how's the game going? anything new?
Remember that bad guys use teamwork too. One of the best ways to make encounters tougher is to make the bad guys more organized. Make an evil squad of antagonists that are like an evil version of the PC party. You don't have to make them all goatee-bearing mirror universe type counterparts but you can if you want.
how's the game going? anything new?
Not really. School just started. 4 players are parents to teenagers, 1 is a college professor, and 1 is a teacher. We're scheduled to play in 3 weeks. I'm hoping to squeeze in another session before then, but it doesn't look good.
It doesn't help I work 2nd shift and both weekend days/nights.
For fights that have a few big groups of mooks, I have found slapping the swarm template on full-sized humanoids works fine. The I use a wargame movement tray, place 12-16 figures in it, and run that tray as a single humanoid swarm.
For fights that have a few big groups of mooks, I have found slapping the swarm template on full-sized humanoids works fine. The I use a wargame movement tray, place 12-16 figures in it, and run that tray as a single humanoid swarm.
They also have MOB rules in Cityscape or Heroes of Horror or something. I plan on using them when the PCs go La Selenaria, an ancient insane asylum. I'll probably give the lunatics some kind of rage as well.
Mob rules might work better -- I honestly havent looked at them.
The big secret, for me, is movement trays. Having 16 figures on one tray *really* speeds up gameplay, since I dont have to scootch each figure individually. sometimes that means we hand-wave exact placement sometimes (since a mob isnt going to stay in an exact square), but it's worth it for the gain of time.
They should make square-based minis that connect magnetically for easy MOB-ility.
I just reviewed my notes for next Friday. I don't know which way the PCs are going to first--either the dungeon torture chamber with the Citraka Rakshasa, or the big bad temple with the Yuan-ti Highpriestess.
I think the Citraka Rakshasa is going to be enough of a challenge with its enhanced mobility (Greater Blink, 100 Speed, Quickness [extra move or standard action each round], Spring Attack and Shot on the Run, etc.). Hopefully the PCs twig to the fact that the Reflexive Deflection is based on its Dex score, so if it takes Dex damage/drain and/or they shoot a whole lot of stuff at it at once, the PCs will eventually get through its defenses.
The big bad temple with the Abomination Yuan-ti Cleric 15, dracotaur ragemages (barbarian-sorcerers), and abomination yuan-ti fighter 9s with Spiked Chain builds should be a lot of fun....especially when the pistol-packing Maralith Tanar'ri Fighter shows up at the end with 6 guns blazing.
I have 8 PCs and 1 DMPC (she's actually a story award magic item of uber healing), and originally the Big Bad Temple scene was going to have 4 each of RageMages and Chain Fighters, then I thought I'd reduce it down to 2 to quicken play, but now I'm thinking maybe 3 of each, plus the Priestess boss and then, when the grunts are down, their extinguished life forces summon the Maralith. Maybe I will do 3 of each, totalling 6, one for each of the Maralith's arms....
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My answer to all "My PCs are killing everything!" threads: legion devils. Lots and lots of legion devils. Or, alternatively, a smaller number of legion devils with multiple levels of crusader each, and focusing on devoted spirit and white raven maneuvers & stances. That will give your PCs pause. Throw in a new villain, some kind of hellish general, who uses them, if need be.
And then there's the "evil ambush" tactic. Your villains, who by this time know who the PCs are, send a team of experts to deal with them while they're in a busy city on some errand. This also utilizes legion devils.
Phase 1: The team gets into place, using stealth and/or stealth enhancing magic. The snipers use their true strike abilities (items, probably). Expert 9, disguised as a merchant who has something the PCs REALLY want, gets their attention, drawing them all into a tight cluster in the middle of the intersection.
Phase 2-surprise round: As the PCs enter the busy intersection, preferably one they share with a large number of innocent people, the first four experts put up walls of force to block the four streets of the intersection and number five blasts the largest crowd of people he can see with a fell-animated, moilian fireball. That should create a mob of horribly-burned zombies that will attack the PCs. (This expert is an accomplished necromancer and has all of the corpsecrafter feats, so these zombies explode in secondary blasts of negative energy when killed. The remaining three experts fire +3 unholy collision crossbow bolts poisoned with wyvern toxin or something even nastier at the three most obvious spellcasters in the group. (at a +20 bonus, thanks to true strike)
Phase 3-first round: The necromancer casts a quickened summon undead V spell followed up by a summon monster spell of the highest level he can cast. Experts 6, and 7 drop into the intersection to engage. Experts 1 and 2 do the same thing. Experts 3 and 4 cast additional walls of force, sealing the "floor" and "ceiling" of the intersection. Expert 8 drinks a potion of invisibility and moves out of the direct line of fire to replenish the legion devil HP pool as needed.
