sieylianna wrote: Make sure to start using the pit spells with your bad guys as often as possible. Once they see how annoying it is, you may be able to engage them in pit-free detente. Terrible advice never attack players with a "well you did that to my npcs so see how it feels mentality" that will just make them game harder and things will continue to escalate. Players will almost always enter a arms race before they ever have the zen like understanding you expect. plus it just screams sore and whiny gm.
my best advice is dont give the wizard a 15 minute work day.
Another bit of advice is to play the monsters a bit more tactically whats stopping your big bads from using scry and die? any arch mage type character should be able to scry and teleport when he pleases (with a contingent spell for if he is incapacitated so a sos into a melee kill wont be the outcome) have the monster harry them and hound them like a wolf pack. not letting them sleep and always striking at their worst moments (thats a good use for a lich imo , heck maybe make it so they unwittingly looted his phylactery so now hes hell bent to get it back). Also cr is just a recommendation if you feel they are stronger than their suggested lvl dont be afraid to up the stakes throwing 7+ equal cr encounters at em and a big fight 2-4 cr over em. if they complain just tell them the area they are currently in is a hellish place that eats adventurers and craps them out.
Icyshadow wrote:
This is why we have the optimization communities to put the dice back into the players hands.
hit them where it hurts the brain bucket design encounters to factor in positioning and elevation an d use hordes of creatures , be sure to use creatures that have a high cmb and use manuevers these penalties will begin to outweight their ac bonus,s. Prone -4 ac, Flanking +2 attack, Charging +2 attack , elevation + 1 attack.
Nets are a neat thing too ranged touch attack to inflict -4 dex -2 str and entangle them.
Also go back to old school gm'ing run traps that make them think outside the box the simpler the better the hardest traps are usually the simplest ones , make it so the party enters a room full of flour and they need to think outside the box to avoid a powder explosion, force them to trek through corridors narrow enough to only allow them to pass single file and trap the hell out of it. Heres what you should do. - Sailors
one last thing there are plenty of spells that are touch attacks it may seem sub optimal but run some goblin shamans with corrosive touch / shocking grasp not only is it thematically cool 2-4d6 damage will be noticed over time and will tax party resources best spells for this are Magic missile, Shocking Grasp, Scorching ray. You are the gm you build encounters differently than players build characters , a player will never use blasts due to the spell slot expenditure as a gm your spells per day is limited only by your discretion make it so they are attacked by a cult of cr 1 adepts , hell if they each only have 1-2 spell slots and dumpy stats you can get away with making them cr 1/2 , run 5 of them with 1 cr3 necromancer.
peterrco wrote:
I agrre with this fully but why close the game? if the players want to act evil make it a bad guys campaign.
Nerdrage Ooze wrote:
I know right? they are just as bad as those close-minded weaboo's praising the katana over any other edged weapon in history good thing no one here is one of them....they really burn my chops. |