I have been running a game of Kingmaker for months now, and my players have grown quite attached to their characters. Here they are:
Susquehanna: Dwarf Monk 13
Praedja: Aasimar Fighter 13
Inki: Human Sorceress 13
- Inki has the leadership feat and thereby has Bosco, half-orc Rogue 11 as a cohort/bodyguard
Jyoti: Garuda Wizard 12/Arcane Archer 1 (and yes I know garuda are LA +1, I wanted to make this guy competitive with the rest of the group)
They absolutely stomp all of the BBEG's. I build up to these fights and they barely last a round or two. They're getting arrogant and snide. The Ring of Freedom of Movement on the monk is especially irritating.
They have kept their kingdom small and have gone the magic item economy route, so their kingdom has no unrest and tons of money. I tried to send the Tusker Raiders at their town (with a storm giant leader controlling the weather to mask their approach) and Jyoti set up a wall of fire, then they one-round-killed the storm giant and started laying waste to 50 hill giants on 50 mastodons.
The fighter and the monk charge at any enemy while the casters decimate from a distance.
I understand that most combats with trash mobs last a round or two, and BBEG's maybe make it 4 or 5 rounds, but I at least want to whittle them down and get them worried about death (I've killed the sorceress twice and the monk once) but even then they have teleport to get out of a dire situation.
The sorceress crammed the Occulus of Abaddon into her eye socket (she was Lawful Evil anyway) and uses it to scry on enemies and teleport to them and kill them at their most vulnerable. I am going to start War of the River Kings soon, and I want for there to be a real challenge, some real hatred for King Irovetti, not just a dutiful murder since he's the obvious BBEG.
I don't have time to upload their stats or anything. Any general hints on how to make them quake in their boots and feel mortal for a second without being cheap?
I have been running a game of Kingmaker for months now, and my players have grown quite attached to their characters. Here they are:
Susquehanna: Dwarf Monk 13
Praedja: Aasimar Fighter 13
Inki: Human Sorceress 13
- Inki has the leadership feat and thereby has Bosco, half-orc Rogue 11 as a cohort/bodyguard
Jyoti: Garuda Wizard 12/Arcane Archer 1 (and yes I know garuda are LA +1, I wanted to make this guy competitive with the rest of the group)They absolutely stomp all of the BBEG's. I build up to these fights and they barely last a round or two. They're getting arrogant and snide. The Ring of Freedom of Movement on the monk is especially irritating.
They have kept their kingdom small and have gone the magic item economy route, so their kingdom has no unrest and tons of money. I tried to send the Tusker Raiders at their town (with a storm giant leader controlling the weather to mask their approach) and Jyoti set up a wall of fire, then they one-round-killed the storm giant and started laying waste to 50 hill giants on 50 mastodons.
The fighter and the monk charge at any enemy while the casters decimate from a distance.
I understand that most combats with trash mobs last a round or two, and BBEG's maybe make it 4 or 5 rounds, but I at least want to whittle them down and get them worried about death (I've killed the sorceress twice and the monk once) but even then they have teleport to get out of a dire situation.
The sorceress crammed the Occulus of Abaddon into her eye socket (she was Lawful Evil anyway) and uses it to scry on enemies and teleport to them and kill them at their most vulnerable. I am going to start War of the River Kings soon, and I want for there to be a real challenge, some real hatred for King Irovetti, not just a dutiful murder since he's the obvious BBEG.
I don't have time to upload their stats or anything. Any general hints on how to make them quake in their boots and feel mortal for a second without being cheap?
What are their approximate stats(attack bonus, favorite feats, spells and DC of spell, saves)?
What are their tactics?What house rules do you have in play?
Give us an example of a boss getting his butt kicked.
edit:I should not have been skim reading, sorry about that.
As far as charging dont have a clear path to the BBEG. You may have to give the bad guys mooks to block the path to them. Beefing up the bad guys may also be an option.
