Lodow MoBo
First Post
Send them to the plane of fay/farie
Someone has to die there after a few encounters
all spells maximized/empowered/extended
Someone has to die there after a few encounters
all spells maximized/empowered/extended
Why can't I kill my pc's. Just once?
- Thread starter CrusadeDave
- Start date
Dr. Strangemonkey
First Post
Illusions, smoke, and mirrors.
Misdirect their great talents and let them writhe in the pincer grip of their foes superior information and tactics.
Misdirect their great talents and let them writhe in the pincer grip of their foes superior information and tactics.
Committed Hero
Hero
Arkham said:
The flat probability of rolling so many saving throws means that a roll of 1 will come along eventually.
(Psi)SeveredHead
Adventurer
Use dread wraiths! Also, use action points. Just give a creature Heroic Spirit; that gives them 3 action points per level. With dragons having lots of Hit Dice per CR... you see where this is going.
Not only do ogre mages suck (eg it's not worth it's CR) but so do half-dragons.
Are you using non-associated class level rules? Anyway, a Rgr5/Cler 11 is a weak combo, and if you're playing 3.0 the ranger is never worth it.
That does't work. Mind you, enlarge person is such a lame spell that I give you kudos for ignoring such stupid rules. Still, if only that dragon could cast righteous might...
Next time ready an action? I don't like giving dragons minions, but if your players do things like this, I suggest have the dragon breathe on them while some other creature readies an action to hurt the druid... or cleric ... or wizard, etc. Preferably that other creature is a kobold sorcerer, as kobolds have a close connection to dragons, and sorcerers of non-LA race make scary NPCs.
Dragons should, of course, cast bear's endurance as it gives them lots of hp (high HD compared to caster level and CR), and if you can "afford" a cloak of resistance for her, go ahead. Heck, just convert the average treasure value of her lair into "stuff" for her. PCs don't have lairs full of treasure, they wear their lairs. Dragons often have gems embedded in their scales, so I guess it could be for a reason.
A lot of parties, especially higher level or munchkin, are quite capable of going 5 or 6 points of CR above their level. Did they use point buy? What number? What non-core rules are you allowing? Do they have too much gear for their level?
Crusade Dave said:
Not only do ogre mages suck (eg it's not worth it's CR) but so do half-dragons.
Are you using non-associated class level rules? Anyway, a Rgr5/Cler 11 is a weak combo, and if you're playing 3.0 the ranger is never worth it.
That does't work. Mind you, enlarge person is such a lame spell that I give you kudos for ignoring such stupid rules. Still, if only that dragon could cast righteous might...
Next time ready an action? I don't like giving dragons minions, but if your players do things like this, I suggest have the dragon breathe on them while some other creature readies an action to hurt the druid... or cleric ... or wizard, etc. Preferably that other creature is a kobold sorcerer, as kobolds have a close connection to dragons, and sorcerers of non-LA race make scary NPCs.
Dragons should, of course, cast bear's endurance as it gives them lots of hp (high HD compared to caster level and CR), and if you can "afford" a cloak of resistance for her, go ahead. Heck, just convert the average treasure value of her lair into "stuff" for her. PCs don't have lairs full of treasure, they wear their lairs. Dragons often have gems embedded in their scales, so I guess it could be for a reason.
A lot of parties, especially higher level or munchkin, are quite capable of going 5 or 6 points of CR above their level. Did they use point buy? What number? What non-core rules are you allowing? Do they have too much gear for their level?
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Why do you feel the need to kill your PCs? 
Are you not having fun? Is it fun for you to ruin someone's gaming day?
FWIW- Coyote6 came very close to a TPK using the tactics he told you just a couple weeks back. Would have really ruined my day.
Remember GMs don't run games to entertain their Players they do it for their own feeling of power and control issues.
If you feel the need to kill your PCs then just do it, forget the dice (why roll?), increase the Save DCs on breath weapons, hell bring down a half dozen CR 20 critters on them. Avatar of death. Just do it, quit screwing around with rules.
