Advice / Help on how to challenge high-level (17th-18th) characters that are optimized.

[The_Minstrel_Wyrm]

Hello fellow Paizoians,

As my subject/title indicates I am seeking advice from this most excellent community of Pathfinder RPG enthusiasts, what I am NOT looking for is criticism of my GM-ing style, telling me I'm doing "it" wrong (without at least explaining that statement), and other general "unhelpful" trolling-type comments.

I'll try to give as much help as I can regarding my players and their characters. Here goes:

Emryss a human wizard 18th level.

Krang a half-orc barbarian 4/fighter 14.

Alexite a tiefling fighter 5/rogue 4/duelist 8.

Verand'lar an elf ranger 17th level.

Kairu a human druid 18th level, and Sala his crocodile companion.

Right now they are going thorough The Witchwar Legacy since they were in the region of Irrisen and the appropriate level, and they need the

Spoiler:

Torc of Kostchtchie

for something going on in my regular weekly game.

They have been stomping the opposition, and barely taking a scratch. And while I am not one of those GMs that subscribes to the "Me vs. the players" mind-set, I feel that this module will be seen as "not challenging" or even not threatening to their characters.

A good example (which I will utilize spoiler tags for) they have gotten to the Middle Falls level

Spoiler:

12. Chamber of Retribution (CR 17) which had an elder negative energy elemental (Tome of Horrors III) and (7) vengeful hoar spirits (that we each advanced HD and 5th level fighters). Now, my group's characters have been built using 25 points, which, admittedly I didn't truly understand or appreciate the "power" that gives them. I have recently come to understand it, and have tried to counter accordingly. For example I added 2 HD to the elder negative energy elemental, gave it Ability Focus (energy drain), and increased the damage it does with both its negative energy burst, and its death throes. The hoar spirits (while already advanced from ToH II) I further advanced another 2 HD + adding another level of fighter (so fighter 6). I was expecting more from the encounter (and part of it may rest with me and not "seeing" the bigger picture, and by that I mean I may not have given enough thought to miniature placement, PCs abilities, etc.) The wizard did a quickened haste and wall of force to keep the majority of the hoar spirits at bay (only one was "past" the wall, and I admit I should have placed them more strategically to avoid that). The bbn/ftr's Fort save is sky-high, and while he took the neg. energy damage, he never took the level drain - he always made that DC). Once they defeated the neg. energy elemental, the wizard dismissed his wall of force and I had the hoar spirits advance. 3 of the 6 moved towards the ftr/rog/duelist and the bbn/ftr, the other 3 moved against the ranger and the wizard (for this particular fight the druid's player wasn't present, so neither was the druid). Their ACs are so high, even advancing these hoar spirits as I did (now a +22 claw attack) I couldn't touch them, and I wasn't rolling that badly with my d20 (I would have hit ACs in the mid-to-high 30s).

I really like the module that Greg Vaughn has put forth, but with my players, who are very optimized, and I now realize probably +2 CR or what have you, above what their character levels indicate, I don't want to "break" my game anymore than I feel it is, but otherwise I feel like I can't challenge their characters and they will stomp all over the Veil of Frozen Tears, take what they came for, and all without feeling challenged whatsoever.

So, without fudging, without making the encounters/challenges overpowered, what can I do to make the latter half of The Witchwar Legacy challenging and feel threatening?

Thank You in advance for any advice,

Dean; The_Minstrel_Wyrm

[Dire Mongoose]

The first thing I'd point out is that even if these weren't optimized characters:

A) Adventures/CR generally assume 4 characters, so 5 will be a little strong to begin with, and

B) These are level 18 characters, so a CR 17 encounter is supposed to be almost trivially easy for them.

Probably you need to be throwing something more like a CR 20 or 21 encounter to push them; the advanced template alone isn't near enough to make up that difference.

So I'd say it sounds like your problem might be that you picked an adventure too easy for the characters?

Edited to add: As for what specific changes you'd need to make to the encounters to make them challenging, I'd need to see the adventure for that and I don't have a copy. Honestly, you probably need to just about build new, similar encounters from scratch and keep the plot/maps/feel/etc. I don't think there's an easy and good way to CR up encounters as much as it sounds like you need.

