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So my adventuring party kind of did a silly thing. Instead of crawling a mini-dungeon they literally knocked on the front door and started a parlay. They have used Diplomacy to convince the enemies to come out, which they will beginning next session. This will have them face a massive wave of foes (mostly of them are a very minor threat) and their boss all at once. So that is the scenario.
The party is a Paladin, Ranger (favored enemy will not apply here) with Animal Companion, Sorcerer, Rogue, and Cleric (casting spec only). They are currently at level 7.
The problem with this whole thing is the boss. I equipped the boss, a level 7 Antipaladin, with +1 Full Plate. This is intended to be part of their loot as the parties Paladin currently is not wearing full plate armor. But I don't think the party can actually hit him enough to win the day. You see he is a troglodyte, as such he has +6 Natural Armor. Combined with the fact that he knows he going into a likely fight his cleric cast Shield of Faith on him for a +2 Deflection bonus and he has a +1 Dex bonus as well. His AC break down looks like;
AC 29, Touch 13, Flat-Footed 28 (+10 Armor, +1 Dex, +2 Deflection, +6 Natural)
Factoring the parties attack bonus at +11 (+7 BAB, +3 Stat, +1 Magical Enhancement) they are only hitting on a 17 or better. Should I nerf this boss down? If so, how much?
My level 7 group can hit a 29 AC, but that is for the guys build for direct combat(hit point damage).
It is a 5 on one encounter. They should be able to take him, but it also depends on their builds.
If you are worried about his AC being too high then drop his CR down and have him use lesser armor, but give him some minions. That will help out with him being out numbered.
Does the sorcerer have haste? Does the cleric have Blessing of Fervor? Prayer? Assuming the Paladin has at least one smite left, how much of a to-hit bonus will smite give him? Does the Paladin have a divine bond to his weapon or a mount? Is the paladin's weapon at least +1?
In other words, how prepared are they?
If your sorcerer casts haste, the cleric casts blessing of fervor, the paladin smites, and uses his divine bond, then the paladin's to-hit will go up to, reasonably, +17 (+7 BAB, +3 stat, +1 enhancement, +1 divine bond, +1 haste, +2 divine fervor, +2 charisma), which will let him hit on an 11, and give him an additional swing at full BAB.
That's quite reasonable.
On the other hand, if they've used up their spells, or chosen crap for their spells known/prepared, then you probably should nerf the paladin a bit. Give him a mithril breastplate instead, making the reasonable possibility that he wants to be more mobile than a full plate will allow. Have a suit of +1 full plate he keeps in a vault, which he didn't put on because he didn't think the PCs were that big a threat, if you still want to provide the paladin with a +1 full plate.
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My question might be, can they retreat? And what would be the effects if they do? Or maybe, what's the dynamic going on here? Is the anti-paladin fooling people into following him, or are his followers evil to begin with? And did they have any idea what they were getting into before they got there and demanded to talk to the leader?
I'm mostly asking this because I'm a big fan of writing adventures as reasonable challenges for APL, and letting things play out whichever way they swing. If the party finds an intelligent way to defeat or circumvent a challenge, good for them. If they decide to do things a particular way that make the challenges much tougher, as your party seems to have done, that's what happens.
If they went in blindly and tried to talk things out, that's probably on them. If they tried to talk things out to protect the followers, that's probably on them as well. But depending on whether the followers are evil or not might play into whether they can be convinced to stand aside.
Now, there's basically 4 ways this plays out, assuming you want the campaign to continue, which I assume you do.
1) The PCs convince most of the followers to stand down and overcome the anti-paladin as was intended originally.
2) Diplomacy fails and the party flees once they realize the entirety of the enemy forces are about to attack them.
3) Diplomacy fails and the party doesn't realize they're about to be overwhelmed, or decides to stand and fight anyway. They likely lose the fight. They get taken prisoner for the anti-paladins nefarious purposes. Cue the escape from the dungeon session, probably allowing the rogue a chance to shine. Or, they could get lucky and win.
4) Change the enemies stats/equipment so that the PCs are likely to win, despite making a serious tactical error.
Personally, if I was running, options 1-3 would be my go to, depending of course on how the PCs respond. Mind you, AC 29 is several points higher than what they should be facing at this level, and it wouldn't be a bad idea to drop his dex a bit, normal troglodytes have a dex penalty, not a bonus.
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The Paladins Divine Bond is to his armor rather than his weapon. The paladin does have Smite Evil uses left today for sure. His Charisma is either a 16 or 18, which will net him a +3 or +4.
The Cleric typically casts Bless, Prayer and similar spells. He frequently also uses Bless Equipment. Should he use Bless Equipment to Bane the Paladin and/or Rangers weapons it could go a long way to help them.
The Sorcerer is more of a debuff spec. rather than a buff spec. He regularly casts Slow, I'm not sure he has Haste yet. He is an Elemental Bloodline (Fire). He also favors Stone Call, Lightning Bolt (Fire), and Shocking Grasp (Fire).
This is only the second encounter for the party "this day". The first not being all together too difficult for them. So they do have most of their resources still available.
In regards to his minions, he has 12 standard semi-useless grunts, 3 level 1 clerics and 3 Monitor Lizards.
High AC boss = bore fest.
Lower that thing to the low twenties (21 or 22 tops) and raise his hit points; players like to hit stuff, missing their full attack every other round is just painful for everybody involved.
And make the bad guy mobile, give disarm and sunder to some of his minions, as well as trip, throw nets at the PCs, alchemist fire, have hostages show up, dig some pits around the battlefield, etc.
But I'd still strongly advise not to run that situation they created... 19 enemies and 7 good guys... 26 turns in each round? I'd make my attack, leave to make a sandwich and come back before it was my turn again.