(Okay, I might have gone over the top here with the sarcasm. Take no offense, man, just seems to me that you are complaining about not being able to drive really slowly on a two lane high way. Good luck with that TPK if that is what you want.)
You want to wipe out the whole group then attack the party at night, keep the spell casters from recoverying their spells with lacking in sleep. Next morning hit them with waves of Undead so the Cleric uses all his Turn Attempts, then before lunch, after all Turns are ended and the spell casts are exhausted. Mord got this nice spell that wipes magic items out, have a vampire wizard hit them with that, then his Shadow army rolls in and wipes them out. Nice, clean and its something they could escape from- if they realize what your doing before you do it.
Good luck.
Are you not having fun? Is it fun for you to ruin someone's gaming day?
FWIW- Coyote6 came very close to a TPK using the tactics he told you just a couple weeks back. Would have really ruined my day.
Remember GMs don't run games to entertain their Players they do it for their own feeling of power and control issues.
If you feel the need to kill your PCs then just do it, forget the dice (why roll?), increase the Save DCs on breath weapons, hell bring down a half dozen CR 20 critters on them. Avatar of death. Just do it, quit screwing around with rules.
(Okay, I might have gone over the top here with the sarcasm. Take no offense, man, just seems to me that you are complaining about not being able to drive really slowly on a two lane high way. Good luck with that TPK if that is what you want.)
You want to wipe out the whole group then attack the party at night, keep the spell casters from recoverying their spells with lacking in sleep. Next morning hit them with waves of Undead so the Cleric uses all his Turn Attempts, then before lunch, after all Turns are ended and the spell casts are exhausted. Mord got this nice spell that wipes magic items out, have a vampire wizard hit them with that, then his Shadow army rolls in and wipes them out. Nice, clean and its something they could escape from- if they realize what your doing before you do it.
Good luck.
Psychic Warrior said:
Last time my PC's used Shadow Walk, they had an encounter with 10 shadows. The PC's were all 12-13th level. I haven't seen them so scared in a long time. The grig sorcerer with a base strength of 4 was especially frightened. You should have seen the look on his face when a Shadow hit him.
3catcircus
Adventurer
It can't be overemphasized enough the virtues of using LOTS of lower CR monsters in combination with the main baddies of the encounter.
This works wonders without having the players end up whining that the EL was too high (well, they'll whine anyway, but at least they won't have a leg to stand on when they do...)
I was running my party through a modified A1-4 Slavelords supermodule set in Faerun. They had become quite cocky about their abilities and I felt an attitude adjustment was in order. There is an encounter in the woods where the party is attacked by raiders - lots of orcs, goblins, and others. Well - I made the leader NPC a bit tougher (he was Clr/Ftr) - by picking a good Faerun Regional Feat - Knifefighter - and gave him lots of close-combat/grappling skills'n'feats. I used the lower level goblins and what-not to maximum effect - a group of 24 goblins lobbing arrows from the woods, across a pond and muddy field into the PC's is highly effective - they've got cover, and the PCs movement will be reduced through the mud and the pond... Then the orcs and (ogrillons? I forget) flanked the party from both sides and started lobbing javelins, as some other lower-level baddies (wolves and their bugbear handlers?) went on the offensive in one-on-one melee. This slowed down the party (while the goblins are still launching volleys of arrows) and forced the party wizard to expend all of his fireball spells on the groups of flankers while the hidden BBEG is busily casting all kinds of nastiness (BoVD is quite handy!) Did I mention the BBEG's two ogre (ettin?) bodyguards, who can stand there and take up 10x10 spaces, eating up PC movement?
By the time the party got to the BBEG, they were worn down - and then the most gung-ho player got the surprise of his life as he charged to the BBEG and got grappled and got a knife in the ribs many many many times before the rest of the party was able to get past the bodyguards, mop up the remaing goblin archers, and come to his aid.