Phase 4-second round: experts 1 and 2 cast additional summoning spells and then move to engage. Expert 5 casts divine power. The 3 legion devil crusaders rush the PCs with poisoned weapons.
I think you can take it from there. At this point, the PCs are trapped in a sealed box with a whole bunch of enemies, and more getting summoned in all the time. If they manage to dispel a force wall, the two remaining mages on the roofs hold their actions and put in a summon spell before closing the box again.
Experts 1 and 2: Human Fighter 1/Wizard 5/eldritch knight 2/abjurant champion 4
Experts 3 and 4: Human Wizard 4/sorcerer 1/ultimate magus 7
Expert 5: Human Cleric 5/Master of Shrouds 7(spell and deathbound domains; weak will and shaky flaws, corpsecrafter, fell animate, DMM fell animate, quicken spell, Hardened Flesh, Tomb-Tainted Soul, Destruction retribution, nimble bones
Experts 6, 7, and 9: Legion Devil crusader 6
Expert 8: Legion devil favored soul 6
EVERYBODY in this team has tomb-tainted soul. It allows expert 5 to toss around negative energy at will and use his exploding negative energy suicide zombies as a healing burst for his allies as well as a way to attack his foes. Expert 8 will stay outside the walls of force and ruthlessly exploit the legion devils' hit point pool with repeated castings of healing (in this case, inflict; tomb-tainted soul, remember?) spells once it gets low. That means that the source of all of the hit points for the legion devils is beyond the PCs' reach behind a wall of force, and thanks to the legion devils' shared hit point pool, until the pool gets emptied, they're all staying up. That's
Healer casts Mass Heal. Undead make all their saves, and still take 80+ points of damage. PCs immune to poison from Heroes Feast from Healer. The spellcasters have Dim Door and Teleport, so those walls of force won't work. Also, the Duskblade is close to having Disintegrate....maybe. Also, the PCs almost never all hang out together at once when in port. But good try.
What is a legion devil? Where is it from? One of the Codices?
The flavor of the baddies in my campaign are yuan-ti, vampires, gnolls, sahuagin, kuo-toa, rakshasa, and kraken. Mooks are mostly kenku, shifters, and goliaths. The thieves guilds headed by mindflayers have decided to "live and let live" with the PCs....after losing 2 full guilds and almost always almost dying vs. the PCs. And most rakshasa are smart enough to ally themselves with the PCs against the yuan-ti, vampires, gnolls, sahuagin, kuo-toa, and kraken. (Yuan-ti vs. rakshasa war going on; the rest are trying to crash the moon into the earth that the rakshasa live on.)
What is a legion devil? Where is it from? One of the Codices?Fiendish codex II: tyrants of the nine hells.
And the aim isn't to force a TPK. That's no fun. It's intended to make the PCs go "HOLY [CENSORED]! We've really ticked some people off!"
But I haven't even managed a 1PK. :-(
I like ambushing innocent civilians....they're based on a ship....those innocent civilians can be the NPC crew that takes care of sailing the ship....
Especially since the PCs will probably go against the BBEGal who has the Sphere of Annihilation that is required to power the alchemical Affinity Engine that will crash the moon into the earth. And the BBEGal should escape and notice the PCs are travelling around with someone who is needed for the Affinity Engine--their DMPC Healer!
THEN I can send some specialty agents (or experts) after them on their ship.....
What's the effect of a Wall of Force placed into the path of a ship sailing with 3 sheets to the wind???
Wow, it's been a while. With the wall of force, Stormwrack has rules on ramming ships, so I would use some variant of it. I'm pretty sure one of my old DMs used that same trick on us a while back. If the PCs keep dropping mass heals on your undead baddies, try life ward from the spell compendium. It's death ward for undead, basically. I think there might also be a spell where both positive and negative energy heals you, but don't quote me on that.
