Hey y'all...
I just ran my group through the Istivin "Abyss" Trilogy (117-118-119) and now that they're at 13th-14th level, I'm noticing that single villains just don't have a chance.
The hand-spur, tentacle-rodded, drow dark cleric of the elemental eye drow with the stitched elf face smask fella? He didn't get a turn. The swashbuckling drow dervish? She got a single turn - move action and began to dance, but that's all.
It's the hit-point output damage problem of higher level characters - the group that played these adventures are:
A human monk (with the vow of poverty feat)
An elf cleric of Corellon (and his elf fighter/order of the bow initiate cohort)
A half-elf sorcerer/force missile mage/argent savant (quite the combination)
A human rogue/fighter/dervish/tempest
Put simply, when they win initiative, they can churn out quite the damage in the first round, and as such, a single villain doesn't really cut it... The Malgoth did very well just from aerial superiority and multiple "Evard's Black Tentacles." I'm wondering if I should fudge the hp now and then to let the villains at least have one attack, or if I should re-work adventures to have a mix of CRs instead of one CR villain (ie: if I'd chopped a level or two from that dark elf cleric and given him a high hit-point minion to soak up some damage).
How have other folks on the boards here handled this issue?
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I had a lot of fun with this actually. Loooooong time ago when I was a wee sprat and Ravenloft was just a module. We couldn't let Strahd r.i.p. after Castle Ravenolft was sterilized. So in true munchkin fashion he kept coming back for revenge, like old 1970's B Dracula flicks. Only the party was stronger and stronger every time. You tend to go up a level or two whacking the granddaddy of all vampires repeatedly. Solution? Strahd rustled up a posse of servitors...Daughter of Strahd, an Anti-paladin, an evil werewolf ranger, etc....The first time I ran them against the Strahd crew was in the under dark between D1 and D2. After that melee, everyone WANTED Strahd to come back with a new crew. So every 3rd or 4th random dungeon encounter was Strahd's latest Drac Pack of evilesque gothic anti-adventurers.
What you can do is give the boss a suitable group of cronies to give the players more of an epic battle. With the Strahd Pack, I'd have a suitable foe for every character, maybe a few levels lower than the character in question if the foe was undead or some form of lycanthrope or half-demon...Like the X-men vs. the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Even Magneto needed a crew, and that Magneto is one bad mutant foe. So give the drow cleric a pair of twin quaggoth bouncers with a few levels of berserker, and a changeling sorcerorwith a ring of invisibility who keeps popping up as someone new in the middle of combat to pop off a few fireballs or whatever. Give the dervish a trio of students who follow her around to learn dance steps and help with chores and pesky adventurers.
Well, you probably should give the main villain(s) a bit of a boost, if for no other reason than the VoP Monk. I'm not argueing against allowing a monk to take VoP, but it does make him (her?) signifigantly more powerful than any other possible feat that could of been taken.
You said it yourself when describing the wizard as well, that it was a pretty potent combination of PRCs. And the cohort makes the group more powerful as well, because if nothing else the cohort will suck up a few hits, and a well designed cohort can do a lot more than that.
If the PCs are tougher than normal for their level, than you should adjust the difficulty of the adventure (or specific encounters) accordingly. So yeah, I'd toss in a few more goons/sidekicks for the single villain encounters, to ensure that the party has a real fight on their hands, not a single round knockout.
Does your BBEG cast buff spells (assuming the BBEG is a caster, of course)? Two really good buff spells for a cleric are greater magic weapon and magic vestment. Cast GMW, and then spend your gold getting special abilities on your weapon instead of pluses. The same is true for MV.
And there's plenty of other really good buffs. Those with the all-mighty "1 hour/level" duration should pobably be cast long before the PCs arrive on the scene. Spells with a lower duration need to be prioritized and cast once the BBEG knows the PCs are coming.
