I'm having trouble actually challenging my players, and it is frustrating me a bit. They seem to be able to handle challenges 3 or 4 above their level with relative ease. I'm not sure if it is caused by their awesome playing skills, or my poor choices. So far, very few combats manage to get past round three. In our last game, I had to give an NPC "plot" hit points to make sure he was able to run away and lead them to the right spot.
Currently playing the Rise of the Runelords AP, though that specifically doesn't matter - I'm remaking a lot of the NPCs anyhow, and we have gone on a few tangents.
Currently, my party is around level 3 (one character is at 2, because he misses a lot of games. This includes:
CG Half Elf Cleric of Cayden Cailean w/ Travel and Chaos (I think) domains
CG Human Sorcerer w/ Elemental (Air) Bloodline
CG Elf Alchemist
CN Half Elf Barbarian
LN Human Cavalier (This is the Level 2 guy)
There's a limit to what I can throw at them because they are only level 3, but even with 4 or 5 class levels my NPCs still go down quickly. The barbarian has a +9 or +10 to hit while raging, so even something with a 20 AC has about a 50% chance of getting hit. I can't boost their AC too high with items, because the resulting loot would just make it even easier for my players. Besides that, even if I did boost AC with various tricks, the sorcerer uses a lot of touch attacks and the alchemist uses touch attacks and high splash damage.
Swarming them is of little use - the alchemist and sorcerer make short work of low level enemies in groups. However, using fewer opponents at higher levels just makes it easier to gang up on them. (Alchemist likes using Enlarge Person - and can outdamage the barbarian with it on a good roll; he also gets reach with that).
Stealth is of limited use - the barbarian has scent while raging.
Ranged attackers tend to be hampered by the cleric's Obscuring Mist.
I have tried using the terrain to provide some extra complications, but this has had side effects - an enemy in a corner can only have a few attackers on it, but this leaves some of my players simply waiting in combat for something to do.
In short, my enemies can't effectively defend or outmaneuver my players. The one thing I can seem to do (sometimes) is damage them, but I don't want a bunch of kamikaze bastards that leave my players continuously making new characters. Besides which, they often don't survive long enough to be threatening, just enough to have the cleric use a few heals after combat.
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A lot of the early RotRL encounters are meant to be easy to make the party feel heroic. In some cases the answer is just to let the party kick some but. That said...
The adventure is written for 3.5 which means the parties power level is a bit higher overall. You can add a few more low level creatures into each encounter and advance the enemies.
If your players have high stats give your NPCs higher stats. The "Advanced" template works fairly well for this.
It's my understanding that in both 3.5 and PFRPG encounters were balanced for a group of 4 party members. I play with a group of 5 players in my game and frequently find them mopping the floor with CR +4/+5 encounters.
The fact that you're doing side quests is also going to increase the party's level relative to the challenges you are confronting them with.
At this stage I would personally throw in some additional goblins/npcs to significant encounters. If you have time boost your NPCs by a level or two that would be advisable particularly if you want them to live.
Generally speaking though a three round combat is nothing to be too worried about, so long as your critters get a few hits in. If your players are involved and enjoying themselves then I wouldn't worry to much about it
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I'm having trouble actually challenging my players, and it is frustrating me a bit. They seem to be able to handle challenges 3 or 4 above their level with relative ease.
How many encounters are they having per day?
I've got the adventures, but can't remember what time pressure the PCs are under.The core rules assume a string of several encounters between recharging daily abilities, each encounter becoming more difficult, unless the PCs hold back against what they deem minor threats (which partly compensates for the lower threat).
If they believe they can get by with one or two encounters per day, they are more likely to go 'nova', blowing all their limited resources, and appearing much more powerful than expected.
Even if you are sending out the recommended four, or even five encounters per day, the players will become used to this pattern, and expect to go nova at the end of the fighting day. It’s a form of metagaming, but you can’t blame them, if in-character, they know that ‘there’s never more than five encounters per day’, or ‘there’s never any fights after a boss’.