Wow, it's been a while. With the wall of force, Stormwrack has rules on ramming ships, so I would use some variant of it. I'm pretty sure one of my old DMs used that same trick on us a while back. If the PCs keep dropping mass heals on your undead baddies, try life ward from the spell compendium. It's death ward for undead, basically. I think there might also be a spell where both positive and negative energy heals you, but don't quote me on that.
There is a binder's vestige that does that. Azerbaijin or whoever. The demi-lich from Tomb of Horrors.
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Wow, it's been a while. With the wall of force, Stormwrack has rules on ramming ships, so I would use some variant of it. I'm pretty sure one of my old DMs used that same trick on us a while back. If the PCs keep dropping mass heals on your undead baddies, try life ward from the spell compendium. It's death ward for undead, basically. I think there might also be a spell where both positive and negative energy heals you, but don't quote me on that.There is a binder's vestige that does that. Azerbaijin or whoever. The demi-lich from Tomb of Horrors.
Acererack, I believe. The word you used is covered by Knowledge(real-world geography). ;)
Some other tricks (some of this gets pretty "mature" in nature, so use at your peril; I haven't used all of these myself for that very reason):
+1 level of warrior has no effect on CR, but raises BAB by one, which can give an extra iterative attack.
By devoting your evil NPCs to an elder evil, they get bonus vile feats at levels 1, 5, 10, 15, and 20. I do this with a LOT of my baddies.
Identically-uniformed enemies with different capabilities and mirror image spells can wreak untold amounts of chaos, as the PCs frantically try to figure out which one of the masked figures they're fighting keeps casting stilled spells at them. Dwarves are GREAT for this. A party of dwarves can have a melee character, a fighter1/wizard 5/runesmith 1/whatever x, a cleric, and a fighter/rogue all dressed in identical dwarven fullplate using waraxes and tower shields. Which one's the healer? Which one's the guy sneak attacking me? Which one's the REAL tank?!
Don't be afraid to use monsters or villains that compliment each other. I have a mercenary unit called the Scorched in my homebrew setting. They're fire mages who use brass men (Tome of Horrors 2, page 20) as security. Brass men are healed by fire damage, and are otherwise fairly typical CR 7 golems (high DR, immune to most magic, etc.) The same brass men would be great ground forces for a pair of red dragons with some good metabreath feats.
Legion devils and carnage demons get more effective the more of them are around.
If your bad guys are both evil and pragmatic, they'll quickly realize that because the PCs aren't evil, any innocents in the area are now a valuable tactical resource. Human shields, fell animated AoE spells, even mob-style kidnapping and murder all become valid tactics.
Are any of your PCs undead or constructs? If not, they need to rest some time. So don't let them. Have villains hit them every two hours like clockwork as they try to rest for DAYS at a time. Thought you'd be able to just rest and recharge? Think again. The undead ninja death squad might not have killed you, but the cleric's running out of healing spells and the wizard is down to scrolls, and they just keep coming. If you have undead and/or construct PCs, they've got their own vulnerabilities, and when they're used as overwatch, they can be exploited. A summoner with greater invisibility is the party's worst nightmare in this case, especially if said summoner is a sorcerer. The summoner can dog them for a LONG time, or even trade off with another one or two buddies and just keep them ragged before the "real" attack shows up. No XP for summoned creatures, either. Sneaking past the sentry and attacking sleeping PCs also works.
Terrorist tactics are both despicable and effective. Use hit and-run (or teleport away) tactics with AoE spells in crowded areas. Snatch people important to the PCs and mail them body parts. Have enemies surrender and then explode when the PCs move to capture. (The various "cyst" spells from Libris mortis work well for this)
When PCs fight fiends, have the fiends get their help from time to time.
Use the environment to your advantage. Make them fight devils in a lava field or water creatures in a hurricane or flooded area. Having to fight biting aquatic things in chest-deep water at night should give them the willies enough to hamper their tactical skill somewhat.
Trapping them in underground tunnels that are flooding QUICKLY should also induce no small amount of fear. Being drowned deep underground where none of your allies will ever find you to bring you back is a terrifying and ignominious death.