And, as mention, minions are good. There's no problem minions can't solve. :D
A few goons and such. Before the PCs come across them maybe have them run into a few traps, give the NPCs some special magic items, like maybe something that would allow them to cast Domination and use the PC Monk or other against the party. Their is no better solution to an over-powering group of PCs than to use their power against them. If the NPC can take atleast the two most powerful PCs than the group will have a problem taking them out in less than 5 rounds. Another good solution is paralyzation. Add a Mohrg or two to the fights, the PC should be able to make short work of them but their paralyzation ability will take PCs out of comition for minutes, succesfully taking them out of (most likely) the entire fight.
The monk probably wouldn't fail his save. The better targets would be the cohort archer, or the rogue. :D
Summon Minion IX: A good cure for what ails ya' - especially pesky adventurers that keep interfering.
That being said, I say minions. Every good villain doesn't work alone - he/she/it has favors they can call in on, bargains to make, souls to steal. :-D
Add a beholder.
:P
No really, that would get silly rather quickly. Instead of having them meet the vilans individually, Perhaps you could have them all meet up at one spot?
You make a good observation that runs counter to our desires as DMs and adventure designers.
So often we are tempted to have the "one big monster" at the end. It is almost always a bad choice for the simple reason of numbers. 4 to 6 PCs focusing all their attention on 1 NPC/monster makes it real tough for the 1 NPC/monster to do anything significiant, beyond perhaps greasing one PC. Hardly the satisfying encounter that the "one big monster" idea seems to promise.
That is one of the core pieces of advice I give to newer DMs and adventure writers--try to avoid the "single big baddie." That doesnt mean no "boss" monster. Just dont have them be alone. Give them some "meaningful" minions. When I say meaningful, I dont mean just add some numbers to the bad guys. Those numbers are irrelevant if they are easily turnable undead or low level creatures the PCs will ignore or easily remove. They have to actually deserve the attention of the PCs, so that should the PCs all wisely decide to focus on the "boss" there will be a cost to that choice. At lower levels think of adding creatures like orcs with good armor and 2H weapons. I think orcs are underrated--their high STR and use of 2H weapons with good criticals can make them dangerous. Or even bugbears who at 3HD they have the hp to be more than a nuisance and give them some good armor and you have an interesting bunch of support monsters. At higher levels consider Ogres (or at even higher levels, Trolls). You just cant sneeze at ogres. I think they, too, are some of the most underrated monsters. They have good HP. Their high STR makes their attacks effective and deadly. But you dont have to get evil. Just find some ways to divide the attention of the PCs so they cant just focus on the one "big baddie".
Also, consider strategic set up. Generally a boss fight will be in a boss lair. Make sure the layout, prepared spells, magic items, alarms, geography, etc, all favor the bad guy.
I know it is tough. Back in the day, you always used the "Xth level" of the dungeon means we can use "X HD monsters" type of thinking (before CRs and ELs). You couldnt wait for Level X to drop that one big baddie you have been dying to use. And just about every time that encounter sucked--the PCs killed it quick.
In my humble opinion, the EL system doesnt properly account for how much better higher level PC parties are than a single opponent of the same EL.
Here is an idea. Get your normal players to make some "disposable" PCs of about 3rd level or 5th level or 7th level (where the pcs pick up some important upgrades, a la invisibility, fireball, etc, which change the way the PCs fight monsters). Then run them through some encounters. Sick one ogre on them. The one ogre and 4 goblins with swords. Then one ogre and 4 goblins with short bows at range. Than an ogre with a PC level or two. Mix and match so you can really get a feel for what is challenging and what isnt. Try things that are supposed to be the same EL and you will find some wildly different results. I did that early on when 3E came out. I did it over about 3 nights. I found some real interesting things, and confirmed the "one big bad guy" is not a good challenge. As much as I like the guidance the EL system gives us, it still has its pitfalls.
Just a few thoughts...
Clark
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orcus raises some very good points (never thought i'd see myself saying that about orcus ;) ) never let the BBEG be caught alone. the only time they should really encounter the Big Bad is when they've finished up a major fight. 9 times out 10 they'll be expecting it, but that 10th time is always the one to look forward to. catching them when they as a group least expect it (and you are a better judge as to when those moments occur than anyone else) is always good to. but when in doubt, use minions.
