Any advice for our GM to make encounters more challenging?


Advice


Hello,

after our last RotRL we discussed how encounters can be more challenging for our group. Here is a quick overview about the group first.

All characters are Level 5

Aasimar Paladin(Sacred Servant of Iomedae/Oath of vengeance)
Attack: +11 (2D6+8)
AC: 23
HP:~50
Feats:Fey Foundling,Power Attack,Combat Expertise

Human Ranger
Attack: +11 (1D8+3)
AC: 19
HP:~40
Feats:PBS,Precise,Rapid,Deadly Aim,Boon Companion
Pet: Wolf

Human Rogue (Knife Master/Scout)
Attack: +7/+7 (1D4+1+SA)
AC: 19
HP:~30
Feats:(Not sure)It's a TWF Kukri build.

Halfling Bard
Attack: +8 (1D4+5)
AC: 20
HP:~30
Feats:PBS,Precise,Arcane Strike

Human Druid (Weather Domain)
Don't know that char well and he wasn't there the last time we played

Usually we are only 4 players but from this week we want to try playing with 5 players.

The biggest problem is that the encounters are already too easy and now we will even have one player more.

So how can our GM "buff" the encounters without making them too hard ?
We were thinking about adding small buffs to them , like AC , to hit , DAM and so on.
Or adding additional enemies to the encounters.

Our GM is new so he is worried about making them too hard, any advice would be appreciated


I suggest adding a few more baddies in battle. Pehaps just one more. And make sure they do there best to win. But another option is to enjoy that you are great because at some time you May run in to a strejk of bad luck. Also make sure you have more than one encounter pr. Day.
And good luck.


Basically my advice is always to add monsters to the encounters. If with 4 people it was already too easy, and now you have an extra player, I would essentially raise the CR of every encounter by 2. And I would do this primarly by doubling everything in the encounter (easiest way to increase CR by 2). Its almost always better to add monsters to an encounter to make it harder then buffing individiual monsters. Sometimes it doesnt make sense to add a copy of everything in the encouter so he can add other things that do make sense so the total xp adds up to 2 higher then the original CR, but just doubling everything is the easiest way to do that.


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I very recently read what I felt would be a good guide about designing encounters. It's a bit on the 'mathy' side of CR and less on design but I thought it was an interesting read - passing it along here.

Guide to Creating Challenging Encounters

Also - add an Evangelist cleric to anything - bless prayer and inspire courage to minions!


Keep in mind the action economy. The way I'd do it is boost the exp budget by +25%, and err on the side of adding monsters, rather than boosting existing ones, to keep the action economy intact.


The AP's are written for four players. The best thing he can do is add one or two monsters an encounter. Gauge how badly the party is mowing through things and adjust from there. I see the group has a really stable frontline. I would probably suggest he avoid having his enemies swarm the paladin. The AC and the self healing make him not worth their time. The monsters in the old version of Rise of the Runelords are from 3.5 so he might want to spring for the anniversary edition it buffs a notable amount of the creatures you fight.

It looks like the party has alot of AC but a few creatures with devastating spells that target the parties NAD's would work fine.


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For me the key to intressting encounters is the terrain and action economy.

Bashing on one big guy on a flat plane is boring.
Fighting agains a small group of enemys on a multilevel combat area is much more intressting. So use your terrain, add a few more buddies, use combat maneuver, PLAY. And embrace everyone to use the enviroment (swinging around, dropping fire crates etc.)

Suggestion: watch a few historic/fantasy films and take a look at the intresting fights there (e.g. the duell at Princess Bride or the escape of Captain Jack Sparrow)


Thanks for the advice so far.

We are using the anniversary edition.

Some of our enemies were already using sneaky tactics and setting up traps, but it didn't work. So maybe the only solution is to add more monsters because we don't have any AoE , our single target burst has been a problem most of the time.

And it isn't that much fun if "Boss-fights" don't feel epic or important at all.

Does the whole situation get better by the end of book 2 and the rest of the adventure path ?

Scarab Sages

tactics, use stealth and the surprise round, intelligent creatures should work together to get combat advantage, use crowd control, focus fire, etc. everything a good player team would do.


I'm trying to avoid RotRL spoilers (I'm playing in a group that's only halfway in), but I can think of a few things your GM can do:

* Add the "advanced" template to a lot of monsters and maximize HP per HD. This makes a lot of them hit a little harder and last a little longer
* Use terrain, the environment, and all relevant rules to create challenges. In a wilderness encounter, GMs should pay attention to the terrain and the weather. Fighting in sunlight on an open field is entirely different from fighting in a marsh in the middle of a snowstorm, and Paizo has published environmental rules that take this into account.
* RotRL, even the anniversary edition, was published before Paizo's latest & greatest. If RotRL's stock adversaries aren't doing it, he should feel free to swap in maguses, witches, oracles, and inquisitors.
* Following up on this, he should discard the as-written tactics if they don't challenge your group and adapt them. Example 1: You've got a hefty set of martial classes, which (excepting the paladin) means low Will saves. Your GM ought to consider throwing enchantments (Save or Suck spells) at you instead of straight damage. In addition to the usual gamut of Charm Person, Dominate Person, Sleep, and so forth, there are such lovely gems as Charitable Impulse and Terrible Remorse. Example 2: Since you have a good set-up for front line and ranged attacks, enemies might turn this against you. by ambushing your archers after the front-line fighters have already charged into melee.
* Change things up a little bit. Should everything be a combat? D&D 4E has many terrible things, but I do like the skill challenge concept. They are a nice change of pace from a) hack-n-slash and b) single-roll Diplomacy resolution.
* Finally, your GM should remember the Active Bad Guy concept. In RPGs, villains often hang around in their lairs, waiting for the players to come kill them. An Active Bad Guy on the other hand, is, well, active. Even as you guys do your thing, the Active Bad Guy should move to combat you. Sometimes this means you do brace him in his lair ... but leading up to that, the Active Bad Guy should do his best to make the heroes' lives hell.