Villains are RUTHLESS. Coup de grace maneuvers should be a normal part of any bad guy's fighting repertoire.
All of this said: your success as a GM is not measured in PC body count. It's measured in how much FUN everybody is having. If your players are enjoying themselves and you're enjoying yourself, you've got a good game.
Wow! I'll have to keep some of those in mind.
I just planned a ship-based encounter against an abomination yuan-ti vampire cleric 9/entropomancer 10 (with Sphere of Annihilation), 3 halfblood yuan-ti vampire duskblade 5/stormwracked marauder 10s, and 6 pureblood yuan-ti vampire duskblade 5/stormwracked marauder 6s.
Now I'm working on an encounter with a human necromancer 5/red wizard 10/archmage 5, huge red dracolich mount, 9 necromancer 5/red wizard 8s, and 9 large red dragon mounts. The minion-mages use double wand wielding to get off 5 maximized magic missiles and enervation each round, just to soften up the PCs. The necromancer is going to have some Quickened Maximized disintegrates on hand.
We finally met again.
The party (minus the duskblade/swashbuckler and beguiler), discovered a maze of dungeon cells, where they found a leopard-skin bikini-clad damsel in distress. The half-drow bard used his magic eyepatch to use True Seeing and discovered it was a Citraka Rakshasa, a cheetah-like humanoid evil spirit. The raptoran evoker's Knowledge the planes check was a 45, so she learned pretty much everything there was to know about them....and the party still attacked. The evoker opened up with a Sudden Maximized Delayed Blast Fireball, and the Citraka rolled a natural 1! But her improved evasion saved her. The halfling knife thrower threw 4 daggers at the Citraka, but only 1 hit, and the that was aimed at back at the halfling with her Reflective Deflection. Then the Rakshasa opened up with a Quickened Greater Blink and a skirmishing disintegrate blast against the mouthy bard, but he made the Fort save with ease, but still took over 40 points of damage. Then the ranger/scout opened up with an awesome arrow hit, but again, the Reflective Deflection kicked in and the archer almost had to make a Massive Damage save from his own attack. The half-drow bard sang, and the goliath monk missed due to the Greater Blink. The aasimar healer threw a Mass Cure Serious.
too be continued....
The aquatic elf druid summoned a dire bear that missed the Citraka because of the Greater Blink.
Next, the monk, ranger, and rogue swarmed the Citraka, pinning it against the dire bear, but most missed again because of the Greater Blink. The ranger got a good stab in, however. The evoker then used Greater Dispel Magic to rid the Citraka of the Greater Blink, then blasted them with a Quickened Lightning Bolt. Because of evasion, only the summoned dire bear was injured. The Citraka then tumbled out of there and hit the ranger with a Nat 20 with its Discorporating Ray, but the ranger's armor's fortification protected him. It was still a solid hit, but the ranger also spent an action point to make the Will save to avoid being teleported above an oubliette. The dire bear then charged the Citraka, who evaded a Fire Storm by the druid. The monk then moved forward and grappled the Citraka. The rogue moved in for a sneak attack, and the ranger tried stabbing it too. The Citraka then made a successful Concentration check and dimension doored to the hallway the healer and evoker were in, but got a natural 1 on its Discorporating Ray attack on the raptoran evoker.
The aasimar healer tried to use repulsion on the Citraka, but failed to beat her Spell Resistance. The half-drow bard dimension doored the monk and ranger and himself to where the evoker shouted out the Citraka was, and the goliath monk flurried some grapple checks, pinning the Citraka and then cuffing it in a pair of Dimensional Shackles he had. He then nearly squeezed the Citraka to death. The ranger made a tactical error and tried shooting the Citraka with a crystal-pistol; the Citraka's Reflective Deflection power redirected the blast to the ranger. The Citraka then used Escape Artist to remove the Dimensional Shackles and Concentration to dimension door out of the grapple to a safe haven, where it spent 2 rounds drinking potions and Fast Healing back up to max hitpoints.
The PCs spent 2 rounds using the evoker's Locate Creature to triangulate its position. They were closing in on its position when it dimension doored back to the main chamber again and waylaid the halfling rogue. The half-drow then dimension doored the monk and ranger back to the Citraka's location. The goliath monk wasted no time and did a flurry of grapples, severely injuring the Citraka. The evoker dropped a pair of Empowered Magic Missile spells on her, using her Lesser Rod of Quicken Spell. The rogue got a sneak attack in, and then the ranger hit with his sword, killing the Citraka.
