Hey Folks, so I am running Kingmaker, and have pretty much got buy-in from all my players to offer more challenging combats, and have asked them to provide me with reasonably optimized characters.
For example, our 2 meatshield types are a
Barb1/AlchemistX
and a Barb1/Alchemist1/BarbX build that both took Half orc and amplified rage (at level 1), so that they both can rage for +8 when using the teamwork feat. They both use greatswords, and have 18-20 strength. So yeah, their offense is pretty high.
We have an optimised evil cleric (rage and ferocity), and a neutral cleric, a wizard (admixture specialist), and a ranger(ranged combat style).
I'm pretty new to DMing so I figured i'd start with a CR 3 encounter since it is a 6 man party and is supposed to be challenging.
I started by changing Happs to be a
Male Human Ranger 2, with Scale mail and a potion of blur.
I gave him bolas and he will attempt to trip someone who gets ganged up on by the lesser bandits.
My problem is, I'm having trouble picking reasonable gear and etc without dooming random party members to death. EG: if I give him broadhead arrows, the chances of him oneshotting my party members gets kinda high.
I was thinking of maybe giving happs 2 dogs, and adding in 3 more bandits, but at that point, arent the bandits just going to mow the party over if they fight pretty reasonably?
Kinda need ideas to make these low level encounters challenging without giving them the ability to kill most of my party indiscriminantly. I guess the other problem, is both of the clerics could channel negative and wipe out any number of lv1 characters in one go.
It is very easy to one-shot level 1 characters. Using one level 2 ranger(CR 1) with a few 1/2 CR(level 1 warriors), with poor tactics should work. If the main bad guy, and half of the mooks are defeated then the rest run away. Even if they run the PC's still get the XP.
PS:I would have 4 warriors helping out the main bad guy. The fight you are talking about was a cakewalk to most parties even with only four people. The mooks probably only have about a +3 to hit, so I doubt they will be a real threat.
Like most lvl 1 parties, they can dish it out but not take it. Reading Stolen Land for 6 in the Kingmaker sub-forum should give some pointers but is pretty much what wraithstrike said for this encounter. Still, they've gone for all out offence so they should reap what they sow. But don't forget there's two potions of cure light wounds at Oleg's.
Channelling negative energy is a mixed blessing as unless the party spreads out (making them easy to pick off) there could be some 'blue on blue'.
There's not a lot of undead encounters in Kingmaker so I suggest swapping a few in later on so the dual 'cleric-bomb' doesn't get too tired.
Cheers
Mark
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Most 'tough' characters will be fine- I hit a cavalier with a 27 damage crit arrow from Happ's longbow which he survived (barely). Apart from extreme damages like that, assuming everyone has 12 Con as a mininum, an attack has to do greater than or equal to 12 damage to take a character from standing to dead- something bandits aren't going to do except on a crit.
Edit: The biggest change I would make to that encounter is to change the circumstances of it. Have the PC's come in in the middle of Oleg arguing about how much he has to pay with Happs, before being cowed. This made the encounter much harder in my PbP.
Most 'tough' characters will be fine- I hit a cavalier with a 27 damage crit arrow from Happ's longbow which he survived (barely). Apart from extreme damages like that, assuming everyone has 12 Con as a mininum, an attack has to do greater than or equal to 12 damage to take a character from standing to dead- something bandits aren't going to do except on a crit.
Edit: The biggest change I would make to that encounter is to change the circumstances of it. Have the PC's come in in the middle of Oleg arguing about how much he has to pay with Happs, before being cowed. This made the encounter much harder in my PbP.
Thats actually a fantastic idea, unfortunately they are in the middle of planning their ambush now. (one of them is suggesting they hide in the pile of goods :P)
I'll check out that forum for adjusting it for 6. Thanks guys :)