Wouldn't experience be calculated by individual defeated, not the CR of the encounter? That being the case, Exp is just a bunch more math in this case.
The reason for CR is to see how likely a group of what level can handle that kind of encounter... in this case it would be good to see as I have a sneaking guess that a group of level appropriate characters wouldn't have much of a chance if they took the camp head on and the CR might show that.
If no one else has chimed in by the time I have access to the book again I will do the math and get a CR for you.
Sean Mahoney
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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So my group is getting pretty close to fighting the cannibals at their camp and I'm wondering. How should I calculate experience for it? And for that matter how the heck are a group of four level 2 PC's suppose to take on a camp of what could be up to 22 cannibals and their bosses??
In response to your second issue, I had the cannibals attack in waves. First, the 4 around the fire come to see why the lizard pet is making noise. Then, the guards from the tower show up a couple rounds later(they have to descend ladders, open doors, etc). Basically, give the PCs no more than 4-6 at a time and have the leaders show up last. It's a grind, but the cannibals have really substandard weapons which helps a lot, and as for the leaders:
Malikadna is more annoying than she is dangerous. That having been said, she is really good at being annoying. (until my group's sorcerer hit her with daze to stop her endless cackling, then they took great delight in flanking/curbstomping the old woman).
The barbarian leader guy has really suboptimal tactics. He is a lot less brutal than he could be.
The two times I ran it, I sent the whole tribe at the PCs in a big war party
I calcuated the whole Thrunefang tribe as just shy of a CR9 encounter (6k xp)
I also calculated the whole party of PCs + castaways as effectivly a 4th level APL (just shy of a CR8) - assuming Four 2nd level PCs
Which puts it as just over an epic level fight. The PCs should TPK, but with losses to the cannibals. Essentially, the balance of such a fight would be as though the sides were flipped and the Cannibals are the PCs and the PCs are an encoutner for *them*. BUT the thing that makes it workable is that the cannibals want to take them alive, so defeat just moves the story along and lets the PCs do a prisoner escape scenario.
Both times I ran it, the PCs escaped capture. First time they evaded the war party and spied on them from hiding, second time they skirmished in a running battle across the coral to the doors to Zura's temple and manage to close the door before being overrun (and boy was THAT an exciting fightscene!)
Creative Director
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The barbarian leader guy has really suboptimal tactics. He is a lot less brutal than he could be.
That's on purpose, of course. My game theory is that NPCs are more memorable when they don't just try to kill every PC, but when they do things you don't expect. In the case of this guy, he's a bit crazy. The fact that he can afford to "waste actions" now and then and STILL pose a significant threat to the PCs makes him more memorable than just another big bad guy who shows up and gets killed in a few rounds.
As for the camp itself, it's certainly not meant to be an encounter that the PCs handle all at once, although if they DO, it should be a not-impossible but close-to-it fight. I playtested it twice before it went to print—both times the PCs approached the camp with some caution, took out a few cannibals before hand, but ended up fighting a lot of them at once. By having the cannibals hit them in waves, and by having the chief do some scary (but sub-optimal) antics, the resulting fight was both memorable and tough. Which is what you want with a big set-piece type encounter.
Malikadna is more annoying than she is dangerous. That having been said, she is really good at being annoying. (until my group's sorcerer hit her with daze to stop her endless cackling, then they took great delight in flanking/curbstomping the old woman).The barbarian leader guy has really suboptimal tactics. He is a lot less brutal than he could be.
Disagree with Malikadna. She could tip things into TPK with the right tactical play. Use the barbarians as meat shields and have her use Hideous Laughter and Cause Fear to create havoc on the PCs. You can tip things to TPK if 1 or 2 PCs fail these saves and are out of the fight. With big red in the mix the remain 2-3 PCs of your group are likely to be torn to bits.
The will saves on Hideous Laughter and Cause Fear make her dangerous as DC 17 and 16 is huge for 2nd level characters - particularly non-spellcasters. A 2nd level cleric with 18 WIS is just a touch better than 50-50 shot at making those. And thats not throwing in Misfortune and Evil Eye on the target. If you use the version of Makalinda from the Book 1 thread the GM has some better options with sleep and web.
