"team optimization"


Advice


Hello all:

I am DM'ing the second book of Way of the Wicked. THe party is 7 players, two very optimized players, and they are blowing through everything quickly. (2-3 rounds-tops)
Everyone has been having a grand time.

However, i would not mind scaring them once in a while with a combat where the opposition is truly trained to work together.

Any builds/suggestions?

Ravingdork:
I love some of your work, what have you got for a group?

(party is 7 players-7th level, spell support deficient)


A group of paladins backed up by a bard or two, to cast good hope and haste, and use inspire courage on them? Remember to give the paladins some of those lovely litany spells (especially litany of sloth (UM 235))


If I was making a 7 man group it would be

1. Ranger Switch Hitter Skills guy
2. Paladin: Hospitaler/Warrior of holy light (Self healing beatstick and back up healer)
3. Wizard: Utility/Control
4. Sorcerer: Dual Blooded Orc/Draconic Blaster
5. Zen Archer Monk: Ranged offense
6. Ragebred Skinwalker Wild Rager Barbarian - Can get 7 attacks all hurt very badly.
7. Scarred Witch Doctor/Hedge Witch: Healer and debuffer

If they can out think/out fight that I will be greatly impressed.

Unless of course you allowed a Synthesist then just bad on you.

Round 1:

Ranger and Zen Archer open up and burn down the other teams "Controller" If he/she drop they put a few extra arrows in the healer. The Zen Archer stays at range and throws lots of attacks at the people trying to stay in the back, the Ranger switches to melee and keeps the other teams melee off the wiz/sorc

The Wiz and Witch throw out a save or suck spell on those susceptible to bad will saves.

The Sorcerer throws out a massive fireball for about 90 - 120 damage if built correctly centered to capture as many as possible and possibly finish off the healer.

The Skin Walker and the Paladin delayed action until after the massive nuke then charge and make sure to be completely in the way. In one turn the skin walker can kill at least one person and the Paladin is hard as everything to kill.

Round 2.:

Mop up the leftovers


The AP is not mean to take on 7 players so you have to adjust encounters. In addition to that most fights take about 3 to 4 rounds on average anyway, so if you want longer fighters you may have to make even more adjustments.

The number of rounds a combat last has come up before as a topic here.

If you want to challenge the party then let us know their AC, saves, and to hit bonuses.

That way whatever is suggested is not an overkill.

Also give up the party makeup, tell us which 2 are optimized, and give us general tactics.


Adding lots of mooks who make good use of teamwork feats and have some sort of ranged and melee option. On top of that any sort of group buff just plain works better with lots of little foes.

Make sure that there is not one high powered target that can be quickly taken down and make the mop up boring.

Check out the DMs guide to to challenging encounters, it is a godsend.

If you give us what wraithstrike asked for we I would love to make some NPC builds to challenge your party.


wraithstrike wrote:

The AP is not mean to take on 7 players so you have to adjust encounters. In addition to that most fights take about 3 to 4 rounds on average anyway, so if you want longer fighters you may have to make even more adjustments.

The number of rounds a combat last has come up before as a topic here.

If you want to challenge the party then let us know their AC, saves, and to hit bonuses.

That way whatever is suggested is not an overkill.

Also give up the party makeup, tell us which 2 are optimized, and give us general tactics.

Okay in order of power

Cleric of Asmodius who is vampire like from the race book. Generally the best prepared player. Resistant to a lot of stuff.

Monk from the race book. Good Player, knows his stuff.

Sythesist summoner. Character is optimized to fly when necessary. WIll be crafting in the middle of book 2.

Then ranger favorite enemy human. Who has a "companion" that is a bear. The DM has given him this bear, if you know what i mean....

Bard/ranger not as optimized, but still powerfull. he has aquired the attention of a witch who wants his babies.....

I think a straight fighter? Who is drawing the attention of a bounty hunter for escaping the prision in the first book.

And a halfing thief trending towards assasin. ( I believe that in a group, she is sub optimal. Last game, she went on a assasination missiom, but had some Extrtemely bad dice rolls)

They just his 7th level, but they are really low in magic/loot.

When i have numberes i will bump this one.

This is not a high drama game, i just want them all to have their momment in the sun and enjoy. But i definitly want them to know that their characters can die.

Silver Crusade

Introduce an Intimidate-heavy Half Orc. Dazzling Display will help your mooks hit a little more often.


syth summoner comes in at 3? really? This whole party sounds quite op but will see if I can find you something one you get the numbers. Nothing worse then building mooks who only hit on 20.


I’d ban the Summoner, and anything with a Cohort or animal companion, etc. You already have 3 too many characters, why add another 3 or 4? Here’s the point- with 7 players, it’s critical for everyone to have a fair shot at the spotlight.

Have one of the players run Init for you, announcing whose turn it is and who is next. If you’re not ready (book turned to that spell etc) when you come up, you auto-delay. Never allow them to split the party.

If you don’t ban the summoner, triple check his build. It’s always wrong. They are also huge spotlight hogs.