[The_Minstrel_Wyrm]

Dire Mongoose wrote:

The first thing I'd point out is that even if these weren't optimized characters:

A) Adventures/CR generally assume 4 characters, so 5 will be a little strong to begin with, and

B) These are level 18 characters, so a CR 17 encounter is supposed to be almost trivially easy for them.

Probably you need to be throwing something more like a CR 20 or 21 encounter to push them; the advanced template alone isn't near enough to make up that difference.

So I'd say it sounds like your problem might be that you picked an adventure too easy for the characters?

Edited to add: As for what specific changes you'd need to make to the encounters to make them challenging, I'd need to see the adventure for that and I don't have a copy. Honestly, you probably need to just about build new, similar encounters from scratch and keep the plot/maps/feel/etc. I don't think there's an easy and good way to CR up encounters as much as it sounds like you need.

Hi Dire Mongoose,

Thanks for taking some time and posting. I guess I should have said they were 17th when it started, heh heh, anyway... I think you may be on to something there, and I will see what I can do about this before next Monday comes around. (I have some ideas at least).

Regarding The Witchwar Legacy... I highly recommend it, you should pick up a copy if you are looking for a high-level module.

Dean

[JudasKilled]

The_Minstrel_Wyrm wrote:

Hello fellow Paizoians,

As my subject/title indicates I am seeking advice from this most excellent community of Pathfinder RPG enthusiasts, what I am NOT looking for is criticism of my GM-ing style, telling me I'm doing "it" wrong (without at least explaining that statement), and other general "unhelpful" trolling-type comments.

I'll try to give as much help as I can regarding my players and their characters. Here goes:

Emryss a human wizard 18th level.

Krang a half-orc barbarian 4/fighter 14.

Alexite a tiefling fighter 5/rogue 4/duelist 8.

Verand'lar an elf ranger 17th level.

Kairu a human druid 18th level, and Sala his crocodile companion.

Right now they are going thorough The Witchwar Legacy since they were in the region of Irrisen and the appropriate level, and they need the ** spoiler omitted ** for something going on in my regular weekly game.

They have been stomping the opposition, and barely taking a scratch. And while I am not one of those GMs that subscribes to the "Me vs. the players" mind-set, I feel that this module will be seen as "not challenging" or even not threatening to their characters.

A good example (which I will utilize spoiler tags for) they have gotten to the Middle Falls level ** spoiler omitted **...

pick up 2nd ad&d labyrinth of madness, that modules for 17+ charecters and god is it roughhhhhhhhhh

[Frozen Forever]

Anti-magic fields in conjunction with powerful monsters that don't rely on spell-like abilities.

[OWEN STEPHENS]

I have three broad suggestions.

One, add more bodies to the foes. I find throwing in one more foe near EL-2 helps an encounter deal with big/tough parties. And if it's not enough, you can see that and throw in two extra EL -2 foes, or even an EL -1 foe. For many encounters, there's already an appropriate monster in the encounter you can multiply.

Two: Rewrite monsters using the +4, +4, +4, +4, +0, -2 adjustments you normally use when adding class levels to monsters. this helps offset the 25-point build advantage your PCs have.

Three: Slap the Advanced Creature template on *everything*

Play with these three options until some combo works.

[The_Minstrel_Wyrm]

Frozen Forever wrote:

Anti-magic fields in conjunction with powerful monsters that don't rely on spell-like abilities.

Ash,

Thanks for that suggestion, but PFRPG seems to have changed the spell and it is only a 10ft radius now...

EDIT: And I just now realized you said fields... Hmmmm...

Thanks.

Dean

[The_Minstrel_Wyrm]

OWEN STEPHENS wrote:

I have three broad suggestions.

One, add more bodies to the foes. I find throwing in one more foe near EL-2 helps an encounter deal with big/tough parties. And if it's not enough, you can see that and throw in two extra EL -2 foes, or even an EL -1 foe. For many encounters, there's already an appropriate monster in the encounter you can multiply.

Two: Rewrite monsters using the +4, +4, +4, +4, +0, -2 adjustments you normally use when adding class levels to monsters. this helps offset the 25-point build advantage your PCs have.

