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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rackhir" data-source="post: 4112696" data-attributes="member: 149">Our DM Shilsen (who really is broken) regularly beats up severely, our 5 char, caster heavy, extremely buffed, 15th lv group with stuff that is nominally well below our CR. There's a couple of examples starting with post #6. There's a couple of others in the Story Hour for our group.<a href="http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=182305" target="_blank">http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=182305</a>Some of his favorite tricks.1) Just a level or two of a PC class.A barbarian level or two helps substantially a lot of combat oriented monsters. Rage gets you 2xhd in HP (particularly effective for monsters with way more HD than CR), a +2 to hit and damage (+3 with 2 handed weapons) and a +2 to will saves. All for the cost of 1 cr. Plus they get the elite stat array for no CR increase (doesn't really make sense to me personally, but those are the rules).As mentioned a level or two in Sorc or Wiz, offers access to a lot of buff spells that can make a huge difference to the power/survivability of monsters. Mage Armor + Shield are a +8 AC boost to a creature that doesn't wear armor.Ranger for Favored Enemy bonuses.There's a lot of ways that a level or two of various classes can have a HUGE synergistic effect with monsters for only a +1 or two to the CR. 2) Expendable magic items - Potions of buff spells (cat's grace, bull's strength, bear's endurance, etc...) cheap, effective and last longer than they are going to survive in combats.- Bane arrows : Especially effective if your player's char are all or mostly all the same race. A small number, just three or four, bane arrows per archer can deal a world of hurt, especially if used with Str bows. You get +2 to hit/dam and +2d6 per arrow. Coupled with a potion of Cat's Grace, Point Blank Shot and Rapid Shot, you're talking a decent hit chance, 1d8+1 (PBS)+2 (Str)+2 (bane)+2d6 (bane) per arrow for damage. If you've got 4-6 archers shooting that adds up very, very quickly.For a somewhat less expensive/lower level variant, you can use elemental (fiery, cold, acid, etc...) damage arrows.Beads of Force are another favorite. Area effect damage + a chance to imprison a PC in a force sphere.3) Bards, Marshalls, Dragon Shamans - Any class that has abilities that offers buffs to a large number of people. Start stacking them and you can get some obscene advantages.4) Careful feat selection - You can utilize stuff like Vexing Flanker (extra damage/bonuses when flanking) and other feats, that might be useless 90% of the time, but that take advantage of the specific situation of an encounter. Which being the DM you can make sure will come into play.5) Support casters - A couple of low level/relatively low level casters doing stuff like readying an action to disrupt casting or using dispel magic to counterspell PC casters can shut down PCs who might otherwise wipe out the group facing them.6) Terrain and conditions - Read over these portions of the rules carefully. They can gimp a lot of stuff PCs do on a regular basis, while not significantly hindering carefully chosen opposition. Rough terrain has a number of interesting effects.Remember though - ALL THINGS IN MODERATION - Cheap shot stuff has a place, but it can really grate on players nerves if over used.</blockquote>

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