I have been running my group through a particularly difficult and long module. Im about to reach a good spot for a pause in the action. I have provide several role play oportunities during this break in action where the characters can invest themselves in the area. One has aquired a noble title and authority in the surrounding lands. Another has found out that he is a reborn leader of a barbarian tribe (Think Rand from Wheel of Time) and will be doing more to strengthen his ties to them and his reborn past. They just cleared out a Church of Mystra that was in reality a church of Shar and now he has the duty to re establish it as a true church to his god.
All in all they have plenty of gold (Ive been giving alot of extra loot to help them rebuild and such) and a good in game 8 or 9 month stretch before the lure of the rest of the module takes off. They will have plenty to do but not much of it involves combat. My players like to roleplay however they get a little twitchy if they dont get in fights every so often. Im worried they will go looking for trouble if I dont give em thier fix so to speak.
So I have been thinking of doing something fun for them. They are now level 7 and will be level 8 soon. They have gained some fame as mighty heroes and I want to give them a chance to show off. I thought that I might have a large contengent of pirates attack the port city they have taken leadership in. Make them all level 1 or 2 and give them free leave to defeat them and send them packing. Another idea is a Keep that has been abandoned in the region. I had planned on making the fight hard because it will more then likely become thier base of operations, but having the keep over run with low level orcs that they can blast away would be ok too.
I just want to give my players a little taste becoming powerful individuals that people write stories about. Alot of my players dont feel powerful until they are in the high teens and I am trying to get them to realize that most NPC's in DnD dont break level 5. Just an Idea.
Have any of you done this? How did it work out. Any suggestions?
Absolutely. I try to throw out a cakewalk fight about as often as I throw out a boss fight(APL+4)
The best would be for them to enter a tournament, and most of the challengers would be a cake walk.
Let the sneaky types do some sneaky stuff on the side against level 1 commoners with a +1 perception.
On the battlefield, let the heros fight a group of level 1 warriors with a level 2 fighter leading them that got separated from the main battle.
Have someone at the local inn request they clear out a cave of kobolds that are plaguing the area. Have the cave be designed to be a challenge for a group of level 1-2 players.
Definitely. A fight isn't always just a fight; it's an opportunity to present the PCs with additional information they need to move ahead, or to introduce an NPC or group, to to provide access to an item they will need, or to foreshadow a future challenge.
You can also rope-a-dope the players; give them an easy battle so they don't take the full measure of a future foe.
You can use them as a means of attrition; weaken the PCs for another fight down the road.
Simple battles are a great tool for DMs, and often gratifying to the party, as well.
Of course! It gives the players a sense of accomplishment to beat some encounters easily. My favorite is the big nasty thing that gave the players trouble two sessions ago and which is APL -2 now. You can throw multiple at the players and scare the crap out of them. Then, when they don't immediately die, they'll say "Wow, look how badass we are!"
Absolutely, it terrifies my players.
Best thing ever is to follow it up with two empty rooms.
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Certainly,
Sometimes it's a good time for comic relief, nothing like a handful of goblins and a troll to demand a few coppers as toll from APL 13 PCs.
Sometimes it's just good to let a couple Players vent because the game has been pretty tough.
Sometimes it's good to let the PCs show off a bit.
Of course, those are how I design them, and I'll fudge a bit to keep the encounter fun, but sometimes the encounter doesn't go according to how I predicted it would -- and that's okay.
My job as DM is to provide a fun game. Mostly combat encounters of mine are suppose to be nearly deadly. And that's fun for the Players. But it's also fun to have an occassional easy fight and let off some steam.
I've used them in the past. If it adds to the story, and makes sense, then why not?
The danger of every fight being a grind is that eventually, they stop being entertaining. Make them feel like real heroes, but don't be afraid to throw them against insurmountable foes. especially if they're asking for it.
All of the above are very true; I throw in "easy" encounters on a regular basis, for pretty much all of the above reasons.
There's another good reason, especially in a long-running campaign - you can throw an encounter at the party that they've dealt with before (in my case it was a few wandering thunder worms that nearly wrecked them the first time they encountered them, but which were barely a nuisance later in the PC's career.
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Several of the posters above have already touched on the high points, but I'll add my bit to this as well;
I certainly throw 'easy' fights at my party every once in a while. Sometimes the party has been having a brutal time of it, and they need a little breathing room while still being engaged in the action. Sometimes they start to feel slightly less than heroic bad-arses [especially if they've been spending a lot of time socializing], and they need a reminder that they're still the big boys on the block . . . which may also lull them into a false sense of being even bigger bad-arses than they are, which makes the next big fight a bit of a wake-up call.
I like to think of the games I run in a cinematic manner, like episodes in a really compelling TV series. Sometimes the scene calls for a fight with a clutch of wyverns on a windswept cliff during a thunderstorm, and sometimes you need a gang of goblins armed with rusty knives rooting through the barn.
On the other end of the spectrum, sometimes the party needs to run from an angry ancient red dragon because they just ain't *that* awesome, yet. Might give them some incentive to come back in a dozen levels and try their luck again.
Thanks for all the responses! You have given me some good info and a new perspective about it.
Have someone at the local inn request they clear out a cave of kobolds that are plaguing the area. Have the cave be designed to be a challenge for a group of level 1-2 players.
I cant use Kobolds. First adventure the party went on was the Sunless Citadell. They became friends with the Kobolds who in that module are not evil. In fact they plan on finding a young gold dragon to "replace" the white dragon they saved for the kobolds lol.
I think I will use the Pirates idea. Its a small coastal city that is just now starting to see the PCs as heroes. This will give them a chance to add to that fame.
