Ok, here's the issue. Currently I'm running a gestalt campaign in which the players are a party nine strong and well made and fairly dangerous. My main issuee is for fights i generally create NPCs myself and most recently they faced two fighter/ wizard Taddols (third party race from alluria publishing) that were two weapon fighters with adequate damage 74.8 average per round and then casting (one evoker with no abjuration or divination one transmutation with no divination or necromancy). The issue is I cant really find a balance. This fight could have easily ended in a TPK with a simple application of black tentacles that I chose not to use and then showed them afterwards to show how reckless they were but back to the issue.
Today(the day after) one of my players told me that the encounter was imbalanced and was too deadly and that making the enemies was done a little too well and also said a similar thing after I warned him about a highly defensive enemy that still has like 252 dpr at level 14(magus/ fighter) without power attacking. However they out number pretty much every party (8 pcs two of them summoners one of them bought a hippogriff).
Generally they can just outnumber the enemies and slaughter them maybe one person goes down and too much role-play is difficult with the group. So now my question, can You give any advice on how I should be building the enemies. Should I include more skill stealth enemies or just more mooks style ones.
Well it looks like you have a high powered campaign, NINE level 14 gestalt characters? Made pretty well and at least somewhat optimized? When you fight with such power levels its pretty much impossible to find a balance, since its the whole dueling with rocket launchers problem (in this case more like dueling with ICBMs...)
If you make a threatening Brute/solo for such a party, due to economy of action you need to make him a 1-2 shot PC kill offense. If you go with lots of mooks, you will find they lack the important thresholds needed to threaten the party, and if they do, also threaten to kill any PC they gang up on.
PF isn't really balanced all that well at high levels to begin with, and with powergaming gestalts (which are meant for small groups, not huge groups) its even less so.
As for a good idea of a encounter that might actually scare the party without actually just murdering them... build a teleportation school wizard who summons and uses his shift ability while under improved invisibility. Give him a ninja body guard with the improved vanish and spring attack. The wizard can just jump around the battlefield with multiple actions a turn while invisible, and the ninja can sneak attack wildly without worrying about the whole PCs know where you are problem. As a team its pretty brutal, I ran it against my somewhat large party, and they didn't even realize there was a wizard for a long while, and it took them awhile to figure out where the damage packet of the ninja was coming from.
That's a good idea thanks also, The reason I did the gestalt was because they don't usually crunch too much but with two classes it kind of seemed like a good idea and frankly this is kinda an issue normally with this group, due to the reason out group started I'll feel guilty if I downsize( though I plan on splitting the group possibly so that ought a work for balance) and would throwing in just a flat tank in there be too much like say an extremely defensive fighter who could appear to be the real threat by standing in the way even if he does nothing but soak or is that too much?
Also a while back a PC died to a haunt and liking his character he just added a "II" and just used his background to cover it and some "disbelief checks" were rolled and the characters just shut his forced suicide out of his mind. I let it go to stop conflict but is there a way to prevent that in the future because even if I sent him back to level one he would just remake it only slower.
Problem with just throwing a tank out there is they just don't work against PCs who know what to do about them or have munchin characters. Its not particularly hard to take a flat tank down, due to AC focus being easy to get around (target saves, touch, AoE stuff, encase the area he is in in walls of stone).
As for figuring out a balance, I would give gesalt characters a 1-2 bonus on APL, large party is +1 APL, super large party should probably be another +1... So the average encounter should be CR= APL +3-4, and a boss battle should be APL +7 or so. If your party thinks that is "too hard" explain that you gave them ridiculous advantages, and you expect them to use them rather than coast on power level.
As for the whole "Lefty the Second issue" (Knights of the Dinner Table reference), there are just some players who like playing their concept, and don't like branching out. Also if they feel that their characters death was particularly "cheap" (which honestly haunts and other save or die traps can be, esp if res isn't allowed) they will often just remake the same guy and act like it never happened. As a GM you have the option of putting your foot down (and potentially forcing a player to play something he doesn't want to, can be considered wrong fun to do that to someone), or just letting the player play what he wants to, even if its just putting him in a rut (which is fine since some people just like having mastery over one class/build, i know of one person who has an account on a MMO that has nothing but reskins of the same class that are all max level with prestige gear).
His out of game reasoning was "I've already made one character for this campaign It's not like I'm gonna build another" but the biggest issue I foresee is if everyone does this then whats the harm in death if the exact same person with an extra "I" comes back and then we continue on our merry way frankly it might get weird for any surviving party members if every time one dies an exact copy just so happens to show up. Also he said that in that fight with the two magus fighters he would have liked to throw the parties rogue/ alchemist over the forty foot high wall to scout it out and when I pointed out that with his d8 hit die he would have died... quickly which he said " And... I had planned on that, his death would not have been in vain" also he said if there was a losses were even if there was a TPK minus him. Now thats coming from the character whos supposed to be a chaotic good, barbarian/ sorcerer who worships Cayden Cailean and considers himself the leader of the group( i guess his 5 int could show that no characters follow and mostly handle their own side deals) . Now that really doesnt sound like CG or even a CN worshiper of the God of Freedom, ale, wine, and bravery. But anyways What should I do if the players follow suit?
Can you give any advice on how I should be building the enemies. Should I include more skill stealth enemies or just more mooks style ones.