Three: Slap the Advanced Creature template on *everything*

Play with these three options until some combo works.

Hello Owen,

That is pretty much what I will be doing from now on. Oh... and about your #2 suggestion... I think that "adding class levels" adjustments are +4, +4, +2, +2, +0, -2... but, again, I see what you are getting at.

***And to Everyone that has commented so far, thank you, I really appreciate the time you've taken to lend a hand/give a suggestion.***

Dean (TMW)

[The_Minstrel_Wyrm]

@ JudasKilled...

It's funny that you mention Vortex of Madness... the player of the 18th level wizard was lending me his copy for several weeks (to mine for ideas for some further adventures with the group's "goal" towards rebuilding the Lost City of Ulduvai) and I decided I didn't want to utilize it, it seems to... convoluted... (and I'm not sure that's the correct word I want to use)... and I didn't think it was particularly "rough" per se... although my perception of the encounters may have been colored by other circumstances (book belongs to one of my players, who has played Table-Top RPGs far longer than me even... I didn't start until 2nd Edition by-the-way), so I didn't want to mine it for ideas simply because he'd know what I was doing and meta-game a way out of it. No Fun.

But thanks for the suggestion.

Dean

[roguerouge]

Mirror of Opposition. Dominate Person. Get them to fight themselves.

[The_Minstrel_Wyrm]

roguerouge wrote:

Mirror of Opposition. Dominate Person. Get them to fight themselves.

Hmm. That has promise.

[EWHM]

Here's the thing, your PC's are reasonably optimized, but more tellingly, your Players are optimized. Your wizard plays battlefield control when it's necessary for him to do so (using a wall of force and a quickened haste to separate a big fight into two bite size bundles is a tactic I wager 90% of the gaming population generally doesn't do). Modules are written for average parties with average skill. When your players genuinely know what they're doing, especially your battlefield controllers, they're a LOT tougher than when they don't. At a certain point on the player skill curve, published modules need a LOT of work if you're aiming at a gamist definition of challenge.

My suggestion is this---go simulationist after a discussion with your players. They're obviously fairly grown up players by now. In a simulationist game, the challenges simply are what they are, they don't care what your APL or WBL are. If you choose to go after something, the cards are allowed to simply fall as they may. Once your players actually grok this, they can automatically adjust the difficulty of their own encounters by deciding what levels of risk they're willing to accept.

[SmiloDan]

Give some grunts 5 levels of Sorcerer (for +2 CR) and give them mage armor, shield, true strike, energy resistance or mirror image, and wraithstrike (Spell Comp: swift action to cast: for 1 round, all melee attacks are treated as melee touch attacks).

Maybe try throwing WEIRD classes at them, like spellthieves, binders, shadowcasters, warlocks, etc.

Also, maybe give the NPCs some buffers, like archivists, bards, dragon shamans, and marshals. Oils or Potions or Wands of Greater Magic Fang/Weapon, some teamwork feats, and other types of stackable bonuses might be needed too.

At least you're giving the BBEG some mooks to waste some PC actions. That's key.

[Black Fang]

Slap the Advanced Simple template on things, and/or the Quickling template.

A little bump can go a long way when it's the right kind of bump.

[Thalin]

5 levels of sorcerer are CR +5... No more "unrelated class" bs we saw in 3.5.

I mean, just up CRs. You have too many PCs with too high stats; the multiclassing would indicate suboptimal, and not optimal, builds. But level 17 and 18 are tough to balance; there is a VERY fine lone between "balance" and "instant death".

[Are]

Thalin wrote:

5 levels of sorcerer are CR +5... No more "unrelated class" bs we saw in 3.5.

Uh, yes, there's still rules for nonassociated class levels in Pathfinder. Bestiary page 297 says to add 1 CR for each class level that is considered "key", and 1 CR for each 2 class levels in other classes (until the number of class levels equals the original CR).

[Mr.Fishy]

Nuke em from space that the only to be sure...wait what? Oh.