I don't use solo BBEG's. Economy action(number of actions per round) is heavily in the party's favor if you I do.
Anything they can do, you can do better.
Just make exact copies of their characters (adjust how they look for effect) and throw in some henchmen. How can they not be challenged by themselves?
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1) I don't know how many times I have pointed out that on these boards, but RAW you can't teleport to a scryed location unless you know where that location is.
Seeing a small piece of a room normally don't give any indication of where that room is.
You must have some clear idea of the location and layout of the destination. The clearer your mental image, the more likely the teleportation works. Areas of strong physical or magical energy may make teleportation more hazardous or even impossible.
So scry and fry work only if you already know the target location.
2) Use some ability damage and drain, none of those guys can heal it on the spot.
Anything they can do, you can do better.
Just make exact copies of their characters (adjust how they look for effect) and throw in some henchmen. How can they not be challenged by themselves?
At some point they will encounter a mirror of opposition. Probably in Thousandbreaths.
I don't have time to upload their stats now but here's an overview.
The monk has many magic items that buff him (thankfully we've decided to not allow Monk's Robes into the game, being that they let him do 4 levels' more damage on unarmed attacks) and usually just flurry-of-blows everything to death. He is usually enlarged by the sorceress.
The fighter has a mercurial greatsword and is usually enlarged by the sorceress as well.
The Sorceress loves disintegrate, fireball, chain lightning, usually metamagic'd.
The Wizard/Arane archer is an evoker too, and stays out of the fray and hurls arrows and spells into combat.
These are their general tactics. We've been playing 3rd edition for 11 years, so we're pretty good at this.
Mmmm. How's their Wealth by Level? too much gear?
She's playing a blaster mage and you're having problems?
50 hill giants throw 50 Large Javelins at x character. if 20% of them hit, that's still 115 damage, which should give pause to any 13th level character.
If it's at the point where the enemy can't hit them, that's a different story. That means they are fighting stuff below CR, the enemy should know it, and adjust tactics accordingly. Greater Vital Strike and the like work wonders if the enemy only gets off one attack on something...they will hit REALLY hard.
Monk's robes mean he will do 2-3 more points on average hitting. They are not a problem, and they cost 30k, right?
What's the monk's AC? a Group of Hill Giants is below CR, but if they have levels, they could potentially stomp him in one round.
==Aelryinth
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So you are playing 3.X with how many of Pathfinder rules in a Pathfinder AP?
Or how many 3.x rules in Patfhinder?
So far I have noticed a unknown race, the mercurial sword and a arcane archer without elf blood.
Where have you taken your giant stats? 3.x or Pathfinder?
How many metamagic rods? Swapping them every round? Quick draw don't work on them, only on the weapon like rods.
I don't have time to upload their stats now but here's an overview.
The monk has many magic items that buff him (thankfully we've decided to not allow Monk's Robes into the game, being that they let him do 4 levels' more damage on unarmed attacks) and usually just flurry-of-blows everything to death. He is usually enlarged by the sorceress.
The fighter has a mercurial greatsword and is usually enlarged by the sorceress as well.
The Sorceress loves disintegrate, fireball, chain lightning, usually metamagic'd.
The Wizard/Arane archer is an evoker too, and stays out of the fray and hurls arrows and spells into combat.
These are their general tactics. We've been playing 3rd edition for 11 years, so we're pretty good at this.
Enlarge person is a full round action. If the bad guys win initiative why aren't they disrupting the caster? Since the sorcerer has to cast enlarge person twice even if init is lost one of thus enlarge person should be disrupted assuming ranged attacks are available.
If they like to use blasting why has this not been reported to the higher ups? I always have a bad guy run away to report tactics? The ability to fly/teleport to the rear of the party should start to be a common option so you can visit the squishes.If the monk is hitting everything then buff the bad guys. The monsters using their treasure is not part of its CR, but you can't use stock monsters against optimized PC's.
