Buffing the Baddies (spoilers)


Savage Tide Adventure Path


Of course, this is bound to hearken to the old argument of flavor vs. crunch. (That is, should an NPC baddie have skills/feats/abilities/equipment that make sense for that character to have, regardless of the applicability of them in their--potentially--only ever encounter, or should they be optimized to the teeth, and hope that the players never question how this diabolical lich managed to surround himself with so many golems without the Craft Construct feat?)

But I digress. I'm a bit for the crunch, myself, and am interested in seeing how different people may have "bumped-up" the difficulty of different encounters throughout the STAP.

First off, I'm flipping through "Prince of Demons", and I get to the awesome Gromsfed the Drowned. Killer. A wicked pic, to boot. But then I see it: 185 hit points. Sure he's got a terrifying array of abilities, but I'm thinking he needs a little boost.

Then it hits me: Unholy Toughness. This ability gives undead bonus hit points equal to their Charisma modifier times their Hit Dice, or another 168 hit points, putting him up to 353 hit points. Ahh, there's a challenge for a party of 20th-level heroes.

Yeah, I know this is just one example--and a bit of a cheesy one, I'll admit--but I'd love to here more.

Dark Archive

Gromsfed is indeed a great villain. Personally, I would give him unholy toughness if the PC's manage to take care of General Tetradarian with Bagromar. In that case, Gromsfed is a solo fight and his HP is more important. By contrast, if Tetradarian is there, the PC's can't concentrate all their firepower on Gromsfed, so the Unholy Toughness feat probably isn't needed.

As for tweaking the STAP villains in general, it has been my experience that when I would do that I usually ended up with a TPK on my hands because I was underestimating how strong a villain is. So be careful before twinking the creatures in the STAP overly much. Towards the end of the campaign it becomes a real meatgrinding war of attrition as every battle drains the party of precious resources for the fight against the Prince of Demons.

Obviously, you should do whatever works best for your group of players. That said, I've found the STAP to be plenty deadly enough on it's own, even when my party was at levels higher than they were supposed to be in the campaign. The goal is to have fun. I found I achieve that goal best when I test the characters to their mortal limits and kill them if possible, but not to make inherently impossible challenges for them to face. The threat of death has to be real for suspension of disbelief, but this campaign is so much more rewarding for everyone if players have a shot of making it to the end of the campaign with their original characters. In fact, my players that managed to do so felt like they had earned a badge of honor. I would even suggest perhaps a "wall of fame" where the names of characters that make it alive from 1st level to the end of the AP's be put on some sort of list on your wall or DM screen as legendary heros that triumphed against all odds. It will make the campaign even more special when they finally stop the Savage Tide.

There are so many opportunities to make puppy chow out of the PC's in this campaign, that I wouldn't worry over much about trying to tweak things. Your mileage may vary. Best of luck!!!


I run a group of 5 players and 1 NPC cleric. Thus, my encounters need a bit of buffing up here and there - I've left a lot of the game intact, but I just can't help myself sometimes.

The bullywug cleric in BG got a bit of a buff in terms of remaining spells, and he might have gained a level or two more in cleric. He cast control water to flood the second floor of the manor, and it took a few rounds for all the water to rush down the stairs. In the meantime he summoned some fiendish sharks to aid him. Made for a cool encounter, with the PCs having to split attentions between wounded NPCs tied to chairs and a toad cleric trying to drown everyone and feed them to Dagon's sharks.

The bullywug chieftan got his levels switched out for ex-monk/barbarian/drunken master. When the PCs finished off the rust monster the chieftan snatched up a keg nearby and just chugged, then smashed the keg over his head as he raged. The PCs knew what was up. ; )

As for undead, a feat exists in one of the monster supplements I purchased (Creature Collection II I think?) called Death's Blessing that is Unholy Toughness through and through. I usually make sure important undead take it if they don't already have the quality.

Also, Gromsfed has Leadership and Rod of Rulership. I can't remember what the Rod does, but what about Leadership? What would Gromsfed's cohort be? Might have to work on that one...