After the battle, the PCs stripped the Citraka bare of her gown and jewelry, and retrieved a platinum bar from one of the oubliettes. Another contained the flesh, bones, and organs that the Citraka had teleported out of the ranger's body.
[not to self: for future reference, add text stating that the wounds caused by the Citraka's Discorporating Ray can only be healed by Regeneration or other, similar, magic.]
The PCs then found the hidden cache of weapons: 28 crates with two dozen braces of crystal-pistols!!! They were hidden in cells beyond cells filled with fresh corpses.
The goliath monk then used his adamantine ki strike to knock some holes in the walls to expose a pair of safe havens the Citraka had. One contained a useful key, the other a magical candle that lit the way to the Citraka's hidden lair. The halfling rogue explored that secret passage by himself, accompanied by an arcane eye of the bard's. He botched a magical trap and was teleported to the temple of the Herpeton, High Priestess of the Uraeus Yuan-ti. She and her abomination chain fighters and dracotaur ragemages quickly captured the halfling rogue, tied him to a spit, and began to roast him in his own juices. The rest of the PCs bickered a while, while the halfling was cooking. They eventually decided to deliberately fail the Will save on the trap and ended up in the profane pool in Herpeton's temple, surrounded by the abomination yuan-ti spiked chain fighters and dracotaur ragemages--plus Herpeton herself.
So it ended on a cliffhanger. Who knows when we'll get to play again.
Running the Citraka was really fun. I think it would be even more fun to run several of them at once at higher levels. The CR of 15 seemed pretty accurate. It did OK at 6.5 vs 1 odds, but didn't overwhelm them. It definitely got everyone to work as a team, even if some people just acted as transportation for the rest.
That sounds awesome. I hpoe you get to meet again soon, I want to know how things turn out.
Me too.
The Citraka was fun because it got an extra action every round from its Quickness ability, and it had several abilities that countered the abilities of the PCs without totally negating them.
The ironic thing is, the Citraka had the ability to teleport people into locked cells, and had DR 15/good and piercing, and the beguiler (with all her knock spells) and the duskblade/swashbuckler (with his sacred scabbard that makes his rapier holy) were not there. So I thought it would be a tougher challenge than it was. The PCs just lucked out and had Dimensional Shackles from a random treasure from earlier in the dungeon.
Hopefully, we'll be able to get back to this campaign in the new year.
OK, we're planning on playing on Sunday.
To recap, the halfling knife-thrower was captured by the yuan-ti and they are cooking/torturing him. The party is around 16th level and include:
an aquatic elf druid
a human ranger/scout archer
a raptoran evoker (might be missing the session)
a human duskblade/swashbuckler/fortune's friend
a half-drow bard/swashbuckler
a goliath monk
a half-elf beguiler (might be missing the session)
DMPC aasimar healer
a halfling rogue/swashbuckler/invisible blade/master thrower/whisperknife tied to a spit and turning over a cooking fire.
The opponents:
2-4 dracotaur barbarian 1/sorcerer 4/ragemage 10 with flails
2-4 abomination yuan-ti spiked-chain fighter 9
1 abomination yuan-ti cleric 15
and when 4 of the NPCs die, their spirits will be used to open the gate to:
1 maralith fighter 4 with 6 crystal-pistols (alchemical firearms that essentially shoot eldritch blasts, lines, and/or cones.)
The numbers of dracotaur and chain-fighters depends on the strength of the party....I don't want a TPK or for the fight to drag on for 4 or 5 hours, but I do want it to be a pretty desperate situation. This is the capstone encounter of a LONG dungeon trek.
There was only 1 (temporary) PC death.
The halfling was tied to a spit and roasting over a bonfire when the rest of the party popped through a portal and into a 10 foot deep, 40 foot wide pool of water in the main chamber. The yuan-ti high priestess was at the top of the double staircases that surrounded the pool and the main floor was where the dracotaur ragemages and yuan-ti chainfighters lurked. I let (made) the halfling's player also run the DMPC aasimar healer because otherwise he would just sit there, make failed Escape Artist checks, and take fire damage each round. Not too fun (for him!). ;-)
The duskblade's cloak of the mantaray activated as soon as it was wet, and he used it swim down and up and jump out of the pool, transform back into human form, and stab a ragemage in the neck with his rapier.