My group has been having, sadly, very little problems with Kingmaker as well. The Stag Lord fight was pitiful, dragging on to an uneventful death without a successful attack; I had reinforced the Owlbear with giant spiders as backup and he still dropped party into the second round.
Party setup level 8:
Human [Two-Weapon Warrior] Fighter, crit-build
Human Druid -- Allosaurus preferred
* Big Cat animal companion
Human Cleric (Liberation, Healing) mounted charger
* Rhino animal companion a la Leadership
Elven Conjuror Wizard, Teleportation subschool. Two item creation feats.
Gnome Rogue sniper -- sadly underpowered compared to party.
The group has high stats, so I tend to modify monsters with a free Advanced template so they are as above average as the party is; and I add +1 hit die because of the extra party member. Having a fifth player does not do nothing for your party strength, even if the rules say you don't count party level as +1 until your sixth player.
Because my party also has the three most powerful casters in the game who can blow through their entire character resources in a single fight and not have to worry about fighting more monsters later that day (which the book recommends, and our group agrees with) I also give the monsters +2 hit dice for single hex locations.
After that, I tend to switch out feats for monsters (and also add in feats gained from hit dice, which means anywhere from 0 to 2 new feats). This is the point where the monsters tend to get a lot of Toughness, Weapon Focus, Ability Focus, sometimes combat maneuver trees. Sadly, new books don't increase the power of my monsters nearly as much as they increase the power of the party, which only furthers my problem.
I audit character sheets every several levels and keep abreast of rule changes and clarifications. Some characters are even unintentionally low-powered when I check them.
With those modifications, the party has an adequate time against monsters, if not an outright easy one.
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@ troubleshooting
You are playing with a 5 man party plus one animal companion and a conjurer.
I would suggest that it would be a good idea for you to look the 6 man party conversion. Advancing the monsters work but it don't increase the number of actions they can do, so the action advantage is clearly on your party side.
Brodie:
One (or several) encounter idea(s):
Advanced shambling mounds (two) with maximized (or if you're really nasty maximized and empowered, as that doesn't up the CR) awakened advanced swarms inside them (four each) with hive minds, all of which have class levels. All this could be initiated with an appropriately powerful cleric of nature. If you really want to make it nasty, make them monsters of legend.
The shambling mounds are rangers with favored enemy human and favored enemy whatever the area of the stolen lands you want to be affected is affected.
Two swarms are sorcerers.
--> damage and transportation
Two swarms are druids.
--> battlefield control; lots of it
Two swarms are bards.
--> buffs and debuffs
Two swarms are inquisitors and/or alchemists.
--> also buffs and debuffs
shambling mounds (base CR 6)
Combat role, so about 5 levels of ranger = CR 11 each (CR 13 together)
with swarms, that increase the CR by two, if I recall (they already faced something similar in the owlbear's cave - I don't know for sure, as I was a player, but I'd figure +2) changing that from 11 to 13, or total of 15 - a CR assault well within range of their level. Swarms are combat role monsters, so our only job with the rules is making sure we don't up the CR much individually.
Let's make them centipede swarms (a much lower CR than the shambling mounds as a base, but great hit dice). We can pop up to its hit dice as class levels in "non-associate" without harming ourselves too much, so let's bring 'em up to 9th level casters, for a total increase of +4 or a total CR of 8. We can grant them two additional levels at +1 CR each for a total bump to 10. This should, I think by RAW leave the CR of the mounds at only a +2, since they're still below the mounds, and especially since the swarms won't ever be leaving their "mounts".
The strategy:
1) The swarms buff themselves v. their weaknesses (namely area-of-effect) and zone of invisibility.