Attack their weakness's go for the low save or gang up on one target to incease attack bonus. Aid other+grapple+difficult footing bog or water or both [attack on lowered CMB not AC]

Ray of enfeeblement even on a save their take a str hit. [will not break but it might blunt the blade]

Rust monster [Giant+advanced], greater invisiblity with silence cast on it. 17-18 level characters will destroy that sucker but it might force some rolls [damages gear]

A powerful undead like a Vampire with wizard levels and minions. Keep the party back until a few spells are cast. [wall of force the mage or the fighter, dominate, Enveration]

Good luck, good players are hard to find. Remember to water them every day and feed them Looties(tm) [Looties(tm) adventurers love 'em].

[Ender_rpm]

At that level I usually rely more on what SHOULD the PCs do versus what CAN they do. Cuz the b@57$rds can DO damn near anything :)

[raidou]

Minstrel, I've got a few tricks and tips that I have found very helpful in running high level games. I've spoilered everything since we're talking about this in terms of this specific module (Witchwar Legacy).

Divide and Conquer:

Spoiler:

The party that works together, wins easily. You don't need to overwhelm the group in combat to provide a challenge. Often, you can challenge a group by simply creating obstacles to teamwork. Terrain is great for this. Really try to make use of difficult terrain and remember the icy conditions prevalent through most of Witchwar. Your party appears to be made up of lightly-armored, mobile characters. You noted how your wizard isolated the Hoar Spirits so the group could focus on the Elemental. This is a good tactic, and should be used by the monsters too. With a mobile party, it should be easy to spot opportunities to isolate a PC and block off escape/reinforcements.

Use the Verical:

Spoiler:

In high-levels, always be thinking in three dimensions. A flying elemental with 15' reach should be able to evade ground-based foes with ease, and target whatever foe it wants to. Even if the encounter area doesn't obviously have them, think of ways to include platforms, ledges, and elevated positions that hinder characters' ability to reach their foes. Remember that in PF, even if your fighters and rogues are flying, they are unlikely to have great skill in doing so. Find ways to harry your less-skilled fliers. Wind, collisions, forcing altitude drops via damage, etc. Make the unskilled fliers really work for that mobility.

Don't just patch your monsters. Rebuild them

Spoiler:

The monsters in pathfinder are designed to be relative challenges to average characters. As more rules are introduced to the system, your PCs have more and greater options available to them, yet the default monsters remain static - locked in to the rules available when they were printed. A few flying enemies in Witchwar have used up a lot of feats getting through the Spring Attack chain, when they can accomplish the same general thing (Flyby Attack) for two fewer feats. The elemental in question actually has both. If your goal is to challenge optimized characters, there are some opportunities for efficiency here. The elemental could go a couple ways... Use the advanced template, keep the Spring Attack chain and replace Flyby Attack with Combat Expertise (since the advanced template bumps INT high enough to do this), Cleave with Whirlwind Attack, and Improved Initiative with Ability Focus (Energy Drain). Now you've got a menace that can attack everything in the room each round. Some energy draining is sure to happen now, even if your barbarian still makes all those saves.

Vital Strike is your friend. You could rebuild the elemental to be a skirmishing menace, using Flyby Attack and exchanging the Spring Attack tree for the Vital Strike tree. Now you've got a mobile attacker dealing perhaps 8d8 base damage plus 2d8 negative and some negative levels. That's a lot of damage for anyone to have to soak up. Another great use of vital strike is for punching through hardness. You mentioned trapping the hoar spirits inside a wall of force. Well, if those creatures were rebuilt to use weapons (greatswords perhaps) and given the Vital Strike tree, they'd be punching through that Wall in a couple of rounds. Instead of an encounter-ender, all of a sudden you've merely delayed the oncoming undead.

Surround, don't group

Spoiler:

You've already worked out some of this in your initial post. The Hoar Spirits were enclosed by a single spell, negating their effect on the encounter. Look for ways to place smaller groups of foes more strategically throughout the encounter area. Ranged weapons as a backup are pretty vital. This is going to come into play for you again soon, as your party moves into area 13. The rooms from which the Dread Wraiths emerge are all in a row. If they all emerge in a line, they give your group an easy way to cleave, wall, or otherwise damage them en-masse. However, if a few of these travel through the floor and come out behind the party while the remainder float through the doors, suddenly your group is in a much more dangerous situation. Particularly when the gaze attacks start raining down from above.

