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Just finished running my group through Age of Worms, and mixed in with the exciting moments were some really disappointing battles. The spellweaver lich, Dragotha, Kyuss, chumps the lot of them.
Before I start running Runelords, I would appreciate a heads up on any BBEGs who end up being as dangerous as a five year old with a lollipop.
So any chumps in RotR?
The seven sawmill cultists and ironbriar in # 2 i will have to beef up considerably....
Just finished running my group through Age of Worms, and mixed in with the exciting moments were some really disappointing battles. The spellweaver lich, Dragotha, Kyuss, chumps the lot of them.
Before I start running Runelords, I would appreciate a heads up on any BBEGs who end up being as dangerous as a five year old with a lollipop.
So any chumps in RotR?
Wow. Dragotha and Kyuss were chumps in your games? My group kicked the baddies ass through the campaign, except Dragotha and Kyuss. Those were the really hard ones...
Anyway, in my group (same one who played through AoW) Ironbriar in Skinsaw murders lasted two rounds. But that was okay, because next fight was with the real BBEG, Xanesha. Fight with Xanesha was long and hard for them, so it didn't matter that Ironbriar dropped so soon. In Burnt offerings only real threat to my players was Nualia, whose spell-list I altered a bit to give her few more healing spells, so she could stay in battle a little longer. Oh, I have to add that I have only three players, 28 point buy.
Haven't run Hook mountain massacre yet, but in first two chapters the real BBEG's are far from five year olds. Of course that might not be the case with your group if even Dragotha wasn't challenging...
If you want Ironbriar and his cultists to be a serious fight, you may need to beef them up.
The Hook Mountain portion of HMM was a fairly severe anticlimax after Fort Rannick. They ran out of pagecount and it's incredibly sketchy, and my PCs went through the BBG in a round and a half. It's easy to add some ogres and/or another giant bodyguard, or have the existing enemies clump up a bit more. (Also correct the giant bodyguard's HP--the given value is a typo.)
My player was disappointed with the Greed segment of SotS. I had added a bodyguard for the BBG but the overall reaction was still "That's it? That's all there is? What a letdown." It's particularly annoying as this is Karzoug's faction and should be a foretaste of the final confrontation. I would put something--even if only metal-plated dogs or animated objects--in several of the rooms adjacent to the BBG. (This also lets him hear the fight and cast his prep spells, without which he is in deep trouble.)
(My player says, the initial goblins are also weaker than expected. But personally I would leave this alone.)
Mary
Our RL group went through the goblins in Burnt Offerings in no time but then in the RotRL PbP I'm in the goblins have given us much more trouble. Still, its probably best to throw in a few more elite goblins, maybe a few rogues and barbarians. The Yeth Hounds in Thistletop were a near TPK for our group but Nualia only lasted a few rounds (in that time she did permantly blind my character, which sucked).
Aldern was easy for our group because the DM made an oversight and didn't notice his stench ability. I don't know what he'd be like if fought with it.
Ironbriar would have been a cakewalk but the DM added a high level rogue and a couple of low-level mooks. The high level rogue and one of the low-level ones were flanking the doorway with readied actions so when one of the players stepped in it was an instant sneak attack. Xaneesha was very hard, another near TPK. We eventually had to flee back down the shadowclock and drop a massive bell on her before having a flaming hippogriff grapple her.
Dragotha got in a few licks thanks to the forcecages, but was on the defensive the whole fight. My players had a much harder time with the wormdrake.
Kyuss went down in the second round. The players hadn't even all acted yet.
Wow, did you weaken Kyuss like it was suggested in the adventure? I decided to run him with all abilities in the stat-block and didn't give my players a free round like it was suggested. The fight lasted two 6 hours sessions...
Oh yeah, Aldern was a bit too easy, I would beef him up a little too.
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Wow, did you weaken Kyuss like it was suggested in the adventure? I decided to run him with all abilities in the stat-block and didn't give my players a free round like it was suggested. The fight lasted two 6 hours sessions...Oh yeah, Aldern was a bit too easy, I would beef him up a little too.
Yeah, I ran him as written. Didn't even get to attack. Spent half an hour reading trough his abilities for nothing. Should have run him the way you did.
Yeah, I ran him as written. Didn't even get to attack. Spent half an hour reading trough his abilities for nothing. Should have run him the way you did.
Oh, that's just wrong. Kyuss was a long fight in our games, but he still wasn't very dangerous. My players grappled him... THAT was sad.
I've noticed with my group that it's best to somehow give some BBEG's more hitpoints. For example I had to give Nualia more healing spells, she wouldn't have lasted more than two rounds otherwise. Aldern in Skinsaw murders would've been better fight if he had few hitpoints more. Xanesha in the same chapter had lot's of hp's and she was a very good and challenging fight. My players are able to cause massive amounts of damage in two rounds. If the BBEG survives that, the fight gets interesting. Of course it's good to let the pc's win a fight easily sometimes, but if a main villain doesn't even get a chance to attack, the fight is a major anti-climax.
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I do more hit points sometimes but find it's not enough. With my group a BBEG who is alone gets made the groups biatch.
Ok Kyuss from now on when I go somewhere, you follow while holding on to my pocket.
I like Mary and Arctaris' suggestions of adding bodyguards. Especially for Ironbriar since his name came up more than once. What made the wormdrake battle interresting when I ran it, was that it summoned two frost worms to aid it. That kept the group busy.
