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XP Per Adventuring Day Per Player is Ridiculous
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<blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6696891" data-attributes="member: 6787650"><p>Any creature which is beatable by four PCs in personal combat was never a threat to armies in the first place. This is true of solos but also of a leader with a bunch of mooks.</p><p></p><p>Your point about indirect means is well-taken, and I'll argue that you MUST set up the threat such that it can be confronted indirectly, because a genuine army-killer will murder the PCs. E.g. Orcus in OOTA is an army-killer by virtue of his ability to create infinite liches. You could set up a scenario where the PCs are meant to decoy his army away and then hit him behind the lines just when he thinks he is safe, but if he manages to escape, he'll be back with five hundred liches tomorrow and the PCs will be doomed. That would qualify in my mind as an indirect approach because you're avoiding Orcus's main strength, but is also an order of magnitude harder than a WotC-written scenario because you have to both force him to engage and then kill him quickly, on his home ground, before he can Time Stop and escape. Frankly, I'd expect most PCs to lose, especially ones raised in the post-TSR era on a "balanced encounter" mentality. In all probability Orcus will take over the world; in any case he doesn't work as a brooding evil because his strength grows continually.</p><p></p><p>Edit: I guess he might work as a brooding evil if he lost his wand and all but five hundred liches, and pulled back to a defensive posture while he is searching for it again. His forces are too strong to attack, so the threat cannot be ended, but he also does not want to operate aggressively at present because he COULD lose them. He's going to wait until 100% chance of victory with his wand rather than risking everything on a 90% chance of victory right now. Yeah, that could work.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="FormerlyHemlock, post: 6696891, member: 6787650"] Any creature which is beatable by four PCs in personal combat was never a threat to armies in the first place. This is true of solos but also of a leader with a bunch of mooks. Your point about indirect means is well-taken, and I'll argue that you MUST set up the threat such that it can be confronted indirectly, because a genuine army-killer will murder the PCs. E.g. Orcus in OOTA is an army-killer by virtue of his ability to create infinite liches. You could set up a scenario where the PCs are meant to decoy his army away and then hit him behind the lines just when he thinks he is safe, but if he manages to escape, he'll be back with five hundred liches tomorrow and the PCs will be doomed. That would qualify in my mind as an indirect approach because you're avoiding Orcus's main strength, but is also an order of magnitude harder than a WotC-written scenario because you have to both force him to engage and then kill him quickly, on his home ground, before he can Time Stop and escape. Frankly, I'd expect most PCs to lose, especially ones raised in the post-TSR era on a "balanced encounter" mentality. In all probability Orcus will take over the world; in any case he doesn't work as a brooding evil because his strength grows continually. Edit: I guess he might work as a brooding evil if he lost his wand and all but five hundred liches, and pulled back to a defensive posture while he is searching for it again. His forces are too strong to attack, so the threat cannot be ended, but he also does not want to operate aggressively at present because he COULD lose them. He's going to wait until 100% chance of victory with his wand rather than risking everything on a 90% chance of victory right now. Yeah, that could work. [/QUOTE]
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