St. Kargoth is gonna get a sweet mount too, and a bigger room to brawl in. I'm thinking one of those obyrith from Demogorgon's Demonomicon would make a fine choice...

Sczarni

running w/ a max of 8 PC's now, 3 of whom have leadership.

that means, potentially, i have:

Cleric/Radiant Servant of Pelor (Lvl 15, Divine Meta-Persistent)
Ranger (Cohort) lvl 13

Psion/Rogue/Elocator/Wayfarer Guide (Lvl 15, all teleport all the time)
Ardent 13 (cohort...disintigrate machine, secondary t-ports)

Ranger/Psion/Pyrokineticist/Extreme Explorer (Lvl 15, tactics and lots of fire...also item crafter)
Wizard 13 (super-crafter and custom item fabricator extreme)

Monk/Drunken Master (Lvl 14, out grapples anything. has the tooth of Ahazu)

Warmage (Lvl 15, things go boom. period)

Warblade (Lvl 15, too many HP to count, does crazy damage, can make the whole party move around)

Druid (Lvl 14, new player, doesn't quite have a grasp of just what she can do...waiting for her to catch her stride.)

Now, i have spent some time advancing the enemies, but mostly NOT the big baddies. they're usually tough enough as it is to at least pose a challenge. Khala almost killed 2 of the party, and only with good rolls on telekinesis saves and good tactics were they able to save them.

I have noticed that a lot of the "throwaway" encounters (ie, the Dread Wraiths, Flotsam Ooze, Children of the Sargasso, skinwalkers), that the potential for instant-death and party-death is greater.

maybe its just because they are in larger numbers, and can bring the same or more actions to the party than the PCs can dish out.

Im finding that the challenge works out, so long as I don't pull any punches or treat any of the PC's with kid gloves. I don't ask for HP or things like that, and attack/direct special abilities/etc against the most likely target/highest threat accordingly.

As such, you can read of the deaths and a few of the near-deaths in the Obits thread.

I may advance the Balor at the end of EoME, and possibly the captain at the end of Serpents of Scuttlecove, but other than that, the challenge has been just about right, so long as the whole party isn't at the exact same place.

(the siege of the temple in Golismorga happened twice. first time against the normal defenders, who they slew readily, then against the rest of the population, who took a little longer, but still went down like clay pigeons.)

-the hamster


never had much of a problem having the group with their backs to the wall, wailing, with just the standard "play-as-printed opposition", although I do habitually change some of the equipment and spell load, to fit my particular tastes at times... Khala for example got some potions to beef him up some.

But the fun part is, the really deadly encounters are usually those which nobody much thinks about, looking like random obstacles.... like the flotsam ooze, the T-Rex (both of them ), the anaconda at the Jaguar temple, the deinochyous or the bored-to-death yugoloth in SoS's treasury (Ghourgos for the win !)... I agree with hamster, the party death often enough lurks with the "harmless" guys, making for a most ignominous death.


Certainly the baddies in SoS at the last leg of the adventure need no help to be deadly. (Check out Vzorthys' save for his "flash" ability!)

I do tend to play with a few min/maxers, however, though I don't mind. It forces me to come up with ways to make the encounters challenging, yet not totally hose their characters.

An example of this came during their stay on Journey's End (sargasso), when the vine horrors attacked. Since the majority of my players use ranged attacks, I gave the vine horrors the ability:

Malleable Dodge (Ex): As an immediate action, a vine horror may make a Reflex save (DC 12) to cause a single ranged attack roll to automatically miss, unless a natural 20 is rolled. If successful, the first target in line of effect from the attacker is subjected to the ranged attack instead.


Hierophantasm wrote:
Malleable Dodge (Ex): As an immediate action, a vine horror may make a Reflex save (DC 12) to cause a single ranged attack roll to automatically miss, unless a natural 20 is rolled. If successful, the first target in line of effect from the attacker is subjected to the ranged attack instead.