2) The swarms 'port the lot in; create a field of private sanctum outside the castle near, in, or around an open area of the capital, buffs (blur, blinking, etc) and the like; set up zones walls of stone and walls of force and muddy fields with stone spikes under the mud (the mud is a distraction, leaving the over-confident charging monk to run into spikes hidden beneath via stone shape... spikes that have already been set against charging for double damage). The players have no reason to know this is going on, especially if the crew pops into town early pre-dawn when most non-farmers are still sleepy, the dark is still there, and the like. A nice one-use scroll (that they use up) setting up a mirage arcana can make a non-critical but near-by location look terribly unimportant while they finish their buffs (and private sanctum means no scrying or seeing in, but does not, in any way, prevent their seeing out). If they have items at all, it should probably only be a few one-use items (like the scrolls) which they use to set this up, and a few rods of cancellation to help curb the nasty side effects of all the magic items, two bags of holding and a portable hole which is placed on the ground, open... just in case.
3) The critters begin making a ruckus, generally using long-range destructive spells to cause problems for the town. This will, of course, alert the heroes who need to see what's going down. This will cause all sorts of high-end checks as the city is ravaged by high-level spell-casters who target specific structures. Especially if a botfly swarm dropping sympathetic vibration (especially if it's by nearly-unidentifiable magic items (due to being adjusted for swarms to wear) and, if the swarm is a bard it's use of suggestion or mass suggestion to turn people into vandals (but not murderers), primarily of magic items, but also of buildings, structures, and the like. This will attract the attention of your players. Lead them back to the "normal" area via paths of destruction where apparently nothing is happening. Let them discover that things are wrong, probably dispel the illusion, and launch the assault, only to have their mightiest assaults either rendered moot or immune
4) The mounds take the majority of the damage (shrugging off much of the casters' best ruinous effects) while the swarms hide inside dropping numerous walls of force on the other side of the melee-users (two swarms could drop the walls - that's more than one disentigrating caster can keep up with), and walls make battlefield maneuverability tricky. With the way the area's been modified your characters no long know it well (if they ever did), thus TP is a no-go. Wind-walls and other walls ensure that targeting is difficult-to-impossible, while the melee guys suddenly need to deal with enemies who are far more interested in annihilating their items (and dispelling their enlargements) than fighting them. Once enough damage is done, the foes 'port out... to another private sanctum they knew about well in advance. The portable hole is a nice, last-minute just-in-case. Either mound can drop the bag of holding in it for good times, but they grab it when they leave if they do well enough.
5) Leave your characters wondering what just happened.
A treant (possibly with gestalted levels and/or the 3PP eternal template) would be a great "distant leader" who could keep creating and sending these things as much as needed to pacify the foe.
The story: their focus on (and overproduction of) magic item economy focus has started to cause serious imbalance with nature, especially given the amount of First World energies are humming around. This ancient crew of world-protectors slumbers, awakening only when they feel a strange confluence of arcane and natural energies that threatens the balance. They don't know any details, but know the PCs actions (after divination) are partly responsible, so they set out to correct it. The first raid is mostly just a trial run to see what's causing these disturbances. Careful use of magic circle against evil, holy aura, dismissal, and private sanctum negate much of the eye's power.
The cockroach swarm and the army ant swarms are both valid choices on either side of the CR fence (and botflies for fliers, but I think the centipede jives the best with our target CR. Check out monster roles and monster advancement, templates, and the like. Fey touched might be a nice thematic template, if you have CR to spare in your builds.
Other fun possibilities: a miniscule awakened bard-bird (or just a shapeshifter) with a bird-sized leather ring of sympathetic vibrations (at will) and another of mind-blank (bye-bye scry!). Similar story as above. Or perhaps they're all related. In any event, the bird (or other creature) goes from place to place at random and sets up sympathetic vibrations (and/or earthquakes) that completely devastate the city. Suddenly having all their eggs in one (or two) baskets wasn't such a good idea. If, on the other hand, they've got multiple cities... well, level the others flat. Since the PCs are evil, have these guys be good - lots of mass suggestion to get people out of there (and throw away their "cursed" magic items!) There's no way, aside from metagaming, that the PCs can know what's going on in all their cities at once. Unless they're me, but from what you said, I seriously don't think so.
