I took over a group and Im breaking them into longer than "15 minute" adventuring day and I would like input on what I have set up.
There are 6-7 lvl 3 players, so APL 4. I have set up so far an encounter with 4 wolves and 1 Worg at the entrance of a cave. If they go into the cave there will be 2 pit traps and still further in is a lvl 3 cleric of Urgathoa a Worg and a bandit with a shortbow from the NPC codex.
All in all its about 3600 to 4000 xp for the whole day.
The group:
Warforged fighter (used 3.5 race)
Xeph Mind blade. (Again 3.5 race/class)
Half elf Bard
Elf Gunslinger
Grippli swashbuckler
Samsaran Rogue
Sometimes a Half Elf Investigator
System mastery is low to medium and none are optimizers except the Warforged, but his mastery is low so it's not overly powerful.
Tl;Dr
Inherited a large hodgepodge group of fairly new players. Want to do more than one encounter in a day. Is my string of encounters above to much?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The "15 minute adventuring day" generally happens when the PCs have unrestricted access to retreat and camp in a safe place. If you want to combat that, have them be followed, attack their camp, etc.
Should be fine. Might even be okay with just a touch more added on.
And, regardless, they should know better than to keep pushing forward if the threat of death is too high.
I know this is a game, but it annoys me that everyone just throws their characters at problems in a very counter-to-survival-instinct fashion >:(
Thanks guys. Agreed, the DM before has allowed them to retreat or rest after each encounter with no repercussions and didn't really have pro active NPC enemies.
If they employ good tactics this should be a pretty manageable day. I have contingencies planned to ramp up or down.
Also the goal isn't to kill or maim them directly but let them see those possibilities as well as look at resource management.
Actually, a party of 6 level 3 characters ends up actually being about a CR 7 party. Not a CR 4 party. So that's one thing.
The next is that the game is designed to have you fight 4 challenges per day equal to the groups CR.
Now, since you have a large party of characters of still relatively low level I would strongly suggest that you may combat include many opponent combatants, instead of combatants of high CR. Using 4 CR 3 creatures would make it a CR 7 challenge, which is theoretically perfect for your group. You could use a single CR 7, but that is likely to kill individuals of the group too easily and quickly become a too difficult fight.
Also, I strongly caution against traps as individual set pieces. As a GM I do not include traps as counting as encounters, especially not when they are overcome with a wand of CLW only. Unless the trap has a lasting effect like actually killing a PC or inflicting a condition that cannot be removed there just not actually any good. Now, that doesn't mean don't include them. They are iconic. But it does mean don't give XP or gold for defeating them unless they have a more lasting effect or if you include them in combat. Include traps in a combat is the main way I like to use them if I'm going to write up a combat myself.
Include a log rolling trap at the top of a hill that the PCs must run up to get to the enemy is a great tool and makes combat much more interesting. Or including camouflaged pit traps along a corridor where the NPCs know their location and use ranged attacks to try to lure PCs into falling down them.
Those are good ways to use them, don't use them by themselves. It's usually a pretty lame, binary encounter.
1) Either you detect the trap or don't.
2) If you do detect it you attempt to disable it or bypass it.
2b) If you don't you take the effect of the trap, usually hp damage which is negated by wand of CLW. If you can't bypass it or fail at disabling it you may end up here as well.
While traps are iconic, it really isn't worth the time generally speaking to say "you take some damage but don't die" and then they say "I'm healed up with the wand".
|
My favorite trap dropped a stone block behind you in a hall way with a secret door as the only way out. It triggered if you messed with the door at the end of the U shaped hall ( so you can't just run straight out) or if you spent to much time there (the ooze on the other side would detect you and set it off trying to get out of the room.
Generally I agree though, traps need something extra. Some goblins had a pit trap that was weight triggered, so as long as only on of them was on it it wouldn't go off. So they see the scout and chase him, he runs across the pit no problems. Non small pic follows and trap.
