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A "static" game is where the campaign threat level remains the same as the PCs continue to grow in power. Those 1st level serfs or 3rd level guards who were once a threat to the 1st level PCs don't even qualify as a minor xp bonus, let alone a threat, to 6th and higher PCs.
Campaigns that scale, though, are where the threat levels match the PCs level. Using the examples above, the serfs and guards threat increase in abilities, hit points, etc., so that the PCs almost always have to think twice about brushing them off/burning down their village/ignoring the threat of arrest, etc.
So, what's your campaign?
Usually in my games i use a mix of both. After all the fact PC's are above the average of their races doesn't mean automatically there are not stronger foes around. As a guidance main plots ( those of the main campaign- but have still to start DMing pathfinder) stick to the balanced method, if players want to stretch their luck and go with quests i already planned as secondary and more dangerous they are likely to face TPK....but in such cases that is hardly GM's fault.
But one thing is for sure, i always plan where are greater challenges, and usually i try to let players know they could have to face a CR too high for them at a determined stage of the campaign. If they still want to try.....
LOL. Yah. That reminded me of one 3.x game where the DM describe a dream sequence of our PCs getting annihilated if we went through a particular door. We did, lost half our PCs while the survivors sold their souls to the (minor) devils controlling the complex. :-)
We did worse...can't remember the module, it involved taking control of a valley in a competition with another pc's group (it was a lvl 7-9 adventure for the basic D&D published by TSR....yes,back in the Jurassic )
Anyway we cleaned the valley by all creatures until the last boss...actually it was a group of 1 main boss (adult red dragon)and 2 mini bosses ( youngling red dragons ) OUCH.With the combined strength of both groups we started planning a surprise attack involving magic buffed stealth and all of the ice spells our wizards could squeeze.At least we thought there were all of us...a fighter tried to take a deeper look on its own and....triple simultaneous red dragon breath on everyone :(
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LOL. Yah. That reminded me of one 3.x game where the DM describe a dream sequence of our PCs getting annihilated if we went through a particular door. We did, lost half our PCs while the survivors sold their souls to the (minor) devils controlling the complex. :-)We did worse...can't remember the module, it involved taking control of a valley in a competition with another pc's group (it was a lvl 7-9 adventure for the basic D&D published by TSR....yes,back in the Jurassic )
Anyway we cleaned the valley by all creatures until the last boss...actually it was a group of 1 main boss (adult red dragon)and 2 mini bosses ( youngling red dragons ) OUCH.
With the combined strength of both groups we started planning a surprise attack involving magic buffed stealth and all of the ice spells our wizards could squeeze.At least we thought there were all of us...a fighter tried to take a deeper look on its own and....triple simultaneous red dragon breath on everyone :(
Ow ;-(
Campaigns that scale, though, are where the threat levels match the PCs level. Using the examples above, the serfs and guards threat increase in abilities, hit points, etc., so that the PCs almost always have to think twice about brushing them off/burning down their village/ignoring the threat of arrest, etc.
This will cause the Player Characters to feel unimportant. If they never become more important/powerful then the NPCs then the question of why "they" should go deal with what ever adventure problem comes up. (i.e., if the NPC guardsmen are so powerful, what do they need us for?)
A better counter, is if the player start acting like brigands or villains, then more Heroic NPC adventurers, that can (and should) scale with the party's level, should start considering your player characters as a worthy sourse of experience points.
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Not really. I subscribe to an ecology that puts threats of a certain level in some areas, growing larger and more dangerous the further from civilization (or deeper under it) the PCs go. PCs can push through to the harder locations if they like but they'll be in a lot of danger the whole time, or they can stick close to the safer territories but the rewards scale with the danger level.
That said - There are always outliers. Either terrible things locked away in the safer areas. Scavengers and parasites in the more dangerous areas.
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If your lowly tavern bruiser and town militia are always a match for the PC then the PCs start to wonder why they bother adventuring at all. I like to keep general nobodies at a static level while the important PCs scale with the PCs but at to a lesser degree.
If the PCs are smart enough to realise the Big Bad End Guy is too powerful then they should be rewarded for going out to better themselves before taking him on.
Also if they start to push around the little guy too much they could very well end up with a pissed off mob on their hands......Using mob rules from I can't remember where????? basically the mob are treated like a swarm that does trample damage to the PCs.....no need to roll to hit just make a save for half damage.
There are always ways around PCs that get too big for their boots than combat with a lowly serf. there will always be concequences.
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You should scale up, but you shouldn't scale up the same NPCs.
So, the party starts a ruckus in town at 2nd level, and the 3rd level town guardsman comes along to stop them.
Later, the 7th level party starts messing up the same town. Now, the 10th level enforcer of the Baron's personal guard takes notice and goes to deal with them.
It's not that the threats are growing with the PCs, or that the larger threats were never there - there are big threats and little threats, and the big threats don't care about you until you're closer to their size. If you've ever played Munchkin, you should have an idea of this - the really high level monsters can't be bothered with adventurers of less than 5th level.
The exception to this rule should be rival parties of NPCs, or recurring arch-nemeses, who should totally be gaining levels at least at the same rate as the PCs.