The +1 full plate? Let some mayor from the local town they saved give it to him as a gift for his efforts, or just toss him a bag of coins and suggest he should gear up.
If the foe fails the save, slow can be as good as haste in some ways, but an antipaladin will have excellent saves.
So the sorcerer uses crap spells, understood. What about the Cleric? He should have level 4 spells now, what level 4 spells does he have prepped?
If they don't have those key buffs, I'd maybe adjust the antipaladin's AC down just a bit. It just occurred to me that the antipaladin will probably smite the paladin at the same time that the paladin smites the antipaladin, so their respective bonuses to attack and AC will more or less cancel out.
It makes sense for a troglodyte antipaladin to rely more on his tough skin and less on armor.
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Okay so this is out of an AP. I don't see any reason to run an AP if I completely change every aspect of it. I'm running Legacy of Fire. Back when the party was level 5 they were supposed to hit this small section of dungeon. Instead they avoided it and have come back around to it now at level 7. The original boss was supposed to be a level 6 cleric. Also your not supposed to fight them all outside all at once. It was written for the PC's to crawl the dungeon, but for some reason I don't understand, this incarnation of our group doesn't like to do that. Instead they prefer to just battle everyone all at once, creating these massive multisession combats. I agree our action economy is toast but these monsters were intended to be fought over several encounters.
Changing the battlefield is actually not going to be possible. The PC's have walked this ground several times. The trogs Stoneshaped themselves inside their guard house and the PC's have talked them into coming out. Conflict is a 100% reality as the party has a Paladin of Sarenrea and Cleric of Sarenrae. The trogs are devout worshipers of Rovagug.
I knew a level 6 cleric would be nothing for my party to steam roll, so I subbed him out for a level 7 antipaladin. Also, this is a temple of Rovagug, it should have at least one antipaladin boss fight in it.
I suppose that I could re-distribute his Dex bonus to somewhere else and have his cleric minions burn their Shield of Faith spells on themselves. That would leave his AC looking like;
AC 26 Touch 10 Flat-Footed 26 (+10 Armor, +6 Natural)
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After my first round of tweaks he now looks like this;
Grundmoch:
Male Troglodyte Antipaladin 7
CE Medium humanoid (reptilian)
Init +4; Senses darkvision 90 ft.; Perception +2; Detect Good
Aura evil, stench (30 ft., DC 18, 10 rounds)
DEFENSE
AC 26, touch 10, flat-footed 26 (+10 armor, +6 natural)
hp 96 (2d8+6d10+47)
Fort +15, Ref +5, Will +10
OFFENSE
Speed 20 ft.
Melee +1 greataxe +12/+7 (1d12+3/x3) Power Attack +1 Greataxe +9/+4 (1d12+12/x3)
Special Attacks Smite Good 3/day, Touch of Corruption (3d6+Cruelty), Channel Negative Energy DC 16 (3d6)
Antipaladin Spells Prepared (CL 4th; concentration +7)
2nd—Blindness/Deafness
1st—Death Knell, Protection from Good
STATISTICS
Str 14, Dex 10, Con 18, Int 8, Wis 10, Cha 16
Base Atk +8/+3; CMB +10; CMD 20
Feats Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Power Attack, Weapon Focus (greataxe), Toughness
Skills Knowledge (Religion) +4, Linguistics +4, Perception +5, Stealth +3 (+7 in rocky areas); Racial Modifiers +4 Stealth (+8 in rocky areas)
Languages Common, Draconic
Combat Gear wand of spiritual weapon (37 charges) Other Gear+1 full plate, +1 greataxe
AP's are not one size fits all. Sometimes due to party size, player's actions or party composition you have to adjust the encounter to either make it a reasonably difficult fight or to avoid TPK'ing the party.
For his melee you have: Melee +1 greataxe +12/+7 (1d12+3/x3) Power Attack +1 Greataxe +9/+4 (1d12+12/x3)
The power attack damage should be (1d12+18/x3)
I'm a little confused, Todd:
Your thread title asked for suggestions how to balance an upcoming fight, you got quite a few excellent suggestions on ways you can tone it down, then - at least how I read it - said you don't want to tone it down.
So...what is it you'd like from us, exactly?
I'm still curious why - if they've successfully used Diplomacy this far to open negotiations with them - you're seemingly not even entertaining the idea of allowing the party to parlay with the enemy.
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I would be willing to let them negotiate with the troglodytes, I just know my party. The paladin of Sarenrea will take the, "I will not suffer worshipers of Rogagug to live stance." That is certain. They also were discussing their strategy openly. The intent was to get the enemies to come out of their stronghold for the fight, so it is the parties intent from the beginning.
I did apply some of the suggestions, such as lowering the antipaladin's dexterity and deflection bonuses to AC. The stats I listed mid-thread are the updated ones.
I also feel better with the changes because he does have a low Reflex save and only a moderate CMD now. Also his standard AC is now low enough that, particularly when flanked, he can be on reasonable rolls.
To reply to you Gulthor, I was just trying to grab some ideas and have a conversation. I really wasn't looking for the tread to "give me an answer" so much as bounce ideas off of and hear opinions. I generally only use members of my group to do so, but I wanted the antipaladin to be a bit of a surprise.
Paladin of Baha-who? reminded me that the PC's spell selection is of their own doing. Also Deighton Thrane reminded me that the PC's can run away, they don't need to fight to the death. So you guys did help me work out balance options for the NCP and reminded me that a failed encounter doesn't need to be a TPK.
If they do serious damage to the mooks, the BBEG would probably be more interested in minimizing his losses (i.e. healing those of his followers who are just injured not dead) than pursuing the PCs.
if my players got all the enemies to gather together in one place id let them have it. they wanted to fight everything at once. especially if they have the option of running if the start to lose.