Dynamic Dungeon.

Spoiler:

At high levels, nothing should happen without nearby areas reacting to it. The Dread Wraiths and Nabasu in areas 13/14 should obviously hear the combat in area 12. Perhaps a pair of wraiths could strike into area 12 if the party looks pretty beat up by that earlier encounter. Those wraiths could drain some resources and draw the PCs into conflict with the Devil in 15 before dropping into the floors and fleeing back to 13. The horned devil would also likely hear conflict in 12 and need to decide what to do about it. Its statue trick is probably designed for PCs who move directly from another encounter, but there's no reason he should stand still if the PCs decide to camp out in area 12. As a solo monster, he needs to try hitting them when they're weakened... he certainly won't be able to do much against them if they are at full strength.

Make the Map Bigger

Spoiler:

In a game with 6+ players, and particularly if one of them can summon big things, you may find that it's easier to accomplish a lot of the above if you just had more space. I find this to be true. I run games for 6-8 people, generally, and I find that 9 out of 10 times I am redrawing maps to at least 150% scale. 10' corridors become 15', 20' rooms become 30' and so on. It just makes accomplishing some of the above tricks a LOT easier.

I hope some of this is helpful to you. Good Luck!

-eric

[Ice Titan]

At high levels your best bet is just to flat-out try to kill whoever is the most dangerous looking person in the party.

It's why I don't like high level play. It's all rocket launcher tag, and to play the monsters effectively requires a dedication to killing your players that I can only feel is very similar to online "griefing" tactics in video games.

Playing monsters at high level is an exercise in extremely tactical thinking. Not many GMs can perfect their high-level-tactic-fu without a lot of practice, so don't feel bad.

As an aside, negative levels don't work how you describe. Negative levels aren't saved against. There's no save. He gets them no matter what-- after 24 hours, the fighter is entitled to a save to not retain the negative levels until he has restoration, greater cast on him. But, he doesn't get one to avoid those negative levels (essentially turning them into "permanent" levels, since I don't see a cleric or paladin in that group and assume the module's dungeon is meant to be played through in one day). Read up on negative levels here.

EDIT: I found the stat block of the monster (I think!) I understand that the monster stat block calls out you can save against it in a vague way, but that's false. There are no saves against taking negative levels in the entire game-- there are only saves against retaining negative levels. Whoever wrote the monster wrote it wrong, or too vaguely. That reinforces my belief that your bbn/ftr should be either dead from neg levels (2 per swing) or very, very screwed down.

As a GM who puts fun before difficulty, I definitely would invoke the sacred rule of No Take Backs and not retroactively impose those neg levels on him because that sounds like a stupid, stupid encounter. "HOPE YOU HAVE A CLRERIK HLOLOLOL"

[Frozen Forever]

Ice Titan wrote:

As an aside, negative levels don't work how you describe. Negative levels aren't saved against. There's no save. He gets them no matter what-- after 24 hours, the fighter is entitled to a save to not retain the negative levels until he has restoration, greater cast on him. But, he doesn't get one to avoid those negative levels (essentially turning them into "permanent" levels, since I don't see a cleric or paladin in that group and assume the module's dungeon is meant to be played through in one day). Read up on negative levels here.

It reads differently in the Energy Drain and Negative Levels entry, here: http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/glossary.html

It says you always get a new save each day to remove a negative level.

Weird.

[The_Minstrel_Wyrm]

@ raidou, Ice Titan, and Frozen Forever (Ash)... Thanks a ton guys, this has been very helpful, and I think I can make the latter half of Witchwar Legacy more challenging.

I had a feeling I was right about the negative level thing... that you make your Fort save later (24 hrs later I think) but was "talked down" from that by one of my players. Heh, yeah.. the bbn/ftr would have been much more screwed. :P Oh well. Like I.T. said... "No take backs." :)

Thanks a lot one and all. Your suggestions and ideas have been very thought provoking and helpful, and I have an idea or two of my own as well.

Dean; The_Minstrel_Wyrm

[Dosgamer]

Think about incorporating enemies with touch attacks (or ranged touch attacks) against PCs with high armor classes.