Hey pennywit,

thanks for the suggestions, after our last session I gave the GM my folder with some characters which he can use as bad guys.

He showed us some tactics from the first chapter , and well ... the tactics in the book are quite weak but he really changed it I guess. Or the second book is much better(we had barrels rolling down the stairs and so on)

Maybe our group harmonizes too well out of combat, we really focused on different skills. We have a very nice variety of knowledges, social skills and other things.


When we played through RotRL with a party that ranged from 5-9 depending on the night and guest cameos from girlfriends, visiting friends, etc our GM simply allowed the party to lag considerably behind the suggested wealth-by-level (aka WBL).

What is the purpose of gold anyways? The way I think of it gold -> gear and gear is what bridges the gap between the PCs stats, class abilities, tactics, etc and the challenge that a given encounter offers. If you have more then four PCs or those PCs are exceptional in terms of rules mastery then they should be able to thrive in encounters with less added gear than a less skillful party.


Looks like the group is designed to hit pretty hard physically, and lacks some arcane power. There is a pretty good mix of HP and attack power with moderate defense.

It's important for a DM not to have his bad guys meta-game against his party's weaknesses unless the bad guys are aware of the growing threat of the party and actively research "these guys who are coming after them".

To that end, maybe the groups that the party mopped the floor with in the first few sessions reported up to a key antagonist.

That antagonist is in meetings with his chief henchmen, and they use skills like survival, spells like speak with dead, and other abilities to get an idea of who these PCs are.

You might start to see encounters where the antagonist group is a hired wizard and rogue who have a group of low level thugs with decent HP under them. The rogue and wizard scout the party, cast buff spells like haste, blur, mirror image, (rogue using UMD with scrolls written by the wizard) and try to set up an ambush where the higher level foes join the fight a round later from behind cover.

All of a sudden, the big physical damage stuff starts missing due to mirror image or blur, and maybe the wizard hits the PCs with spells like color-spray or other will-save stun spells.

Targetting low-will save physical PCs with spells like Hold Person or the like (or Dominates at later levels) also makes things incredibly harder for the party)

Enemies might be flying, or have spells like pass-wall, that allow them to do a little hit-and-run on the PCs, try to force them to need to rest in the dungeon, and attack them while resting.

Difficult terrain, or traps/hazards that target reflex or will saves, could also be good against this group.

If the GM mixes the types of challenges you face, and has the main bad guy start to react to what the PCs are doing to his minions, you can have a much more realistic response and variety of difficulty.

Sovereign Court

Max out HP on baddies. Keep players 1 level behind the advancement track.


As a player, I'd suggest that you look at your players' most effective tactics, and try to use those against them. Also, adventurers (in my experience) are typically fighting the baddies on their own turf. Use this to your advantage. Some ideas:

- The enemy knows the party is coming. Give the party a fair shot to actually surprise the enemy, but make it difficult to get a meaningful advantage out of this. For instance, maybe the enemy puts a couple of mook guards out front that the party has to deal with. While the party easily dispatches these guys, this alerts the real forces to the PCs' presence.

- Use ranged attacks and cover. If the ranged attacks are ineffective, increase the difficulty of the things doing the shooting until they are marginally effective; i.e., so they hit most of the party (>75%) most of the time (>75%).

- Make the terrain difficult (obstructed, dark, etc.) and enforce the penalties. Typically, the PCs are trying to get somewhere, so attrition is an effective strategy.

- If the party takes a while to beat the bad guys, have reinforcements come. The party can then decide whether it makes sense to keep fighting or leave until they have a better plan of attack. Having more enemies, and making them harder to get to, makes this more likely.

Just a few ideas... I don't GM so these may not be great, but as a player I'd get a kick out of these and wouldn't feel like I was being meta-gamed into irrelevance, which is what I think you're trying to avoid.


one suggestion... be careful on the environmental challenges.

when I ran my at the time 6 person party through RoTRLs, i though I needed to 'expand the maps' so everyone wont be falling all over each other.

this turned out horribly in the big cistern chamber underneath foxglve manor, where the size increase more than doubled the amount of time they spent dealing with the terrain instead of the monsters, and the 'climactic battle' turned into 'fish the fighter out of the water as the NPC helper does the fighting'.

It was a disappointing finish for everyone.


MC Templar wrote:

one suggestion... be careful on the environmental challenges.

when I ran my at the time 6 person party through RoTRLs, i though I needed to 'expand the maps' so everyone wont be falling all over each other.

this turned out horribly in the big cistern chamber underneath foxglve manor, where the size increase more than doubled the amount of time they spent dealing with the terrain instead of the monsters, and the 'climactic battle' turned into 'fish the fighter out of the water as the NPC helper does the fighting'.

It was a disappointing finish for everyone.

I've run into similar things from time to time as a GM.

At the same time though, if a PC builds a one-track crit-in-the-face machine who can't swim or climb, who doesn't buy a spare potion of fly or levitate or spider climb, and the party casters don't keep spells that might help, or a rope to tie off and toss down...

I dunno.

I'd probably have put a creature down in the water that let the fighter try to fight it while swimming for his life.

He'd still have had something exciting to do, but, he'd still be paying for his one-dimensional build.

(not saying this definitely was the case in your example... but, to some extent, PCs should be trying to be ready for just about anything)

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