| Nadir_Sharpblade |
And so, finally, my players confronted the huge howlbear in his lair.
I knew already the party "potential" (see description below) and so I decided to group ALL the monsters in the first room/area, just after the shriekers gave the allarm (i.e. I let them arrive at battle location in 1 or 2 rounds, depending on the distance), ganging up with the howlbear (with the advanced template).
I expected a hard fight, it was a joke (the PCs didn't even use a single Hero Point; yes I let them use this optional rule for several reasons).
No, to be specific, it was a massacre.
The spiders/ettercaps/shambling mound "entertained" the PCs for a couple of rounds, the howlbear lasted, perhaps, three (without even touching a single PC).
So, what went wrong?
The truth is that the party is balanced and solid and I'm actively avoiding to throw, at them, potentially deadly opponents (i.e. CR more than 4 lvl over their medium level).
To help focalizing the situation the party composition (they can use all the build options in every pathfinder manual pubblished - I don't wanto to limit their choices) is:
- damage dealer (ranger/barbarian two-weapon tree specialisation) 7th lvl (full rounding, with haste, is capable to deal something about 70-80 dmg);
- druid (specialisation in conjuration) 7th lvl (summoning "augmented" grizzly bears as standard action plus healing and casting decent offensive spells);
- bard (specialized in buffing) 7th lvl (giving huge amounts of buffs/reroll to the group, sometimes "walling" due to good AC);
- wizard 7th (enchantment specialization, but not above tossing some scortching rays and a couple fireballs - in case of single powerful monster, not immune to it, likes to use his save-or-death-high-DC deep slumber);
- Fighter/Sorc (future Eldritch Knight) 7th lvl (combined) ho plays the "field controller" role (enlarge+reach weapon) or reverts to ranged damage with spells.
So, I'm quite worried about starting Varnhold Vanishing, 'cause I already checked the monster listed and they are no match (perhaps just the final boss) for my party.
It's true that monsters/enemies are possibily calculated against iconic character (the ones at the end of the AP, absolutely non optimized), but it seems to me they are far too weak.
Possible solutions?
Raise substantially the CR/number of monsters of every encounter and pass the advancement of the party on low-advancement rate?
Am I missing a more obvious solution that requires less (time-consuming) modifications to encounters?
Any suggestion appreciated.
P.S. sorry for wall of text and possibly not clear language (I'm not English motherlanguage)