Problem with D&D 3.0/3.5, was that it threw open the DMG and MM to the players, to show the cogs behind the screen, not always a good thing. If players are of a gamist mindset, they may cry foul to any tinkering with the ‘4 encounters of CR=APL’ that they feel entitled to. You may have to advise them, that from now on, you’ll be running a more simulationist campaign, where encounters happen whenever they would realistically happen, and the CR of those encounters will reflect the creatures that would realistically be in the area.
If they can be persuaded that there may always be another encounter, or reinforcements may arrive to bolster their current opponent, or the next encounter may not be something they are expected to beat, you may see them play much differently.
It was certainly the case when I played Shackled City; I frequently ended the day with a head half-full of spells, and would sometimes refrain from casting if I thought the other PCs could handle it. This caused me to be chided by more gamist players, for not blowing my whole wad at the first opportunity (like they did). My justification was that I was always watching for the ‘inevitable’ pincer movement. Why? Because that’s what I would do if I were a Bastard Evil Overlord. It was disappointing that my paranoia was rarely rewarded, but when it was, didn’t I feel smug about it.
It's been said, but let me reiterate:
That AP is written for 4 PCs. You have 5. That automatically makes your group at least 1 "level" too high. So think of your group as being an averge of level 4.
Also, that AP was written for D&D 3.5. Not for Pathfinder. It's quite true that Pathfinder raised the capabilities of almost every class. Certainly the cleric, sorcerer, and barbarian are all better in Pathfinder than in 3.5. Alchemist is significantly overpowered at low levels, dishing out unbelievable AE damage with ease. And the Cavalier is probably the only one who is roughly "equal" to a 3.5 class. With all that extra capability, I would say that's like one more "level", bringing your party average up to 5.
That's not a perfect estimate, but it might be fairly close.
Which means that except for a couple really nasty surprises in that first book, there is nothing in there that can put up just an 'even' fight against your PCs. The stuff that should be 'even' is way too easy, the stuff that should be 'challenging' is not quite even, and the stuff that should be hair-raising ultra nasty will barely be challenging.
Not to worry. They must divide their XP by 5, and divide their loot 5 ways. Which means that by the end of the 2nd book in the AP, they'll probably only be 4th level (effectively 6th), so going into book 3, they might be right on track.
Unless you keep giving them side-quests to get extra XP and loot. In which case they will always be ahead of this AP.
The only way around that is to beef everything up. Add 5 HP/hit die to most of the monsters. That will slow your PCs down a bit. Add extra monsters (instead of 8 goblins use 12) but DO NOT give extra XP for the extra monsters; if you do, you'll be stuck with overpowered PCs for the entire AP.
Tweak the rooms a little. Split up the PCs (if you can get two rooms of bad guys hitting the PCs from two directions at once, you can really put some fear into them). I also know of at least one excellent mechanism in the last areas of book one where it is easy, easy, easy to get some of the party separated from the rest of the party. When this happens, throw a fight at one group - the other guys will have to sit and watch their friends fight a whole encounter short-handed.
Normally, that AP like every AP assumes you will only fight 3, 4, 5, maybe 6 battles in a day. It's also written so that when you have to fight a whole bunch of battles, they tend to be a bit easier, if it's only a few battles, they tend to be harder. Tweak it so that the party cannot rest when the AP expects them to (artificially inflate the time-pressure of the underlying story). See what happens when they must fight 10 battles in a single day - those spells and bombs and healing potions run out pretty fast that way.
If all else fails, a lucky crit here or there, once in a while, can at least make them cautious with their resources.
Something I've encountered often, because the group I normally play with has seven people, which includes DM, DM's Assistant and 5 PCs, is that encounters written for 4 players become heavily skewed in favour of the PCs the more 'PCs/Cohorts' they have.
Several good solutions have been mentioned, including keeping the treasure down, increasing the number of the enemies they fight, adding templates and slowing down the 'side quests'.