There were some funky rules on creating a town watch that were in an old issue of Dungeon many many years ago that I converted to 3.0...and it worked WONDERFULLY. I think elements of it show up in some of the later 3.5 stuff where you have a listing of the npcs in a town and their levels. Some towns are really sleepy and don't have anyone over a certain level, no matter what their class. Others are huge and have more opportunities for experience and thereby have more people with higher levels. Sometimes the party is just going to bite off more than they can chew. It happens, and its disappointing that DMs have to handhold on that particular issue.
I scale up important NPCs, especially when they play a large part in an encounter, so I do not not scale up every encounter.
Sometimes I reuse an encounter when the PCs missed it the first time, and depending on the situation I either scale it up or leave it as it is. (e.g. The orc village which plays a minor part in the adventure is not scaled up, but the evil necromancer who is messing with the cemetary, is scaled up.)
I scale up encounters when I want to make them more memorable, and I do not scale them up when I want to show to the players how powerful they have become.
My DM does the mix thing too.
Sure we could walk all over the town guard or go pillaging the local area but theirs always more of them than there are of us. You can roast 60+ villagers in a single fireball if thats your thing but the 61st on the roof with a crossbow might get a crit. If you become too much of a problem then some body will be glad to hire the evil NPC assasin to kill you in your sleep.
In our current game we are all dragonmarks of house orien in the city of thalios and have just foiled a plan that the arch bishop of the silver flame had hired kenku to kill known supporters of aundair.
We can't touch him due to his political protection but we can help protect the rebels loyal to Queen Aurela.
We know that yes we could fireball the arch bishop or otherwise kill him BUT the entire church of the silver flame would kill us all house protection or not and the people of thaliost would suffer even more under the chrurches brutality and occupation.
Thats how you keep powerfull PC's like us from thinking that they are all rastlins in training or the next drizzit from the jungles of xendrick.
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Some threats do scale with PCs over time. In one of my current campaigns, the PCs are searching for a lost city and its legendary lore vault. They know they are in a race against a minotaur shaman (Cantor Mazeborn) and his allies.
The PCs have never fought cantor directly, but they have dueled him in political arenas, and fought some of his allies. As the game has progressed, they're realizing that Cantor is adventuring too, and gaining levels and loot. Originally he had just a few by-the-book minotaur guards from his homeland to protect him. When the PCs last tangled with him, he had hired a hill giant clan to back him up, and had called in a minotaur champion from his homeland. And they know from hearing about cantor's missions in the region that he's learning new spells and picking up new magic items.
He's gaining levels, and the PCs know it.
Other threats are dynamic encounters made from of static elements. A group of kobold slavers that gave the PC fits the first few levels of the game were recently eliminated by the heroes. Early on, facing 6-12 kobolds was a hit-and-run raid. Later, the PCs could face squads easily, and consider raiding slave camps to free everyone. The kobolds weren't any tougher but there were a lot of them, and in major strongholds there were a few sorcerers and warriors with levels. Now, the heroes took the time to break the back of the entire operation. A surprising number of those encounters were still a CR close to the PCs, but the individual creatures were still mostly kobolds.
Similarly, not long ago the heroes took down a fire giant artificer, and were pushed to the limit doing so. Now they discover they have upset a fire giant king, who is gunning for them. They've faced groups of fire giants, and heard the fire giants are hiring more powerful allies to help deal with the PCs. A single fire giant is the same static threat, but the situation ramps up to higher CR as the game progresses, in a natural and believable way.
And I try to keep that scale in mind as I build adventures. The heroes already know part of the big problem they want to fix is caused by the mortal avatar of a god. Right now, they aren't even thinking of facing him directly. But in another 8 levels, who knows?
I have always used a mix of both, also. There are some things that should always stay the same level, but there are always at least a few things that should grow as the PCs grow, like certain evil sentient monster races. I always loved how that worked with the orc and Uruk-Hai races in the Middle Earth Role-Playing system. They had levels too and could get just as powerful as the PCs, and there is something fun from a GM's point of view of the reactions when the PCs first meet an orc that does not die after taking 8 points of damage, nor looks even close to death.
I try to make things at least a minor challenge to the PCs. I have found that simple things like adding more guys will normally do the job if you can manage to tie up the wizard.
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Characters of a certain type in the gameworld don't scale with my PCs. Guardsmen will always be the same level.
However, the PCs themselves can up the ante and deal with enemies of a greater scale as they gain in levels. The first level PCs who commit petty theft will be pursued by 1st level guardsmen. The 10th level PCs who loot the king's treasury will be pursued by the king's elite, well-paid, 10th level high guard. The assumption is that no 10th level PC would even find any sort of reward in the activities and opponents a 1st level character would - they have to pick on other 10th level characters and CR10 baddies if they ever want to get anywhere in life.
In addition, that sense of advancement and higher stakes is preserved - the players will certainly feel the effect of their level progression if, after the long hard climb to 10th level, they're dueling with dragons, generals, and kings, instead of guardsmen, orcs, and dire rats.