My players grappled him... THAT was sad.
As well as hilarious.
As well as hilarious.
Yea, way to end an epic campaign...
Any time the BBEG is alone, it can be tough for them unless they have some very specific way to avoid most damage for a few rounds. DR, Flight, High AC, Wall of Force, etc. Summoning helps too.
I have 6 players in my campaign, 4 fighters, a cleric and a gish. So they can bring it in melee. Groups of mooks are easy for them unless I bump them up to elites, and solo bosses have a hard time as well.
But you don't want too many boss fights that last 12 hours. Sometimes a guy like Tsuto or Ironbriar is not really a boss - they're just plot speed-bumps.
In my opinion, any time you've got a "sub-boss" with a written journal containing clues of his guilt and directions to the next fight, that guy is doomed. Seriously, writting all that sh!t down is pretty much a suicide note for a bad guy.
Just finished running my group through Age of Worms, and mixed in with the exciting moments were some really disappointing battles. The spellweaver lich, Dragotha, Kyuss, chumps the lot of them.
Before I start running Runelords, I would appreciate a heads up on any BBEGs who end up being as dangerous as a five year old with a lollipop.
So any chumps in RotR?
Ironbriar got jumped while he was busy sermonizing. They killed him in the surprise round and the rest of the cultists were blended up like the freaky mooks that they were.
Malfeshnekor can't leave his chamber. So if the PCs back out of the room, they don't have to fight him and he's powerless, which sort of balances out the fact that it's a CR 8 Barghest in a dungeon with 4th level PCs.
What do you recommend to ensure that this does not happen?
What do you recommend to ensure that this does not happen?
Three options.
But only if this is an actual problem. Depending on how munchkin your players are this may or may not be necessary. If your players are heavily story focused and consistently take sub optimal options in their character builds and make poor choices during combat (because thats what my character would do) then you don't have a problem. On the other hand if your players are of a more munchkinny bent you might need to help the AP out.
#1
They get 25 point buy and core rules only. That should slow them up.
#2
Shadow the PCs up the power curve. Basically you restat all the monsters. If the players have between 28 and 32 point buy (or about that via rolling) then give the monsters the elite array (don't give the PCs the CR bonus for this or you'll throw the CR system out of whack).
If your players have higher then average hps give the bad guys something similar, so if your PCs generally have 60% of max hps make sure that the monsters get 60% of max hps too.
If your players are choosing spells and feats from splat books make sure you repurchase the monsters spells and feats with the splat books in mind as well.
#3
Make them pay for all that power - assign them level adjustments. +1 for having better then average stats if they have up to, say 32 point buy, +2 beyond that point. Throw in another +1 just for having access to lots of splat books. Now let the XP system sort things out. They'll fall multiple levels relative to the expected levels for the AP and you should keep them very challenged without having to do anything at all to modify the AP.
In Burnt Offerings, I've consistently added more goblins, so that they can do "stupid goblin tricks" while the rest of them are actually fighting the party. This let them enjoy the silly goblin flavor antics without making the fights a total snooze.
In Skinsaw, you may want to add a few ghoulish "servants" it the finale battle at the Misgivings.
In Burnt Offerings, I've consistently added more goblins, so that they can do "stupid goblin tricks" while the rest of them are actually fighting the party. This let them enjoy the silly goblin flavor antics without making the fights a total snooze.
This is a good idea in general. I was *not* trying to make the AP harder (my player gave me PCs with very sub-optimal class mixes) but there just weren't enough goblins, especially in the raid on Sandpoint, to get the flavor across. If you add more, you can have NPCs take out half of them, thereby making the NPCs seem a bit more real.
At Thistletop I don't think I added goblins, but I clumped them up for a big horse-baiting party. Encountered in small numbers they are flavorless because they die too quickly, often before they can act.
In many parts of the AP, simply allowing enemies to react to the PCs' presence can make the scenarios sigificantly harder without adding any more creatures or doing upleveling. We found this to be particularly true in Runeforge (#5). The PCs ended up fighting all of the undead at once in a large, running fight which was, although not extremely hard for them, fairly entertaining. Encountering them room by room would have been a complete bust.
It takes more prep to run such a fight smoothly, though.
In general I would add foes rather than increasing levels, except maybe for the cultists in Skinsaw--it is a little hard to see how they have been successful if they are so weak individually.
Mary
But only if this is an actual problem. Depending on how munchkin your players are this may or may not be necessary. If your players are heavily story focused and consistently take sub optimal options in their character builds and make poor choices during combat (because thats what my character would do) then you don't have a problem.
It may be worth asking the players flat-out what they would prefer. It's truly sad when the GM would like to run a lower-power game but is put off by the players' character designs, and the players would like to play in a lower-power game but figure the PCs will be so weak they'll just die. So you end up with a high-power game that no one really wanted, and both sides annoyed at the other. I've seen this at least twice.
Mary
As my 7 players are all 5th or 6th level, I've retooled the Skinsaw cultists into ninja 3/cleric 1. Additionally, all of their weapons have been coated with Sassone Leaf residue, which should be particularly lethal, and thus, earn them a reputation as a frightening cult dedicated to the god of murder. Ironbriar was changed into a cleric/assassin and he now has a clockwork automaton bodyguard, whose outer appearance resembles him exactly. The ensuing melee, I predict, will be quite entertaining.