Given its 2nd level PCs and there's just four of them I'd advising encouraging the PCs to chip away at the fringes with ranged attacks to trim down the enemy numbers. Sort of a hit and move (fallback) strategy. Or while scouting the camp have a group of barbarians leave along the trail. Reduces camp numbers to make it more managable for such low level and the PCs shouldn't be overwhelmed by a swarm of opponents. Plus PCs have the option to ambush the contingent leaving the camp and then rest up for the main assault.
To be honest I'd recommend steering a group of four PCs who are just 2nd level away from the barbarian camp. The potential of a TPK just seems to high.
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UnboltedAKTION: I dislike adding up the XP too so I made a calculator in Excel to handle the grunt work for me. There's a download link in my profile if you are interested. FWIW, I had to use it for this fight too.
In terms of 4 characters vs 22 cannibals, there really shouldn't be that many cannibals left by the time the party arrives. In the case of my group, we had eliminated about 10 in various skirmishes elsewhere on the island.
The Big Fight™ was pretty epic though. The party snuck up on the camp by sea at sunset so that the sun was in the lookouts' eyes. They scaled the cliffs at two points: the bulk of the party by the prisoner pens, and the bard by the main entrance.
The bard disguised herself as a cannibal (albeit a hot-looking one), slipped past the gate lizard and performed "ManEater" by Nelly Furtado to enthrall the whole camp. Only Klorak, Malikadna, and one harem girl made their saves, but she managed to charm Klorak the round after (go go Spellsong). A few moments later, the cannibals were all fighting one another while the party was busy freeing the captured NPCs.
Now granted, we're playing this about 2-3 levels higher than normal and have ramped-up the difficulty of all the enemies (hence the enthrall spell), but it was easily the CRAZIEST fight I've GMed in my 20 years of playing!
Link: Start of encounter
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Well we ran the encounter last night! Man it was epic. The NPC's were captured so the party followed the trails in an attempt to find the cannibal camp. They arrived while it was raining, that night the cannibals would feast on their first victim.
There were 20 cannibals at the camp along with the big bosses. Most of the party stayed down a lot of the fight. If not for Jask and his channels it would have been a TPK. Jask did die in the fight though. He ran out to use another channel to keep the party going and was surrounded and killed.
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My pbp group took on the whole tribe at the base of Red Mountain, successfully predicting they would go to sacrifice the NPC's they had captured atop Red Mountain and that they would use the bridge to get there. Facing off against the entire tribe is a very difficult, but winnable encounter (I had scaled up the challenge as I have 6 players).
Jask and Sasha had been captured, so it was the PC's, Gelik, Ishorou, Aerys and Sasha's tamed dimorphodon versus the entire tribe.
Heres the surprise round setup- they let half the tribe cross the bridge (noting how they only came across one or two at a time) before launching an assault.
The battle is joined- Link
Klorax joins in while the PC's on the ridge manage to take down Malikadna over 100 feet away before her summoning spell is complete-
Klorax is hit by a successful cause fear spell, resulting in him taking a run action over the bridge at the same time as two cannibals cross. The melees still pretty intense-
The bridge promptly collapsed, sending two cannibals into the water while cutting off Klorax and a good half dozen cannibals from the fight. With bless, Gelik's inspire courage and the PC Bard's naturalist the cannibals are really feeling the hurt while struggling to dish it back.
This ended with the characters mopping up the remnants on their side, with not a single blow landed on a very smug Gelik who spent most of the combat duelling two or three cannibals at a time.
Klorax and his handful of survivors were still a very tough battle in the camp though; it helped that I spent most of his acquired wealth from greater level on a suit of magical chainmail (recovered from the Thrunefang and emblazoned with the symbol of house thrune). The players were both disturbed and worried when Klorax began dipping his hand in their fresh wounds and licking their blood.