the team. Their last encounter with an Ochre Jelly had the barbarian hurting until the swordmage managed to pull the Jelly over to her, and her shielding kept most of the damage off the strikers (though the ongoing acid made things a bit tense

If you build encounters near the XP budget for the group, use monsters that don't kill the action economy, and throw in a DMPC or potions, etc, for bigger fights, you'll probably be fine.

 

[ourchair]

Excellent suggestions, all.

@Calzone: How do I determine an ideal action economy for a group of monsters?

I'm a little worried about using brutes because they have high hit points, and I'm relatively better with my dice than most other people I play with. At the very least, I hope this is offset by their weaker defenses.

With regards to breaking up combats into waves, won't that still exhaust the party resources by negating the ability to rest in between, or are we counting here on being able to deal with large numbers of monsters divided into tiny "battle" portions like a 'banquet' of seven tiny entrees?

 

[Calzone]

@Calzone: How do I determine an ideal action economy for a group of monsters?

I think of action economy this way: If an enemy has an ability that will deny a PC an effective action on their turn, he's reduced the party's action budget by one member's actions. For instance, if he denies 1 party member an effective action in a two man group, he's reduced their action budget by 50% for that turn. The action economy is how much can each side of the conflict do with their actions, roughly,

(enemy's attack ability) x (enemy's action budget)
vs.
(PC's attack ability) x (party's action budget)

Basically, "How much bang can I make with the actions I have?" Actions in combat affect the action economies of the two sides:

• Status effects like dazed, blinded, prone, etc. lower the action budget for who is afflicted by them.
• Killing a creature on one side lowers that side's action budget.
• Creature type/role (e.g. minion or striker) and powers determine how much harm they can inflict.
• Buffs/Debuffs can modify the attack ability temporarily or for the duration of the encounter

You want the party to, on average, have a higher action economy than the enemy (I believe the encounter XP guidelines try and follow this). You can induce tension in the fight by making the two side's action economies closer to equal (throw harder encounters), or having the enemy do things during combat to lower the party's economy or help theirs (kill a PC, call for reinforcements, activate a clever trap, etc.) If the enemy has a higher action economy that the party for too long, though, they'll likely TPK the group.

So, if you are throwing tough monsters at the party, be really careful about monster powers that deny or waste actions. Similarly, be careful of Aid Another/group damage buffs for groups of weaker monsters (like minions). Also, controllers hurt smaller parties more because they remove a larger percentage of the party's action budget for each person they remove form combat.

With regards to breaking up combats into waves, won't that still exhaust the party resources by negating the ability to rest in between, or are we counting here on being able to deal with large numbers of monsters divided into tiny "battle" portions like a 'banquet' of seven tiny entrees?

[/quote]

Yes, we want a battle banquet with many small varied courses, not 1 course with an entire cow.

Ex: Let's say your 2 strikers can kill 1 monster per round. The monsters do 5 damage a round, each.

Scenario 1: the party faces 6 monsters at once
Rd1: 30 damage to party, 5 monsters left
Rd2: 25 damage to party, 4 monsters left
Rd3: 20 damage to party, 3 monsters left
Rd4: 15 damage to party, 2 monsters left
Rd5: 10 damage to party, 1 monsters left
Rd6: 05 damage to party, 0 monsters left
Total damage to party: 105

Scenario 2: the party faces 3 waves of 2 monsters
Rd1: 10 damage to party, 1 monsters left
Rd2: 05 damage to party, 0 monsters left (2 more come in)
Rd3: 10 damage to party, 1 monsters left
Rd4: 05 damage to party, 0 monsters left (2 more come in)
Rd5: 10 damage to party, 1 monsters left
Rd6: 05 damage to party, 0 monsters left
Total damage to party: 45

The two scenarios take the same number of rounds to resolve, the same number of monsters are killed, but the PCs take less damage with the smaller waves of monsters. In action economy terms, the enemy had a much larger action budget in scenario 1 compared to scenario 2.

Edit: With respect to brutes, I think their lower defenses make them go down faster than say, soldiers, even with the extra HP.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Got ninja'd on this one - its basically a more briefer telling of exactly what the above poster stated in the last half of his post - so feel free to skip it

Actually, splitting them up into groups does make a big difference in resource depletion, even without short rests between them.

Take for example an encounter with 4 creatures, each of which takes 1 round of focus fire to kill, and which inflict (on average) 10 points a damage a round. Assuming optimal tactics and the monsters going first:

- round 1: take 40 damage, kill one, 3 left.
- round 2: take 30 damage, kill one, 2 left
- round 3: take 20 damage, kill one, 1 left
-round 4: take 10 damage, kill last one, encounter ends.

The party takes a total of 100 damage.


Now, take the same 4 monsters in 2 waves of 2, with one wave ariving just after the first dies.

- round 1: take 20 danage, kill 1, 1 left from wave 1.
- round 2: take 10 damage, kill last from wave 1, wave 2 arrives.
- round 3: take 20 damage, kiill 1 from wave 2
- round 4: take 10 damage, kill last one from wave 2, encounter ends.

The party takes 60 damage.


Now, this is an obvious simplification (as more monsters means higher damage from player bursts, but only more chances for monsters to get flanking and other co-operative bonuses) but I think it is a good proof of concept. And while it only deals with damage, it applies to power use two - for example, in the non-wave encounter, a party will be much more likely to blow powers as it will help them prevent damage (either directly or by killing the monsters faster) while in the wave encounter, due to the lower damage recieved, the party is less likely to feel it needs to.