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If you have "optimized" PCs, the best solution is not to ramp up the difficulty of combats, but rather to ramp up the number of non-combat situations they have to deal with.

Optimized-for-combat PCs tend to flail and suck at anything noncombat, which gives the other PCs a chance to shine. Look over the characters' skill lists and find opportunities to bring those talents into play more often. Emphasize important information or support that can only be obtained by positive interactions with NPCs, for example (boosting social skills); or throw in some mystery elements (emphasizing perception and a range of knowledges). And look for special encounters that allow a 'background' character's class abilities to save the day when nothing else can.

In the end, everyone at the table deserves a turn at feeling like a hero... not just the guys who optimized for combat.


WOTW SPOILERS AHEAD.:

Hi, I've been running WotW book 2 for a while now (lots of fluff and distractions, so going slowly, but super fun). My group has 6 players, and the usual thing I do if I do for combat encounters is to either slap the advanced template on everything or give everyone an extra class level, if they're class-level-based. I've also added a couple extra characters to the adventuring groups.

First, know a lot of the encounters in this book are not meant to be remotely challenging. Many are potential allies for the PCs, and if the PCs got 5 enemies/enemy-groups who were each challenging alone on their side, then the PCs themselves might feel slightly overshadowed.

Going over some of the encounters I would recommend making challenging:

- Jurak, you can give him the ability to animate more trees and let him do so as a free action at the start of combat. This is the big fight to get into the Horn and should probably be a slight challenge at least.

- Calliaste Shanda can come across as a VERY easy fight if you just throw her at them straight up. With a 70ft fly speed and Invisibility, I'd recommend having her escape the first combat she's in. She can be an interesting social/RP challenge as she manipulates Farholde against the horn, if you want to try that (I've had her attack items being transported to the horn, and other such annoyances). The Moon Dog sisters are similar - just having them be a fight is pointless. They should harass, and force the PCs to really consider their defences.

- Hexor and Vexor have Dimension Door at-will. If played right, they can be a total nightmare to fight. These are possibly the most important allies the PCs will acquire, and you could do well to have them be a serious challenge through some intelligent combat.

- The first adventuring group can get an extra class level each or an extra member if you want it to be scaled for your group, but they aren't intended to be that difficult anyway.

- Traya DeMarco's group is a good chance to really challenge your PCs. You should know how well prepared they are. Against my 5 level 7 PCs at the time, I gave Traya's group an extra member (A crossbowman who readied attacks to disrupt casting and utterly disabled the caster for the combat), increased the level of everyone in the group by 1, and Traya by an extra 1 on top of that for the 9th level bloodline power.

- The Inquisition is, again, a group that needs to be played intelligently. Hit and run, using the thrones to escape. How loud you need to say the word for the throne to activate is never specified, so if you don't want the PCs finding where they can from easily, feel free to have them speak it under their breath and nothing short of supernatural hearing will find the word for the lost throne. Hurt guards the PCs have, maybe have Hexor or Vexor taken out and banished from the horn until they regenerate, let the Inquisition do some damage until the PCs manage to kill them before they escape, or find how they enter.

This is about as far as my group has got. The Banner Verdant will probably be changed entirely to make things more interesting, and of course you should introduce other encounters as appropriate. My PCs have caught, and are training, a 7-headed hydra, have launched a failed attack against the Abbey, and have used the Nightmare, Rex, to travel to Ghastenhall to try and get the aid of a famed dragonslayer upon hearing of the silver dragon at Farholde (which involved a shortcut through Elysium, in which a village of Flumphs were murdered, and a Crystal Dragon was fled from).


Mathius wrote:
syth summoner comes in at 3? really? This whole party sounds quite op but will see if I can find you something one you get the numbers. Nothing worse then building mooks who only hit on 20.

Well the syth summoner is good. Its just that the vampire character (And not the player. They are both great people) seems to be able to do everything well.


Lyee wrote:

WOTW SPOILERS AHEAD.

** spoiler omitted **

Thank you so much for your suggestions..... i agree that hit and run tactics by the armies of good will be dififcult for them to counter...


I might be interested in making a proposition; I am currently working on a team of assassins for hire (of various power levels) for general use in games. The composition would be:
The FATAL FIVE
1) Ravingdork's "raven king" (as "shadow raven")
2) A crimson assassin by the name "blood mantis"
3) An sorcerer kitsune names "void fox" (suffocate specialist)
4) A naga aspirant druid by the name "venom serpent"
5) An alchemist/master chymist wayang who looks like an innocent child in normal form & is brutish and huge in it's "other" form, called "mirror cuckoo".

I'm still working on them, but the idea is for each of them to be realistically be able to take on any team a few levels below them. They are:
1) Prepared; they decide where they strike, and when; the scry, they prepare traps, they research their targets
2) They arent stupid; they WILL run if the battle isnt to their advantage, and will return (stronger) another day.
3) They are for hire! THey may be evil, but money is money, so maybe some of the less unsavory "good" will be willing to hire them "for the greater good", since at least these guys dont leave a mess.

