| Mark Potter |
Hi, all.
At the request of my group, I have been GMing Shattered Star on and off for a few years now (we tend to alternate chapters with other campaigns and other GMS) and the party are finally inside Xin's palace. The issue I have been having for a while now is that the difficulty of the campaign seems a bit off. The party have had no significant challenges since chapter 3. Every fight has been trivial, even the boss fights have never seemed in doubt. Is this a problem with the campaign that other people have had? Was it written when some of the more powerful PC builds were not yet invented? Most of the party are not crazily powerful for their level. Biggest power builds are a Zen Archer (insane no of shots, always full-attacks, ignores DR and any shooting penalties) and a Warden (skews everyone elses AC by 4 points meaning most monsters only hit on 20s, apart from the warden himself who does tend to be the only combat character to ever get disabled). Am I just running the monsters poorly? (I refuse to have the monsters mysteriously know all the partys strengths apart from those that would be obvious by looking at them).
My experience on 4th ed. WOTBS (also very easy from an even earlier level) was not to throw in extra monsters as it just makes fights longer, not tougher. I really worry about making the monsters tougher in case I overcompensate and wipe out the party.
Have other people encountered these issues with the campaign? What approach did you take if that was the case?
Thanks,
Mark.