Hello all, I am the GM with a wonderful group of players. They are all in my games for different reasons, from RPing to just being a murderhobo, and I couldn't ask for a better group. They listen when I talk, ask questions when confused, and and have started working as a team. So to be clear, I have no problem managing my group.
The problem is there are eight players, an eidolon, and two horses. Again, I can keep combat moving just fine. I am a little authoritarian in regards to keeping combat moving fast, and force combat to go at a good pace. However, I cannot seem to get the difficulty right for a fight. First off, I'm unsure what the APL is for a group of 8 so it is hard for me to pick out the right CR for an encounter.
Secondly, I am scared of making things too hard accidentally. The last fight the party rolled well and I flubbed some rolls, but I feel like the party still would have flattened my boss with or without the crits and save failures.
Third, I am unsure of just how hard some encounters will end up. The three goblin crossbowmen I put up in the rafters nearly killed the whole party, while they steamrolled the boss of the dungeon with ease.
As a GM, my number one rule is for my players to have fun. Right now, they seem to be having fun...but that will not last without a challenge to keep the game interested. So the question is, how to I keep the game hard but fun for a group of 8 level 2 characters? What should I treat the APL as?
Three words. Add more mooks.
The APL is unreliable at best, and as the party gets larger it only gets more incorrect. You're going to have to feel it out.
Make the bosses a bit tougher, but also give them a lot more mooks and make them have somewhat better tactics.
Yeah, my last boss was a level 4 Ki Mystic Quigong Monk of the Four Winds who was for their level 1 dungeon. Only 20 AC but was rocking +8 to hit on both his punches and scortching ray, with more HP than the party, speed, and 8 Ki points he was meant to be a brutal fight.
Grappled by an Eidolon without improved grapple, Hit with a true-strike powered tanglefoot bag, and then failed his +8 will save and was Dazed. Dead in four rounds. As he died, I had him transform into a medium fire elemental that died to a full round attack that involved a crit from the slayer. RIP first boss.
The main problem was that with no mooks to keep the party busy, they ran him over. Heck three members of the group didn't even contribute that much, if they were all fighting tactically together it would have been even easier.
So more mooks sounds good, and throwing out APL also sounds good. Anything else?
another idea, have you ever seen Scooby Doo? Forcibly splitting the party occasionally can possibly lead to some interesting stories (I still remember that time my lvl 5 Enchanter and the party rogue accidentally triggered a teleport haunt that sent us both into a small room with a very angry Wraith and had no magic weapons between us, escaped JUST barely by finding the hidden teleporter in the room, it was hectic and we nearly died but it was fun)
Elementals cannot be crit. But that's besides the point.
My local friend (one of the best GMs I've ever played with) had this idea to have "Cinematic Boss Fights" where he gives them special abilities to advance to the next "stage" of the fight. For instance, once you get the giant rampaging boss to 1/2 hp, he suddenly interrupts the initiative order and does a charge attack, knocking away anybody in the way and establishing some distance before going into super-saiyan mode. It basically resets the fight by forcing the people away. I've been eager to try it out.
I had the same issue with a 6 man party, with an eidelon, 2 druid level pets and a combat based familiar, it didn't help they all rolled near max for stats too. Often it would get to the 3rd players turn and the boss was dead, prepared buffs wasted and the rest beginning to loot before the fight was really over.
Crank Boss HP to max, so they can survive more hits, leave damage and Attack average, the biggest problem with large groups is that many GM's up the CR of the monsters, together the team can rinse them, but individually the monsters can one shot any PC. Do not throw low hp high dmg raging enlarged orc barbarians with truestrike and magic greataxes at them, yet.
Mooks, cowardly minions, basic undead, vermin, even summon monster x spells cast by UMD Bards/Rogues can mean if the party is doing well the dice "happens" to roll max # of weak, annoying monsters that eat actions and extend combat.
Buff your bosses, hard. Blur, Mirror Image, Permanencied Resistance, morale bonuses, luck bonuses, racial Nat armour, etc. Make it so the higher number of attacks do not necessarily mean a higher number of hits. Make combat eat up more rounds, boss fights should not be quick.
Force the party to flank/buff/debuff, let the guys in the back have a few rounds to contribute.
Build the map to your bosses advantage, rough terrain patches, pillars, large room with many pits/barriers/traps etc. And let the boss prepare by placing spies that run away at the first sign of trouble (adds a new dimension to the dungeon crawl and may force the fastest to split away to chase, or not).
CMB tricks, stun, trip, bullrush, disarm/steal to force players to eat up actions getting back into the fight, without merely downing them.
Make the boss mobile, if he stops he dies, anything to keep him moving around, he does not need to full round attack if he can shot on the run from cover to cover.