I always suggest variety, plan for a combination of weak and tough fights and make those fights vary as well. You could have a challenging fight with a horde of goblins one time and a carefully decked out evil party another time. So some fight should be stealth, other brute force, etc. Don’t limit yourself to just one encounter design.
For balance issues low-level mooks are easier to balance simply by adjusting numbers. When designing challenging fights with fewer enemies it gets more difficult since they tend to be power houses and thus do significantly more damage and may kill someone. That said at around 14th level or a little below (guessing based on the enemies level) they should be able to raise dead, probably resurrect, and of course breath of life is a lifesaver, literally.
Personally I play with a house rule that regardless of how much damage someone takes a character does not die until exactly one round later. If they are healed within this time they can fully recover. This lets me take the gloves off, so to speak, when making a truly frightening enemy that would otherwise kill several party members before being dropped, and the panicked rush to heal characters before they die helps create tension. Just don’t overuse this if you decide to do something similar. It can go from having fun and challenging to irritating and old quickly if overused. Players do not like having to spend a large portion of battles running around healing other or getting back on their feet rather then fighting.
Also I would seriously consider splitting the group into two separate groups, as mentioned that would help considerably when trying to balance encounters as well and might be your best option.
Also a while back a PC died to a haunt and liking his character he just added a "II" and just used his background…
I’m confused, you have a party with nine gesalt characters, all about what? 10th to 14th level or pretty close to that, giving a total of 18 classes and no one has raise dead or resurrection? Now I can’t remember of something happens to the body or not when a haunt kills someone but still I'd expect characters at that level to have the ability to get their hands on a true resurrection if they had to. But then again, I don’t know the situation, or how you play, or if I'm right about their respectively levels.
His out of game reasoning was "I've already made one character for this campaign It's not like I'm gonna build another"
If this was word for word it kind of sounds to me like he doesn’t really care about the game and is just there to goof off and socialize. Naturally I could be completely wrong, I don’t know the situation nearly well enough, but if that is the case I’d consider dropping him. It sounds like he is becoming a source of disruption within the game and if it continues it’s likely to get worse.
Now personally I hate dropping someone that’s there to play but I have to ask, is he? Again I don’t know enough to judge this but if you don’t think he is I’d cut him or t least have a talk with him.
also he said if there was a losses were even if there was a TPK minus him.
I had difficulty reading/understanding this but it kind of sounds again like he isn’t invested in the group. Players have a responsibility to make and play their characters while keeping party cohesion in mind. Even in groups where a GM allows evil characters to be played this is important or a group would just fall apart. With nine people there, be certain that everyone is trying to not only have fun but also help the others in the party have fun too.
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Well hopefully at least some of this helps. I almost didn’t post since there is so much information I’m lacking so please take everything I said with that in mind.
He does have a point, Gesalt characters are a bit complex to build, and if they are optimized even moderately it takes a fair amount of time investment to make. I can see wanting to just make the same guy and get back into the game.
It sounds like there might be some player maturity issues involved, or somebody who doesn't take alignment and roleplay seriously.
Handling PC death is one of the harder things to handle in a strict narrative sense. Its one that even the Adventure Path writers have been building work arounds for. For instance in LoF there are NPCs that are designed to replace dead PCs if needed. If a PC died, he has the option of waiting to get his guy raised or playing this nifty NPC. In Kingmaker the narrative style pretty much gives an easy out for introducing new players. In Skull and shackles replacement PCs can be new crew members.
One thing you might try in the future after the conclusion of your current campaign is try out an adventure path. Most of the paths are moderately challenging assuming you play with 15-20 pt buy characters with 4-6 players. They have a number of challenges that are difficult to survive, but are very balanced and the challenges are "fair". Not quite nintendo hard (thank you TVtropes) but certainly not modern console game easy. (Well, some of the boss battles are downright brutal... One of the bosses I ran did over 90 damage with just an single attack)
His out of game reasoning was "I've already made one character for this campaign It's not like I'm gonna build another"
Is that really the kind of attitude you want at your table? A good D&D game requires a bit of effort on your player's part too.
Players do not like having to spend a large portion of battles running around healing other or getting back on their feet rather then fighting.
oddly enough our cleric is an... overly dedicated healer, as in she prepared a non-domain spell of cure moderate wounds and pretty much exclusively plays cleric or druid and actually spends plenty of time channeling her positive channeling. Once before our group has suggested a more martial cleric but she just said "no thanks I think I'll just play a healer"
I’m confused, you have a party with nine gesalt characters, all about what? 10th to 14th level or pretty close to that, giving a total of 18 classes and no one has raise dead or resurrection? Now I can’t remember of something happens to the body or not when a haunt kills someone but still I'd expect characters at that level to have the ability to get their hands on a true resurrection if they had to. But then again, I don’t know the situation, or how you play, or if I'm right about their respectively levels.
Well, at the time its was only a small group handling a little side thing caused by a few absences of him a 2-3 others (the rest did catch up) and our cleric also wasn't there so he made a new character not to mention this was a while back before a good Resurrection was available and again they wanted to "disbelieve it" so all of their characters who witnessed it just pretended like it never happened and refused otherwise (calmly not rude or anything when i said something about it so to the characters its like it never happened. also sorry about the bad typing on parts my auto correct from the phone i was on likes to make things weird and I guess I missed it.