Granted - I didn't want them to die in this encounter - but it was *much* tougher than they expected, and was *still* the right encounter level for them.
Use the terrain to maximum effect. Use the baddies natural abilities to maximum effect. Use sound tactics - flankers and archers will tie up the PC's resources while the BBEG remains in a protected position. And - if need be - be a rat bastard and give the BBEG a good combination of feats and skills.
This works wonders without having the players end up whining that the EL was too high (well, they'll whine anyway, but at least they won't have a leg to stand on when they do...)
I was running my party through a modified A1-4 Slavelords supermodule set in Faerun. They had become quite cocky about their abilities and I felt an attitude adjustment was in order. There is an encounter in the woods where the party is attacked by raiders - lots of orcs, goblins, and others. Well - I made the leader NPC a bit tougher (he was Clr/Ftr) - by picking a good Faerun Regional Feat - Knifefighter - and gave him lots of close-combat/grappling skills'n'feats. I used the lower level goblins and what-not to maximum effect - a group of 24 goblins lobbing arrows from the woods, across a pond and muddy field into the PC's is highly effective - they've got cover, and the PCs movement will be reduced through the mud and the pond... Then the orcs and (ogrillons? I forget) flanked the party from both sides and started lobbing javelins, as some other lower-level baddies (wolves and their bugbear handlers?) went on the offensive in one-on-one melee. This slowed down the party (while the goblins are still launching volleys of arrows) and forced the party wizard to expend all of his fireball spells on the groups of flankers while the hidden BBEG is busily casting all kinds of nastiness (BoVD is quite handy!) Did I mention the BBEG's two ogre (ettin?) bodyguards, who can stand there and take up 10x10 spaces, eating up PC movement?
By the time the party got to the BBEG, they were worn down - and then the most gung-ho player got the surprise of his life as he charged to the BBEG and got grappled and got a knife in the ribs many many many times before the rest of the party was able to get past the bodyguards, mop up the remaing goblin archers, and come to his aid.
Granted - I didn't want them to die in this encounter - but it was *much* tougher than they expected, and was *still* the right encounter level for them.
Use the terrain to maximum effect. Use the baddies natural abilities to maximum effect. Use sound tactics - flankers and archers will tie up the PC's resources while the BBEG remains in a protected position. And - if need be - be a rat bastard and give the BBEG a good combination of feats and skills.
Could the original poster please tell us a little about how the players created their characters in this campaign? Did they start at level 1 or higher? If higher, were they able to purchase magic equipment and with how much $? Were there any limits set? What ability score generation system was used?
The worst campaign I ever ran I allowed the PCs to create 38 point characters at 4th level and gave them the suggested gp value for 4th level PCs, allowing them to spend it without any restrictions. The game ended after three sessions when I realized that the group of five 4th level characters was fighting at about 9th level capacity (i.e. spending about 1/5 their resources on a typical CR9 encounter).
I very much brokenated my own game on that one.
The worst campaign I ever ran I allowed the PCs to create 38 point characters at 4th level and gave them the suggested gp value for 4th level PCs, allowing them to spend it without any restrictions. The game ended after three sessions when I realized that the group of five 4th level characters was fighting at about 9th level capacity (i.e. spending about 1/5 their resources on a typical CR9 encounter).
I very much brokenated my own game on that one.
Psychic Warrior
First Post
Schmoe said:Last time my PC's used Shadow Walk, they had an encounter with 10 shadows. The PC's were all 12-13th level. I haven't seen them so scared in a long time. The grig sorcerer with a base strength of 4 was especially frightened. You should have seen the look on his face when a Shadow hit him.
I can imagine. One of my players said it was the best encounter he had lived through since starting 3E. I took that as quite a compliment
Harmon - I don't think the OP really wants to kill his PCs but some more challenging encounters for the party would be nice. Wiping out a dragon in one and half rounds is hardly exciting (beyond the 'Ha! It rolled a 1' that is).
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