Cool


Just got a chance to use a buffed-out version of Olangru from HTBM on my players tonight. (I posted his stats on this link)

Ahh...nothing makes me feel all warm and fuzzy like delivering 81 points of damage to a PC with a surprise-round pounce.

He worked out really well, in fact. Actually, a bit too well. It didn't help that I rolled three consecutive natural 20s for attack rolls for his buddies. A delightfully gory bloodbath of a fight.

Next up, tweaking Vanthus, and potentially boosting Temauhti-Tecuani for Tides of Dread.


I fail to see the fun in buffing up the BBEG above and beyond what is stated in the original adventure. I fail to recall a BBEG in the STAP that was severly underpowered or had a "cannot be failed to be exploited" drawback/weakness.

Spoiler:

And that definitely includes Vanthus, both in ToD and Divided Ire, however low his HP

As a GM one can always rig a TPK or some kills, so where is the sportive challenge ? Cheap thrill, sorry to say....

Play as printed or adpated to a slightly different approach ( I would count Uzagi's adding of potions already at the limit of upgrading... anything else, like hiero's massive upgrade is .... well, to each his own... ) - then play smart and play for keeps.

The satisfaction of wracking havoc with just the standard guy is far more lasting and memorable.... Even more so if the BBEG has a CR on par with the group level...

YMMV


In truth, I usually upgrade the baddies for one of three reasons.

First, my players have a penchant for exploring beyond the outlined adventure. I'm a big fan of the "backdrop" articles, especially, and like to expand on them when possible. Of course, the extra experience puts the players ahead of the experience curve, reducing the potential challenge of further encounters.

The second reason is due to the number of players. When I DMed Age of Worms, I had three players, and my own NPC, which is the perfect number of players for an adventure, IMO. But this time, other gamers in our circle--who didn't jump in on AoW--heard about the previous AP, and really wanted in. I now had six players, one who joined in a little later than usual.

Finally, one of the things my players love to do is use the vast D&D 3.5 Edition library to build--in short--min/maxed characters. Yeah, they're (mostly) power gamers, and that's cool for them. In their defense, they usually build characters well, and not just to crush everything in sight. They draw from many, many books (all official WotC 3.5 books, to be sure), including the crunch-heavy Spell Compendium, Magic Item Compendium, and Tome of Battle. And if the PCs know how to outfit their characters optimally, using extensive resources, why not the NPCs?

I hope this doesn't sound like a justification, but I think that D&D--as a game--should challenge groups appropriately, based on their style of play. I don't think that the baddies should be buffed in all cases, nor do I believe that the enhanced versions of enemies are appropriate for all gaming groups. But I do find it fascinating to explore the potential of some of these engaging foes even further.


Well, five-player group here, currently with three (two combatant) cohorts here, and almost the entirety of WotC 3.5 books in use ( with bans on certain feats and PrC classes, both for roleplaying reasons and balance issues). Characters tend to be optimized, if not actually min-maxed, and with some serious thoughts expended on synergy benefits. Stil, primarily a role-play driven camapaign though.

And I haven't encountered any problems holding the players at bay with just the standard opposition - without undue fudging (if that happens than only for dramatic tension or the players' benefit ). Probably its a different style of GMing.

What I do admit too, is doing turpentine-tests, swithcing things around a bit, or re-arranging a locations layout in order to disencourage "intelligence gathering" by taking an "innocent" peek at the adventure or internet forums. I have player who is a bit prone to that.... Usually worth it, to change a riddle or trap setup (or introduce a cursed item..), hehe


vikingson wrote:
What I do admit too, is doing turpentine-tests, swithcing things around a bit, or re-arranging a locations layout in order to disencourage "intelligence gathering" by taking an "innocent" peek at the adventure or internet forums. I have player who is a bit prone to that.... Usually worth it, to change a riddle or trap setup (or introduce a cursed item..), hehe

Heh. Always keep'em on their toes. For traps, HTBM is a collection varied, and often highly clever ones. Those should make for some good fun, and some relatively easy "switcheroos".

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