Something I found is adding 2 levels to every enemy they fight, or in the case of enemies without levels, additional synergistic companions or environments that add an additional onus on the PCs to work their teamwork to the maximum. Young Adult Red Dragon is a CR 13 monster, suitable to challenge most 4-man groups of 10-12 level as a 'boss' monster. Now, you throw an additional PC into the mix, and you could have additional melee, additional 'scout' types or additional casters, all of which spells trouble for the Dragon. If we were to reverse the role and have the Dragon facing the PCs as enemies, we'd be looking at a collective CR 13-14 for the 4-man group, upping to a CR 15-16 depending upon the nature of the fifth wheel to the group.
Easiest way for the PCs to be challenged is for the Red Dragon's lair to be an island in the middle of an active volcano, a place well suited to a Red Dragon but intensely hostile to just about everything else. PCs will have to burn spells and potions just to prevent heat-damage from the environment, let alone the Red Dragon itself. Bull-Rushes into the magma, the ability to see perfectly well in the smoky, brimstone-stench-ridden air adds a further level of advantage to the Red Dragon and hampers PC ranged attacks. By making the terrain favour the Red Dragon, the PCs are truly put on the back-foot and must utilize their numbers well otherwise they will be picked off one at a time by the Red Dragon.
For a group of 3rd level PCs (and one 2nd level PC), instead of CR 3-4 challenges, toss them CR 5 challenges, run them through battles of attrition against enemies that just won't die, such as Bloody Skeletons acting under a Locate Object spell so they litterally will follow the PCs forever unless the PCs can make a Knowledge(religion) check to know they must douse the remains with holy water to finish the skeletons off for good.
Cunning enemies who have been keeping track of their great successes will employ assassins, who might drop capsules of poisons into their potions, so that at a critical point the PC takes a swig of healing potion and then doubles over, retching as the poison in the potion takes effect. Other assassins might simply wait until the PCs are in the middle of combat, walk up under the guise of a trusted NPC and then shiv somebody in the back. A 4th level Rogue with maximum Bluff, Disguise self and Sleight-of-Hand could, with the aid of a Hat of Disguise, pretend to be one of the PCs allies, run up to 'aid another' one of the PCs who is doing the most damage/has offended/irked/threatened one of the BBEGs and *squick* one shiv to the neck and the PC is going down like a bag of bowling balls.
Alternatively, throw the PCs tactics back at them. A Party of Five NPCs, all 3rd level with similar classes and PC Wealth Levels have tracked the party down to kill the PCs and take their stuff under orders from a criminal syndicate the PCs might have accidentally interfered with somewhere down the road. PCs might not think much of this threat, but tossing AoE spells at the PCs, using alchemical items such as tanglefoot bags and poison bombs, forcing the PCs to split up so they can be tag-teamed while the Rival PC team uses summoned monsters or trained animal companions to tip the odds even more in their favour. PCs might only meet three of their rivals on the road, with the other two hiding off to the side with readied actions to shoot the casters with Drow-Poison coated arrows the instant the signal is given.
Losing their Sorcerer drops their magical damage a fair bit, and taking a shot at either the Cleric of the Barbarian would also pay off in various ways. The rest of the rival PCs try to ensure they don't get between the PCs and the hidden archers and fight to delay and interrupt the PCs while the barrage continues. The trick with larger groups of PCs is not to throw bigger targets at them, but hit the PCs in places where their numbers become a hindrance. Narrow areas where four PCs could hopefully escape damage but more PCs puts them in danger of taking the damage regardless, NPCs who have irrational hatreds of certain races or classes or alignments and will refuse to help them or require Diplomacy attempts to change their minds, so on so forth.
In short, remember combat should not be the only crucible the PCs must face. Waking up to find the Innkeep sold your room's key to the local thieves guild and finding a couple of thugs ransacking your gear can be the sort of encounter that makes players crap themselves enmass, and helps cripple them in the next few encounters. Parties of 4 adventurers might have no problems crossing the bridge from one Lord's domain to another, but five mercenaries might be considered taboo or against the law, perhaps because a while back an exiled Noble managed to smuggle himself back into his family's domain and retake his position with steel and blood, and thus the local laws make it a crime for mercenaries (Adventurers) to travel in groups larger than 4.
My other bit of advice is not to give things away which PCs should earn.