Anyway, I think the make for interesting antagonists. Still working on them, and a single one might be a bit much for a 7-person group (I' prepping them for 4-PC groups), so you may want to make them collaborate. I hope to have builds up for each in a couple of weeks.
Here's the thread:
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qg3d?The-Furious-Five-Building-a-cadre-of-assa ssins


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Usually action economy makes combats a lot tougher. Waves of mobs works too. Get the group established with the first group of enemies...and then have a second group appear.

Heck salt them liberally with something like burning skeletons (or an alternate energy variety if the party is fire immune.) They're cheap (CR wise) and if they appear as a second wave after the party init, they can surround the party. Even though they won't hit any PC that starts their turn adjacent to one takes 1d6. If 9 of them are surrounding a PC that 9d6 before they get to act on their turn. Of course the party will annihilate them...but these guys are throwaways anyway that may put a bit of a sting in the party before they leave (each one explodes as they die as well for more area damage). I'd tie them to one of the bosses who's animating the corpses of various villagers he comes across or so forth. Or by his proxies via lots of animate dead scrolls or such.

But that aside...I like throwing non-combat encounters. Oh my goodness, if we don't get the dam fixed the next storm will flood the entire village...who's an expert with Knowledge (Engineering) and Craft (carpentry). Or we need the sacred texts of MacGuffin transcribed before the enchantment fades tomorrow...who's got Scribing as a profession, plus the appropriate languages?

Or have critical clues in the minds of a child who is a prisoner of the foes they encounter...if they don't take them prisoner and then find out about the child and then in turn rescue the kid and convince the easily panicked kid to assist, etc...

YMMV...


Franko a wrote:

Cleric of Asmodius who is vampire like from the race book. Generally the best prepared player. Resistant to a lot of stuff.

Monk from the race book. Good Player, knows his stuff.

Sythesist summoner. Character is optimized to fly when necessary. WIll be crafting in the middle of book 2.

Then ranger favorite enemy human. Who has a "companion" that is a bear. The DM has given him this bear, if you know what i mean....

Bard/ranger not as optimized, but still powerfull. he has aquired the attention of a witch who wants his babies.....

I think a straight fighter? Who is drawing the attention of a bounty hunter for escaping the prision in the first book.

And a halfing thief trending towards assasin.

1. Teamwork feats on your enemies might be nice. One really mean way to fight them is building a team around this feat: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/butterfly-s-sting-critical Two guys dual wielding Kukris and one big guy like an ogre Barbarian with a Ranseur. They will get hit hard.

2. Swarms. This group seems lack any significant AoE Blasts a few dimiutive swarms, could make their lives a living hell.

3. They are evil Send a taskforce of Paladins at them. Nice damage with Smite, Free Action self heals, high saves and immunities. Make one Archer and two melee Palas. With Littany of Rightnousness this could become very deadly.

4. Lay a trap. Is the Ranger an Archer? If not they seem rather weak at Ranged attacks. How about blocking their path with a few Pit spells and utilizing bows?

5. An Aboleth is a pretty deadly oponent. Look at the SAs, abuse them. Hide in your selfprepared Illusionary Labyrinth, which you can keep adjusting via Mirage Arcana and Illusory wall all the time should they manage their saves. Use programmed Image and projected Image to have them fight Illusion of yourself. Try to get a hold of one or two group members in the right moment. Secretly pass them prewritten telepathical commands on cards and have them strike in the right moment.


Messing up an overlarge party should be easy since the size gives you some extra APL equivalence to play with.

Four equal level NPCs are a "hard" encounter for six or more PCs. Six would be "epic." Two would be "standard."

Druids and greater ferocious mount Barbarians or Druids and sohei Monks go well together. They can probably near drop a PC per pair in the surprise round. I'd expect 2d6+8d4+40 from transmitted rage on a level 7 strength high human druid in dire tiger form and another 5d6+35 nonlethal from a pre-cast frostbite and 2d8+24 from the barbarian's power attacking lance charge. Sohei won't add to the druid's damage (so just 2d6+8d4+30), but will probably act early in the initiative order in the first non-surprise round and can flurry with a weapon in the spear or polearm group.

In either case the PCs will be scrambling to stay on their feet against enemies with strong saves. Numbers should tell eventually, but it'll be messy.


Wait for the group to be clustered together, and then seven wizards step out and they all cast an optimized area effect damage spell. Give them Improved Initiative and a trait like Reactionary for an additional +2 to initiative. Even with no optimization, that would be up to 7*7*3.5 = 171.5 damage per round, and 84 damage per round if they make all seven of their saves. The wizards would each have mirror image cast on themselves, along with appropriate resist energy to avoid friendly fire. If the monk and rogue have evasion, they can laugh at their dead teammates.

Seven Zen Archer Monks can all focus fire on one PC at a time. Of course, start with the healer. They have Improved Precise Shot, so they don't have to worry about cover.

Seven Summoners with seven eidolons. Take the feat where the eidolon can keep fighting for 7 rounds if their master dies. This would give you roughly twice the action economy of the PCs. Seventh level summoners can cast 3rd level spells like Black Tentacles, Displacement, Stoneskin, and 2nd level spells like Create Pit and Haste.

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