I also added familiars with wands, or similar micro mooks that can act on the bosses turn and add actions (heal, buff, cast invis, provide an attack, steal or disarm combat maneuver, etc). Also gives the ranged PC's something to shoot at besides the boss.
Good ideas My Self. I might not go 100% on ignoring all debuffs, but that's certainly a good idea to use for certain bosses or certain debuffs.
I've been using critical confirmation rolls to keep my bosses alive, if a Crit would reduce an important character below 0 HP it requires a confirmation roll. Otherwise crits are crits, both ways.
I like your suggestions though. Perhaps instead of immunity to abilities, they instead get a reroll with a bonus? So the boss can still fail if successfully locked down my the PCs, after all you want to reward debuffing so they don't just go Barbarian.
For 8 players I'd add 2 the APL. So if they are 4th level they would APL 6. I keep the CR between 3 and 6 and just add more to the encounter. I just use a XP budget of 1600 to 6400 per encounter.
For 8 players I'd add 2 the APL. So if they are 4th level they would APL 6. I keep the CR between 3 and 6 and just add more to the encounter. I just use a XP budget of 1600 to 6400 per encounter.
Unfortunately, in my experience at least, the APL does not scale well at all. Some creatures are very under calculated, while others are over calculated. And party resources really dictate what you can throw at them more than APL budget.
CR increases HP and AC, making foes last longer, but it can also easily mean enemy mooks can one shot kill one or more PC's, as well CMD's, and resistances/immunities/DR's can quickly outpace a single character. If the party has a higher percentage of non casters, or lack sufficient divine healers, the DC's of ability damage, disease, poison, spells, can become impossible to overcome. CR assumes PC's have a certain level of ability to counter the higher powers.
Shadows at level are terrifying, they can quickly kill a low STR Wizard, or leave him struggling under the weight of his spellbook for weeks, at a few levels higher most clerics wouldn't blink at spending restorations and might outright kill shadows with channeling or their +magic weapons before they can do any harm at all.
Heck a lion vs dire lion (2CR higher) does almost 2x damage, +5 to Grab CMB, 2x hp, and is 2x more likely to land their deadlier blows.
So for a lvl 1 party of 8, a CR3 shadow would be a near impossible fight, despite being in their APL budget.
CR increases HP and AC, making foes last longer, but it can also easily mean enemy mooks can one shot kill one or more PC's, as well CMD's, and resistances/immunities/DR's can quickly outpace a single character. If the party has a higher percentage of non casters, or lack sufficient divine healers, the DC's of ability damage, disease, poison, spells, can become impossible to overcome. CR assumes PC's have a certain level of ability to counter the higher powers.
This is exactly my problem with designing encounters, my solution so far has been either "more dudes" or "liberal use of certain templates" that only make them more dangerous rather than impossible to beat at level. The Shadow is a perfect example of a creature that I could throw at the party, and would murder it entirely. Thats no fun at all, but thats just because of the incorporal. If we take a normal creature and just chuck CR+2 on it, it gets a lot more challenging. Without scaling well.
I think more dudes is my best bet.
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My group was playing Reign of Winter and we were all power players, well the other guys, me I was just having fun with it, but our GM had to make things harder for us so he took normal enemies like Ice Giants and used the Monster Codex to through barbarian Ice Giants at us. He threw an Ancient White Dragon with 2 or 3 Mythic levels at us. Basically he took what was there and just gave it a boost to keep us on our toes. Add a couple more enemies, make the enemies stronger, throw something that makes sense but is not there at them. Just go for fun but nothing to crazy.
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I have the same problem, also they like polearms and now have Large pets and one guy summons so I also have 8-9 pc actions per round. It is a real pain! I have found, as others said, first to add lots of lower level mooks to soak up action
Secondly the map is the next most important thing. The bad guys should not be sitting ducks easily surrounded, the party should not all get line of sight to an enemy at once. Smaller rooms, twisty corridors, or outside: heavy overgrowth / swamp to hamper movement, and lots of trees to provide cover (cover blocks attacks of opportunity as well).
Finally enemies with area effects or attacks work well too. Whether it's debuffs or damage it all helps. There are plenty of low level monsters as well that have AoEs: our campaign has been against troglodytes, which debuff the players. Carrion Moth is a fun one I just used but it's too high for your party now. But mass confusion was really fun :)
Finally, when there were fewer of us we would roll initiative only once for the bad guys, but with so many PCs I split up the bad guys and roll initiative for the different groups, so they to interrupt coordination the PCs might try.
I always set a hard cap on "controlled minions" to 1 per player, sometimes making exceptions for necromancers. But that's because