The two BIG areas where DMs do this are surprise rounds and smaler actions.
Ex 1) The barbarian kicks the door open, and goes in. He's not looking around, so I wouldn't even give him a perception check vs. anything in the room. If the bad guys are ready, they get surprise rounds, and then roll initiative, in which case they might go again.
Smart bad guys will close the door, forcing at least one PC to spend an entire round moving to the door, and opening it.
Ex 2) The sorceror is down. So, a fellow PC takes a potion from his/her pack runs over there and feeds it to him. Some DMs will let this go by in one round, which is like saying yes when a player asks "Can a make two full round attacks?"
Find something in a pack = full round action
move to sorceror = move or double move
feed potion to someone else = standard action*
*A DM could rule that feeding a potion to an unconcious person took longer than a ooncious person, I suppose
The potion wielder is also going to provoke AOs all over the place. If you want to be REALLY mean, sunder the potion.
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You can also increase some creature's survivability by giving them a single class level.
Typically Monk works very well for creatures who don't wear armor: big bonuses to saves, Wis bonus to AC, and a die bump or two to natural attack damage (since a human monk gets 1d6 instead of the normal 1d3 for a human fighting unarmed, there's an implied die bump).
For other creatures, Barbarian can work well.
If you treat the class as "aligned" with the basic feel of the creature, then the CR goes up by one. If it you don't consider it "aligned", then you can choose whether to bump the CR. (Basically. :-)) And since the CR for 3.5 creatures is too low for PF characters, that brings them right into line. (And you can bump them more since you have 5 PCs in your party.)
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Others have spoke to the mechanical changes that would help the situation (level comparison, surprise round changes, etc.). But you yourself have already hinted on the other thing to consider, the power of the DM to fudge, ESPECIALLY HP.
This is my particular style of DMing, so your mileage may vary. But, I personally take NPC/monster HP as a general ballpark suggestion. I want them around long enough to "show off" their particular gimmick, the challenge/obstacle that the party needs to overcome to defeat them. Sure, there are times that a player gets a first round massive crit on something that hasn't even gone yet, if so, sure I let it go down, then a carbon copy of it arrives a couple of rounds later (or gets added to the next encounter, or whatever). Similarly, once a baddy has done their job, and the players have figured out how to defeat them, I don't let combat last 20 rounds while the party mindless whittles them down (unless of course the "gimmick" is hight hit points or the stamina to last long enough to continue fighting that long).
My point here is that I view the DM's primary responsibility is to provide the players with an enjoyable game session. That both means avoiding tedium, but it also means not making encounters too easy or too quick. There are various innuendo references that would fit here, but I will simply say that no player I know likes every combat to be over in 1 round with everything dead.
Now, HP is absolutely the thing I fudge the most. But, if the situation calls for it, I'll fudge attack rolls and such too. The easiest way to do this without fudging on the fly, which is kinda like "cheating", is consumables for the baddies. Sure, you don't want to give every fighter the group faces a Belt of Str +2, otherwise the whole party will have them in short order too. Instead, maybe a couple of baddies drunk a potion of Bull's Strength. Bless, Protection from Good, Divine Favor, etc. all make for good potion quaffs at the start of combat that can help level the playing field with the players. Similarly, the bad guy cleric better be casting bless, not just channeling negative energy every round. You get the point.
Once you look at the game from the perspective of behind the scenes balancing to provide the players with a more enjoyable challenge, loads of stuff should come to mind.
I hope that helps!
There is also a lull in challenge at the beginning of runelords part 2. I called them "Whiffle ghouls".
If this is the point of the game you are at currently, you'll be doing the party a favor by ratcheting up the challenge. If they fight ghouls who can't even hit them except on a natural 20, and then they face off against Xanesha... oh man.
Anyway, here are the factors:
As you see above, it's actually quite easy to end up with a party that can take on APL+4 CRs. Be careful though, it gets swingy because some parts of CR are very level dependent.
If you find you're adding 4 or more to APL to compensate for these factors, best to start thinking of CR as a guideline for comparing monsters relative to eachother, and use a GM's uncommon sense to evaluate challenges for your party.