I like the idea of an encounter they should run from but from past experience as both a player and a DM... my group doesnt run from fights and usually blame a Party wipe on poor DMing. Id rather not see my entire party die rushing into a fight they cant win.
But again thanks and keep up the great ideas!
I like the idea of an encounter they should run from but from past experience as both a player and a DM... my group doesnt run from fights and usually blame a Party wipe on poor DMing. Id rather not see my entire party die rushing into a fight they cant win.
I find it critically important for story telling that the group occasionally, especially in the early levels (3 to 7), run into a few encounters that they simply cant beat or at least require outside the box thinking to defeat. In the latter case I will create encounters where the PCs have to use the environment or lure the enemy outside of its lair in order to neutralize an advantage, in the former I will give my characters every warning that they simply cant defeat the encounter starting with little hints and advancing even to the point of saying flat out in the second or third round of combat "this is me as the DM telling you that this guy will kill you and your need to find a way OUT of it"
If they still insist on fighting or fighting stupidly (as I have seen happen quite a few times) and they party wipe I would rather they learn the lesson than build a world in which the party magically never encounters a real threat.
of course if the group is simply a bunch of people who enjoy rolling dice and being "uber" then every one is entitled to play the game as they chose but I would rather just play WoW.
in other words I think a good GM has a curtain opportunity if not responsibility to enhance the players range of experience even to the point of killing them if they are unable to adapt.
having said all that... If they run in to a difficult encounter and look bound to die due to a few bad rolls or an ill conceived tactic I am not above fudging a few rolls to result in only 1 or two recoverable deaths.
Creative Director
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All the time. Easy fights, particularly at higher levels, are fun for players and help enforce the sensation and perception that they are indeed actually growing more powerful. If every fight is equally edge-of-the-seat difficult it gets old. You never get to revel in your power.
In fact, I often encourage authors to put easy fights into adventures they write for us. And often put IN easy encounters anyway when they don't.
I find if you go with all tough fights it leads to the players resting after each encounter and that gets old quick. Easy encounter encourage the group to continue while slowing eating away at their resources. Then they hit a tough enounter and it's more challenging. Then once the treasure is there and the XP rolls in they feel a sense of accomplishment as well they got to flex their muscles.
I am running "The Red Hand of Doom" (co-authored by James Jacobs). There is an early fight in that adventure against a green dragon. At 5th level, it was very tough and one PC died. The dragon survived the fight. I brought it back 4 levels later at the adventure's climax. The PCs were initially ready to run, but were gratified to learn that now, two PCs could take the dragon out on their own. Now they feel like badasses.
Now it's time for a bigger dragon...
Definitely. I like for the PC's to feel like heroes, and what's more heroic than mopping up bunches of bad guys?
One fight I pitted my PC group against run of the mill lizardfolk. The fire cleric launched a fireball into their midst (the lizardfolk were gathered outside of their cave/lair doing their daily chores) and nearly smoked them all in one shot. The remnants were picked apart although one dramatically escaped inside (to warn the other tribe members, naturally). It got the planned encounter off to a fun start for the PC's. They really felt powerful.
Just last session my band of 6 PC's were set to take on a small bandit army. I ignored the bulk of the bandits since they were essentially level 1 commoners and not a threat to the level 8 PC's. The planned encounters were for:
a) 2 squads of "trained" bandits (8 level 2 phalanx fighters with tower shields, 6 level 2 polearm fighters with longspears, and 2 level 2 bard squad leaders with bows) to slow down the PC's approach to the bandit camp
b) 6 lieutenants (each a different level 7 PC class, CR 6 individually but altogether an EL 11 or APL +2)
c) 1 leader and his 2 allies (EL 10)
The PC's got to engage and dismantle the trained bandits while the lieutenants prepped and the leader took to the air to observe from above. The relatively easy fight got things off to a good start. The lieutenant fight was another story altogether...
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Have any of you done this? How did it work out. Any suggestions?
I would say that most of the encounters I put my players in are 'easy' ones. It makes it that much fun when the fighter can cut down enemies in a single swing, and the wizard can wipe out a squad with one fireball. Players like feeling empowered.
And it makes the situation that much more exciting when the fighter hits an opponent and remains standing.
My players are deathly afraid of dragons. Because every encounter with a dragon has been a knock-down-drag-out struggle to survive. And the reason this has worked is they have only fought two dragons so far. And they know there are others in the area they may have to fight. If they were struggling to take out the highway bandits, there would be little contrast to the dragons. Constant tension wears out the line.
I recall twice putting the party against the same enemies they had fought levels ago.
The first were gnoll archers that had harried the party with arrows before melting away into the forest. The second encounter, the bard dimension doored the fighters right behind the archers. Never knew what hit them.
Later, their temple was assaulted by the enemy thieves guild that had been antagonizing the party the entire campaign. The cleric walked in, cast mass inflict, and half of their foes keeled over dead. The rest didn't last much longer.
It makes the players feel like kings when they overwhelm foes that used to be deadly threats. I highly recommend it.
All the time. Easy fights, particularly at higher levels, are fun for players and help enforce the sensation and perception that they are indeed actually growing more powerful. If every fight is equally edge-of-the-seat difficult it gets old. You never get to revel in your power.
What he said.
I've even started using minion-esqe rules a little bit to do it (although, my minions have more than 1 hit point - they just have minimum hit points) to help reinforce the superiority of their second string fighters and cohorts even over mid-range opponents.
Yeah. Because sometimes a hero needs to feel truly heroic. I also find that Easy encounters allow my players to try new tactics or use a feat and or skill that they might not use if they were fighting something where every swing/spell counts. A group of rabid gnolls charging a level seven barbarian is the perfect opportunity to use dazzling display and feel totally bad$%^.