The R&D team at WotC recently mentioned on the site that the "CR equals NPC's level" formula wasn't always accurate. One reason for this is that the character classes are designed to spread their abilities out over a day's adventuring, not used all in a single fight. Another reason is that they're outnumbered four to one. Spellcasters especially suffer in this situation since they're supposed to have a party to protect them.
Here's an example. A tenth level human sorcerer opponent can cast cone of cold three times, wall of fire five times and fireball seven times. His power level is based on him being able to make use of those. As a real dungeon encounter, however, the sorcerer might have only 35 or 45 hit points and AC17, and will be lucky to get to use half of those. A level 6 fighter charging will hit easily and on an average roll can take off around half his hit points (17 damage). The party wizard casts magic missile for average 10 damage, and even without sneak attack, the rogue can rapid shot with a shortbow for another 11. Even without the cleric or spending high level magic, the sorcerer is dying or dead in one round, thanks to a party four levels below his challenge rating.
So basically, you have to work around this. He either needs to be specially defended (perhaps by terrain and environment), or to have minions or allies protecting him, or he has to have some way to draw on his power before the combat begins. Here are a few examples:
Good points, all. (And spoilers below)
I ran the Istivin arc against a fairly standard party (paladin, cleric, ranger/rogue, wizard) and found the encounters to be a bit on the challenging side but just about right. The encounter with Marquis Querchard nearly turned into a TPK due to the Evard's black tentacles/cloudkill combo and the fact that several shadows were harrying the party at the same time. Velikar nearly took out a party member--he was well buffed and used blade barrier to good effect. The drow dervish chick was not too challenging, but lasted a few rounds before being forced to surrender--the regular drow and displacer beasts were basically only good as meat shields, and the cave was a bit small to bring them all to bear on the party at once. The combats with the succubus sorceress and with the drow priest were completely awesome--the sorceress killed paladin and ranger/rogue during a satisfying ten-plus round combat, before the cleric unleashed an earthquake and buried her. (The vampire was useless due to a lucky turn roll). The drow priest won initiative and disintegrated the party wizard before they could react--with the help of the umber hulks he lasted some time before being forced to retreat into the sanctuary. When the party had finished off the umber hulks and was talking about collapsing the sanctuary cave with an earthquake to bury him, he levitated up out of the sanctuary for a final confrontation--most memorable scene in the whole dungeon. So I thought these adventures were quite well-balanced with respect to core characters.
I was careful with minions in these adventures--where the party was going to be hard pressed just to defeat the BBEG, I had them face minions separately--if things looked good (fresh party, etc.) I'd pull out the stops and make sure the minions fought at the boss monster's side.
It seems possible to me that all the supplemental materials (especially Vile Darkness and Exalted Deeds) push things in the direction of being tough--if you're going to allow your PCs to use them, you'd best equip your villains with feats and PrC levels from them as well to even things out.
Also, I think that with high level monsters, especially those with lots of spells and special abilities, you've really got to think out how they're going to make the most of their abilities. They're always going to have a system of alerting themselves if intruders arrive--so unless the party is extra sneaky, they should have time to do a full buff. If your party has strong capabilities in dealing certain types of damage, find ways to make the BBEG immune or resistant--even if it means adding some magic items. A couple of potions of energy resistance are a no brainer if your party fighter has a flaming sword and your wizard has a wand of lightning bolt. The BBEG is always going to have a line of retreat prepared and ways of delaying pursuit, so he can down his cure serious potions and rebuff if they have any buffs left. They'll always have minions to slow the party down and wear it down, and if possible they'll look in on how things are going once they've buffed--if the party is making mincemeat of the minions, they may join the fray right there, or at least do some ranged support from a protected position. If, as DM, you haven't read the pertinent sections of the module again, and haven't thought carefully how YOU'RE going to use the BBEG, his resources, and his minions, you're not doing your job. (I always subject the "tactics" entry to careful scrutiny--these entries frequently suggest less than optimal tactics and uses of resources, and sometimes contain outright errors or misunderstandings of how certain spells and abilities can be used).
After all this, occasionally, your BBEG may still go down quickly, but most of the time you should have satisfying combats, and sometimes you should be able to make the party run for their lives.
As we used to say in the Navy--never let you're ship go to the bottom while you've got missiles in the magazine.