The goliath monk leaped out of the water and 30 feet up to where the highpriestess was. He tried grappling her, but her Travel domain ability kicked in and saved her from the grapple. She responded by dropping a maximized flamestrike on the PCs still clumped together in the pool: the aasimar healer, half-elf beguiler, aquatic elf druid, and human archer.
The rage mages then raged, charged, and used spell fury to drop a quickened fireball and lightning bolt on the PCs.
The highpriestess tried to use a maximized poison on the goliath monk, but he was immune. She got worried and cast a blade barrier between them, which the monk leaped over (he's got some alchemically powered jumping boots plus mountain movement!). The highpriestess got worried, then tapped him with a Harm spell; he saved but it still hurt. He got a hasted flurry off and the highpriestess was hurting. She tried trapping him in a wall of stone, but he dodged out of the way of that. He got another flurry off and killed her. Her spirit force leaked from her mouth and nose and poured into the pool.
The other PCs dispatched a ragemage and both chain fighters, and their essences were also drawn into the pool. After the 4th death, that was enough to summon the maralith with 6 guns. When she arrived there was only the duskblade visible, so she let him have it with all 6 barrels...then dropped a quickened blade barrier in front of the only exit. The archer was the one that was causing the most damage, so she managed to hole him up in an alcove with another quickened blade barrier.
The druid used create water to put the cooking fire out under the halfling, but it took them a couple more rounds to untie him. By the time the halfling was able to grab some daggers and jump into the fray, only 1 ragemage was left. He thought it was a lot more wounded than it was, so he tackled it nekkid. Brought it down to less than half hit points, too, with some quick feints and sneak attacks. Then the ragemage dropped a full round attack with a 10 point power attack, critted once, and dropped the halfling into the negative 40s.
The monk ran out, grabbed the halfling corpse, and the healer revivified him. The healer spent a lot of time healing herself as the maximized flame strike and fireball dropped her to 0 at one point.
By now, the druid was summoning like crazy to keep the maralith at bay and everyone (except the archer) was crowding around the aasimar healer. The duskblade got the maralith to go in the opposite corner, and the druid trapped her in a wall of thorns 20 feet thick. The maralith polymorphed into a large green dragon and flew to the other corner, where the wounded were huddled around the healer. Unfortunately, by then that included the archer, who did around 50 points per round, and halfling, who had a dagger of dragonbane.
That killed the maralith, who disappeared upon "dying."
She'll be back!
I really wish I had a chance to use my quickened telekinesis on the archer--by stealing his bow! I probably should have used polymorph to turn into a mosquito and then take a round or two to get myself re-organized. Oh, well. Die and learn!
So now the PCs looted the bodies, got a ton of XP, and finally got to exit that really big dungeon! (9 pages of graph paper!)
So the PCs have a lot of options. They know the Moonkissed Cabal is set to crash the moon into the earth. They can chase the ship that is transporting the Sphere of Annihilation, try to find the lab it's sailing to, try asking the contact where the lab is, try to get the alchemist before Cabal does, try to take out the necromancer and dracolich that is supposed to kidnap the Rainbow Court, try warning the Rainbow Court somehow, or just sell their goods and come up with a plan later.
Thanks!
It's a lot of hard work keeping 8 people focused on a big battle like that, because each round takes about half an hour. I really wish we could speed that up, but we haven't played in a while as a big group and were a bit rusty. Hopefully, we'll play again soon and often now that the holidays are over.
Congratulations, that sounds awesome! The problem I've always had with single BBEGs is spreading the damage around enough to make sure that everyone is in some kind of danger (otherwise at high levels, it's "wake me when its my turn."), and that would be even harder with 8 PCs. It sounds like you did it, though.
Yeah, the key at higher levels is to increase the number of actions each BBEG has. Quicken Spell and Quicken Spell-like Ability (and even Quicken Supernatural Ability from Tome of Magic) are necessary. And spells that already have Swift casting times, like Swift Invisiblity, Halt, etc.