I have the module and plan on incorporating large parts of it in my game at the appropriate time, but I will have to make adjustments for my PCs strength as well (6 member party with 25 point buys). Good luck!

[Bloodwort]

.
There are some great suggestions here.

I certainly agree with Own about using the advanced template and increasing the number of foes against a large, optimized party.

I also agree with Raidou on dividing the party, using flight/terrain and environmental hazards to make it more challenging. I also agree that to truly challenge high-level PCs you will need to rebuild your monsters. I do it all the time (currently DMing a large group of 15th level PCs). The bigger map idea also works well.

One thing I would add is for some (or all) of your monsters, max out their hit points. Maybe grant them the toughness feat for free on top of it. Heck, you could apply the advanced template twice to the same mob. Why not! Your PCs are still going to hit it but it will hit a little more often, a little harder, and have slightly better saves.

Ice Titan has it right. Everyone needs to have fun but I understand it can be tough to truly challenge your PCs.

And to Mr. Fishy, your first comment made me laugh out loud! I'm so glad I wasn't drinking anything at the time. It would be all over my monitor.

-Don't forget to enjoy yourself.

[The_Minstrel_Wyrm]

@ Dosgamer & Bloodwort;

Hi both of you.

Thanks for your suggestions as well. I really glad to have such a responsive community to assist me with my dilemma.

Oh, and Dosgamer something I want to share with you...

Spoiler:

I've decided to add at least 3 greater shadows (perhaps more) to area 10. The Witch's Gauntlet (the negative energy trap room). And actually one of the players made an off-hand suggestion about monsters with touch attacks and no saves... he has no idea about this room... so I think this will be an interesting development. And without a cleric, the party druid will have to "burn" through his cures and heals to damage the statues in area 10.

Thanks a lot everyone. I'll keep you in the loop. :)

Dean

[Dosgamer]

How did this go by the way? Any other pieces that you modified that you don't mind tagging with a spoiler and noting here? Just curious. Thanks!

[Shizvestus]

Wow, I havnt seen Mr. Fishy in a while :) Glad to see him :)

For the module you are in, or while you are in Irisen you could have your party Encounter some of Baba Yagas relatives - other Baba Yagas
(In Rus folklore there were other Baba Yagas, she had 2 sisters also called Baba Yaga for eg.) So perhaps a Night Hag at 20th Level with those levels filled up with either Witch or Wizard! And an Anis Hag and a Green Hag also at 20th Level, also Witch or Wizard... ;)

[Holy Stab-Master]

Ok so what you do is you have ocarus appear with his army of Demilichs and his best friend Demagorgin.
Then you have the 30th lvl mage cast a feild of antimagic that he and his allies are immune to.
Then you sit back and watch the limbs fly.

Oh wait... You asked for help on challenging them... Not how to Tpk them...

Disregard my "Advice" lol

[Erik Day]

Monte Cooks "A Paladin in Hell" and Gary Gygax's "Isle of the Ape" are two other good sources of inspiration for high level encounters. Both of them use the attrition method, in which you do your best to exhaust the parties resources by allowing no breaks in the action! If the party is low on spells, charges, healing potions and otherwise, simple encounters can become much more challenging.

Environment can also hinder your characters. In "Witchwar" for example, perhaps their potions freeze in the cold environment, don't forget that a frostbit sword hand is not very useful...and how the heck is that crocodile faring in sub arctic temperatures?

Giving monsters levels in rogue can allow sneak attacks as well as better hiding abilities. Four Wraiths with eight levels in rogue can surround a character and practically sneak attack him every round, since if he's surrounded, one of them automatically flanks him.

Speaking of wraiths, incorporeal monsters tend to ignore most armor...I doubt very many players other than Wizards tend to focus on their touch AC...and there's really not much that can be done to improve it.

Any creature with a +10 or more to hit can pretty much use "aid another" automatically...the above encounter with the wraith rogues could have the other three aiding the one every round giving it an additional +6 to hit, or AC.

Reinforcements halfway through an encounter can quickly turn the tide of battle. Just when they think the battle's won then...

Shoggoths!

Not one, but many, that happen to wander in halfway through the battle, from every open portal.