When all else fails: Max out the HP of any enemy you want to last more than one round.
I don't know what is going on in these adventures, but I wonder how much tactics can make up for the situation. When I run games, I usually "pull my punches" so as to not kill off the entire party every time. I never fudge, but sometimes I give the monsters more intelligent tactics than other times. Always, I try to be reasonable and ask "what would be likely to happen in this situation?"
I found the following tactics to be really useful in knocking PCs off balance:
1. Bringing in reinforcements. The PCs have used resources and see their foes dwindling. Then suddenly fresh enemies arrive, often times including tougher monsters than the ones they were fighting. With no time to regroup or heal, this can make an encounter quite dangerous.
2. Ganging up on one PC. This can be quite dangerous for the PC who is being ganged up on. It is a useful tactic, but one that is rarely used for some reason.
3. Controlling the battlefield. In 4th edition they formally have a concept of "Controller" whose job it is to control battlefield conditions, but in 3rd edition I have long found druids especially suited for this task. They can render areas of the field uncrossable with Spike Stones, difficult to cross with Ice Storm, or just chase PCs around with Flaming Sphere. Even summoned monsters can flank, threaten squares, and just take up space.
4. Reading the rulebook. There are a lot of little-used possibilities in the rulebook such as readying actions, overrunning opponents, use of trip or reach weapons, grappling, bull rushes, fighting defensively, five foot steps, etc. Monsters who use these can take players by surprise.
Someone else mentioned the value of unexpected encounters. Maybe just once or twice a monster blunders into the area the PCs have camped out for the night, and the PCs will start conserving resources to be able to deal with the possibility of this happening next time.
Thanks for the tips. Some of them I already sidestepped - I'm already redesigning the encounters for Pathfinder, and adding a few extra levels to NPCs to boot. (They'll be fighting Erylium next time I run a sesssion, and I have reworked her as a cleric/rogue, for example). I'm also withholding experience for side quests - basically, my players know that I have a rough idea of where I want them to be at certain points in the plot, and if a side quest gives them more xp than I want they simply have to wait until they reach the plot point to get it. (I would have just set them on a slower xp progression, but they all complained about that.)
That said, I hadn't even considered their high stats (I had them roll, and most of them rolled well) or the higher power levels of the classes in question. So I should probably consider them about level 6 or so APL.
Also, the first part of RotRL takes place largely in town, and they haven't really attracted the attention of BBEG yet, so the pacing of the adventure is largely up to the party at this point - I had discounted the powerhouse factor of having only 1 or 2 fights per day, followed by a comfy stay at an inn in a town where everyone likes them.
Again, I appreciate all the help.
There's a limit to what I can throw at them because they are only level 3, but even with 4 or 5 class levels my NPCs still go down quickly. The barbarian has a +9 or +10 to hit while raging, so even something with a 20 AC has about a 50% chance of getting hit. I can't boost their AC too high with items, because the resulting loot would just make it even easier for my players. Besides that, even if I did boost AC with various tricks, the sorcerer uses a lot of touch attacks and the alchemist uses touch attacks and high splash damage.
My rule is there is no limit to what I can throw at the PCs, no matter what their level. (there is a limit of reasonableness. I wouldn't have the evil baron's throne room guarded by 100 ancient red dragons, because that wouldn't be believable.
But I don't see the logic of the makeup of the world changing just because the PCs gain levels. Granted, individual NPCs the players know may also gain levels, but the general demographics should be the same.
Which means that 3rd level PCs can encounter 9th level druids, who may have enough minions and cohorts to swamp them in a toe to toe fight. Or they might encounter bands of hundreds of warriors, which they should be woefully unable to take on toe to toe at 3rd level. I don't try to "put the PCs in their place", but the world does not care what level they are.
One thing you could do is try combining tactics: tough monsters with hordes of weaker creatures to force the PCs to use up resources. Then hit them again before they can regroup.
As someone said earlier the first encounters of Burnt offerings where desings to make the players feels heroic. This will/should change by theend of the arc.
