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I am contemplating running a game in which the party while typically run into...another party of adventurers.
I am wondering what is the proper level of this opposing party(s) to the give the party a challenge but not outright kill them either. Same level? One higher? One lower? This is what I am wondering.
Is there anything else I should consider when doing this?
Thanks!
Keep in mind that if your party wins the battle, they're going to have twice the magic items and other loot that a party of their level usually has, assuming you outfit the opposing party appropriately. Future encounters might need boosted CR's to account for the boost.
You're going to need to be careful with this one.
The Challenge Ratings are set for 1 monster vs. a party of 4. I haven't looked at the current CR system, so I could be wrong.
There are also choices made by the players in character creation to think about. A group with a monk for scouting and a Ranger for damage out-put is going to differ from a group that as a Rogue and a Fighter doing the smae things.
I think equal level would be okay though. Let the player's know they have rivals!
Really depends on the levels involved.
At higher level, this becomes really dicey, as it comes down to "winning initiative" and "blasting lots of save-or-dies" which isn't nessecarily the most fun in the world, especially when it's your PC that's dead.
Even at lower levels, the best idea is going to be for them to focus fire on one of the PCs and sqeeze his life out, and then moving to kill (not knock out, but coup-de-grac) another PC, in sequence. This also isn't very fun for the PCs targeted by it.
The fundamental problem here is that if this is a "balanced fight" that means an equal number of people will die on each team, with only one person left alive.
Since the "optimum tactics" really aren't very fun, I would recommend making the opposition 2-ish levels higher than the party, and then denying them access to the "best tricks" as a way to push the effective EL back down.
One thing to consider about loot is that assuming only one PC survives, he's going to need a LOT of Diamonds for Ressurection. Hey lookie here...lots of loot to sell for Diamonds!
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I did this in a campaign I ran back in 3.5. In the PC party there was a chain fighter with the trip build who wreaked havoc on many an encounter. I placed another Chain Fighter in the counter group. I gave him many of the same feats, but then I added Improved Unarmed and Improved Disarm. He literally took the PC's chain away from him then beat the pulp out of him with it. It was a party similar build to the PC's. They were the same level and it was one of the most memorable fights of the campaign. Some of them still talk about it to this day. Once the PC's realized exactly what the counter party was built like they all switched over one opponent, the PC chain fighter took on the Anti-Paladin. The PC Ranger targeted their Cleric and the PC cleric grappled the enemy wizard and waited for the party to come and beat him down.
For PF I would still do it the same level as the party. There was a power bump after that fight as they got a lot of good loot, but since it was built only to counter the PC group I was able to use some 1x buff's and items. Also They didn't have quite as good of the base line stuff as the PC's did. Rings of protection were one + less than most of the PC's had. The weapons, armors, cloaks, and stat enhancers weren't as good. That helped a bit.
The biggest concern is over looting the party.
Here are some ideas to get around that problem.
1. Use a mirror of opposition, or variant there of. instead of instantly coming out, have them pass by the mirror and the next day the evil variants come out of the mirror and have 1 week to hunt down and kill the party. When creatures created by a mirror of opposition die the gear goes away as well.
2. Create a new dopolganger type creature that does not just mimic appearance and abiltiies, but also equipment. The equipment is actually part of the creature and just gives them the same abilities.
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The biggest concern is over looting the party.
Interesting ideas, but this would be a game in which the players' combat encounters would be mainly against other adventuring parties, not monsters. So an evil mirror only really works once before it gets trite.
This is why I would give them NPC gold, not PC treasure. That way, the distribution would be even.
I am also quite fond of potions and elixirs. I reckon that if the players take too long, their opponents will drink all the loot!
Im not sure why this is any diferent than any other encounter. ultimately Assign the levels of the oposing Party to make an over all approriate Cr give them NPC level gear and so on and its fine.
unless the goal is to have them all be exact same level and PC gear equiped in which case its eitehr a TPK or a giant treasure award.
Use the gamemastering section. CR of of the encounter should probably be targetted arround APL+3 if you want a memorable, epic, difficult, BBEG style encounter. The combined XP values of the monsters should be equal to the CR of the encounter that you want. If the party is level 5, go to CR8 and it is 4800 XP. For a party of 4, each monster should be 1200XP, or CR4. Since NPCs with character levels have a CR = lvl-1, the 4 NPCs should be equal in level to the PC party. The way the XP table works out, this is true for the entire chart.
4 monsters of CR APL-1 are a CR+3 encounter. CR+3 encounters are designed to theoretically have slightly more than a 50% success rate. Depending on how optimized, well equipped your party is, their APL may be higher than their actual level.
I am contemplating running a game in which the party while typically run into...another party of adventurers.
I am wondering what is the proper level of this opposing party(s) to the give the party a challenge but not outright kill them either. Same level? One higher? One lower? This is what I am wondering.
Is there anything else I should consider when doing this?
Thanks!
The NPC's would have the same class levels, but they should still be easier since they are using NPC wealth. This is assuming a boss level(but not BBEG) fight of course.
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If the NPCs have NPC wealth and 15-point stat buys with the NPC 15/14/13/12/10/8 setup, a properly-built party should find them challenging, but not take many losses (if any). If they ambush the party you should probably make them level-1, if the party is prepared for them and they won't get to buff you can go level+1.