Thanks for the input. You pretty much nailed those contingencies. This is the first time I've DM'd a group outside my normal experienced group that has high mastery. It's been a while since I had to scale back.
Edit: Everyone is faster at giving input than I am at responding. All great stuff. I do like the dynamic traps and will actually do something like that in this game.
Thanks so much everyone.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The "15 minute adventuring day" generally happens when the PCs have unrestricted access to retreat and camp in a safe place. If you want to combat that, have them be followed, attack their camp, etc.
Finding ways to add time limits also helps, but it's hard to do that too often without it feeling forced.
Actually, a party of 6 level 3 characters ends up actually being about a CR 7 party. Not a CR 4 party. So that's one thing.
The next is that the game is designed to have you fight 4 challenges per day equal to the groups CR.
Now, since you have a large party of characters of still relatively low level I would strongly suggest that you may combat include many opponent combatants, instead of combatants of high CR. Using 4 CR 3 creatures would make it a CR 7 challenge, which is theoretically perfect for your group. You could use a single CR 7, but that is likely to kill individuals of the group too easily and quickly become a too difficult fight.
Also, I strongly caution against traps as individual set pieces. As a GM I do not include traps as counting as encounters, especially not when they are overcome with a wand of CLW only. Unless the trap has a lasting effect like actually killing a PC or inflicting a condition that cannot be removed there just not actually any good. Now, that doesn't mean don't include them. They are iconic. But it does mean don't give XP or gold for defeating them unless they have a more lasting effect or if you include them in combat. Include traps in a combat is the main way I like to use them if I'm going to write up a combat myself.
Include a log rolling trap at the top of a hill that the PCs must run up to get to the enemy is a great tool and makes combat much more interesting. Or including camouflaged pit traps along a corridor where the NPCs know their location and use ranged attacks to try to lure PCs into falling down them.
Those are good ways to use them, don't use them by themselves. It's usually a pretty lame, binary encounter.
1) Either you detect the trap or don't.
2) If you do detect it you attempt to disable it or bypass it.
2b) If you don't you take the effect of the trap, usually hp damage which is negated by wand of CLW. If you can't bypass it or fail at disabling it you may end up here as well.While traps are iconic, it really isn't worth the...
Wait, what?
CR7 encounter against a CR7 party should be a 50/50 TPK. It might not play out that way if you have optimized characters, but that's how the system works.
It goes that you should face 4 CR=APL encounters. APL for a 4 member party is equal to the average party level. If you want to find it for groups with higher or lower numbers, find the CR of the party, take away 4 and you have the APL (you might not hit a CR exactly, but if they are between CR 8 and 9 you know the APL is between 4 and 5). In this case, the OP has a 6-7 player party. 6 players is CR=level+5, so lets say the party is CR8. Their APL is 4. They should face 4 CR4 encounters in a day according to the CR system, or an equivalent amount of harder or easier encounters, bearing in mind that harder encounters burn resources disproportionately faster and easy encounters burn little to no resources at all.
The 4 wolves+worg is between CR5 and CR6. Lets say you have 7 players, so it's about APL+1. The pit traps I don't know about (and traps can be very trivial resource wise so...*shrugs*...they may or may not even count). The cleric, the wolf and the shortbow bandit (assuming he is level 2 PC or level 3 NPC class) are all up CR5 (APL+1). Overall, if the pit traps get dealt with easily you could probably throw in another encounter without too much worry. Or you could soft ball it for now and ramp up the difficulty later until you are comfortable with how your PCs are handling. It is better to undershoot than overshoot, after all (easy session vs TPK...decisions, right?).
Well, my players are rather new, play at level 6 now - and get into trouble with CR 6 encounters. Despite playing five instead of four characters... A CR 8 encounter lately would have killed them, they were only saved by having three allied feys at hand.
I recommend reinforcements here. Give them a CR 4 encounter, but if it turns out too easy, send in more opponents. Additionally, if things look bad for them, you can always make an opponent act a bit dumber than he would usually (see Rory's example with not channeling negative energy).