At very low levels, 1-3, there's very little diference between an easy victory and a character death. The PCs simply do not have enough hit points or control to endure a bad rolls. So most battle the PCs win at those levels seems easy.
Also, with a party of six for a campaing for four players the party will have a big advantage at the begining. But thats only until the lower XP and treasure per encounter kicks in and even thing for you.
My advice, keep running the adventure as is. They should be one level lower when they start Skinsaw Murders wich would compensate, unless they complete the bonus dungeon in wich case it would be kind of a dick move to punish them for they extra effort.
Humbly,
Yawar
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CG Half Elf Cleric of Cayden Cailean w/ Travel and Chaos (I think) domains
CG Human Sorcerer w/ Elemental (Air) Bloodline
CG Elf Alchemist
CN Half Elf Barbarian
LN Human Cavalier (This is the Level 2 guy)
There's been some nice suggestions above.
Here are a few that concentrate on particular weaknesses. That's not to say you should really put the screws to em, but if you need to threaten a particular class, you may as well do it nice.
Sorcerer (Air): Obviously strong against electricity, probably good at personal safety. How's he fare against SR? Stealthed opponents? Fighting over breakfast? (with depleted spells, maybe?)
Alchemist: Mutagen + Enlarge is a nice tool. Use it to drag him in, then tanglefoot bag, touch attack, and curse him. Will saves are the bane of our Alchemist's life.
Barbarian: Same as the alchemist, but use successive mooks to draw him in. If he gets away from the party, feel free to drop the floor out, close off doors, and swarm him with mooks. He'll drop em all, as they come, probably not even noticing he's being herded away from the group.
Cavalier: Reflex saves rock here. Feel free to target your ally rogues with weak fireballs...they'll save 90% of the time, but Cavalier-boy will fail regularly. 6d6 adds up, over time.
Doing LOTS of damage (preferably spread out to the entire party) will keep any healers busy, and take up actions from the less offensive PC's.
Of course, this assumes you want longer fights with little chance of one-shotting any of the PC's. Diviners with Disintegrate, ranked Rangers with Favored Enemy: PC In Question, or staggered cast Ice Storm/Holy Smite/Fireball/Etc will kill them, if that's all you're looking for. I don't recommend that.
While moving to the the downed ally, one can withdraw an object stored on their person
You can do this, ONLY IF IT IS A WEAPON. For the record, this includes wands. But it specifically does not include potions or scrolls.
So, I'm back to my original point. Giving favorable interpretations of the rules to the players makes the players more powerful. If running the game this way is more ful for you and your group, then have a great time.
But don't then look around and ask "Why are my players so powerful?"
Now, you CAN help this by purchasing a handy haversack. Now it's a move action to get that potion out, and one less AO.
But it serves as an opportunity cost. Every time a player buys a haversack, it's one less magic weapon. Should help balance things out.
Long story short, there are many, many ways for a cunning DM to screw with his players, completely within RAW and RAI, and ways to get the PCs to in turn use these same tactics in their defence.
Continually spamming the cheese at their weak points, however, is not fun for long, so safe it for particularly intelligent enemies who would have reason to keep and eye on potential threats to their plans.
Have you considered Dopplegangers? Always fun to get the PCs looking at each other and going "Hmmmm..." right before a cliffhanger battle. They're much less effective if they're trying to ensure that their 'allies' can't get flanking positions on them with the current batch of enemies if they have reason to suspect a double-agent or switcheroo.
Flumps are also a brilliant way to throw a monkey-wrench in the works with players. Lawful Good abberations will make a Paladin throw his hands up in despair and a Neutral Good Druid have religious fits. Alternatively the PCs might find they enjoy the company of these unassuming creatures and help them out ... only to find the little bastards are pathetically useless in combat and are a burden. Could 'Good' characters just walk off and say "I'm done." and leave the poor little Flumps at the mercy of ignorant villagers or hungry monsters? Play up their gentle natures as well as their disgusting physiology and watch the players squirm on the twin hooks of morality and social stigmas, yet another situation where numbers gains the PCs no mechanical advantage.