So I am having trouble challenging my PC's.
we only have two of them, so I figured that a 20 point buy would be okay.
but somehow they plow through and trivialize every encounter.
the characters are the Rapier master Swashbuckler and Monk of the sacred mountain.
the swashbuckler is fine, apart from having really, really good attack bonus but the monk apparently is able to apply the damage of both his unarmed strikes and brass knuckles to every hit, which is a lot of damage with flurry of blows. normally this isn't a problem but he also has the Snake Style feat, so I am rarely able to hit him as his AC is normally anywhere between 25 and 30.
I know the PC's are SUPPOSED to win, but for some reason it isnt as fun to be like " roll initiative. okay, combat's over." than to have a decent combat.
i tried talking to my group about it, but nothing came of it.
i would definitely say my group tries to optimize, and it really is becoming less fun for me.
Less one monster encounters and more mook encounters. Make them work for it. 15 damage a swing is awesome against the BBEG, but is wasted on 6 hp minions.
As for the monk's high AC, more attack rolls (from more little monsters) gives you a statistically better chance of rolling a hit than one mediocre attack. Or they could Aid Another if they're smart enough :)
one thing i would like to know for certain is does the brass knuckles damage die and the unarmed damage die combine? cause he currently has like 2d8 when he uses his flurry of blows with the brass knuckles, which just wrecks house on the opponents.
No, brass knuckles damage is not added to unarmed damage. If you're using brass knuckles, you're not unarmed.
that's what I thought, thanks for clearing that up.
I am going to be playing around with the encounter difficulty now that they have Helgarvel to bail them out if need be.
not to terribly much, but omiyani need to have a few ninjas with her or she's just going to get wrecked. Or even monks. or something.
Hobgoblin mercenaries. Save the ninja for special occasions.
Allowing multiple encounters to bleed into one another is usually one of the simpler ways of providing a challenge.
If a PC has AC that is too hard to hit then
(a) make sure they're doing it legitimately and not stacking bracers of armor, mage armor and actual armor or something like that.
(b) try to discourage them from increasing their AC further.
(c) have minions flanking and taking Aid Another actions to help the boss hit.
the problem isn't the AC.
The character is using snake style, which goes off of the Sense Motive skill. so sometimes (at level 4) he has an armor class of 18 and sometimes he has an armor class of 30 or higher.
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A few things to try:
a) Add more monsters. If there would have been two of something, send three or four;
b) Apply the Advanced Creature template to at least some of the monsters;
c) Make some of the "big bad" enemies Mythic, but don't tell the players, and don't start them down the Mythic track (unless you want to run that kind of campaign).
Snake Style can only be used against one attack per round. If there's two enemies, or one enemy with multiple attacks, it's not too hard to hurt them.
If, for some reason, you don't want to increase the number of monsters, just give the bad guy two weapon fighting to deal with snake style.