BfB (Book 4) has some fairly easy cake-walks, but as it sounds like you're already through it, there's not much point in discussing upping that.
War of the River Kings, however, you're starting, so...
I'd change around a couple of the baddies. And look into Nelson's original write-up, as it has some nastiness to it that could help. Maybe give the Pitaxian King some additional advisers. Jurg<sp> is another change up you could look into, if not I_ himself.
Speaking of the
Scrying can be a problem, but only if they know enough and the baddies haven't taken steps to prevent it. Take those steps!
Lastly? If all else fails, let 'em have book 5 and work on book 6. They'll be completely unprepared for the madness and the difficulty ramp...
(Oh, and if you want more particulars, just ask.)
Be sure to take a look at the 6 player conversion and Turin the Mad´s Pitax built-up in this sub-forum. That should give your players pause.
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Swarm Bard, Inquisitor, and Alchemist? Powerful, maybe. Ridiculous, definitely. As a player, I'd find this head-scratchingly weird and probably wouldn't play much longer.
Try using some illusions to buy some time or cause the players to waste spells and resources. Then wait for buffs to run out before sending a wave of fodder that looks impressive - Hill Giants with a defensive leader of some kind. Perhaps a frost giant with cleric levels. Have the leader retreat back to hidden reinforcements when the battle is engaged and wait out buffs again. Then attack with the true threat, maybe mixed with some earth elementals with silence spells that can earth glide behind the party to grapple the casters. Mix this tactic up a little and the players will think twice about using resources and spells so casually.
1) I don't know how many times I have pointed out that on these boards, but RAW you can't teleport to a scryed location unless you know where that location is.
Seeing a small piece of a room normally don't give any indication of where that room is.You must have some clear idea of the location and layout of the destination. The clearer your mental image, the more likely the teleportation works. Areas of strong physical or magical energy may make teleportation more hazardous or even impossible.So scry and fry work only if you already know the target location.
2) Use some ability damage and drain, none of those guys can heal it on the spot.
Uh? Sorry, but you are completly wrong on this. In fact teleport has specific note about scrying the intended destination:
Familiarity: “Very familiar” is a place where you have been very often and where you feel at home. “Studied carefully” is a place you know well, either because you can currently physically see it or you've been there often. “Seen casually” is a place that you have seen more than once but with which you are not very familiar. “Viewed once” is a place that you have seen once, possibly using magic such as scrying.
Scrying and teleporting is a viable tactic that is supported by rules.
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1) I don't know how many times I have pointed out that on these boards, but RAW you can't teleport to a scryed location unless you know where that location is.
Seeing a small piece of a room normally don't give any indication of where that room is.You must have some clear idea of the location and layout of the destination. The clearer your mental image, the more likely the teleportation works. Areas of strong physical or magical energy may make teleportation more hazardous or even impossible.So scry and fry work only if you already know the target location.
2) Use some ability damage and drain, none of those guys can heal it on the spot.
Uh? Sorry, but you are completly wrong on this. In fact teleport has specific note about scrying the intended destination:
Familiarity: “Very familiar” is a place where you have been very often and where you feel at home. “Studied carefully” is a place you know well, either because you can currently physically see it or you've been there often. “Seen casually” is a place that you have seen more than once but with which you are not very familiar. “Viewed once” is a place that you have seen once, possibly using magic such as scrying.Scrying and teleporting is a viable tactic that is supported by rules.
No Drejk, it work if you have an idea of where is the location that you have scried, i.e. you scry me in my room and you know I live in Absalon.
If you are wrong and I am in a different city you will not teleport to me simply because you have seen a piece of my study.The spell is very clear about that. Scrying cover knowing the layout of the destination, but not the location part. You should satisfy both requirements, not only one.
RAW does say location and layout.
I propose we start a new thread (EDIT: ) about the meaning of "You must have some clear idea of the location and layout of the destination." which is quite unclear in itself. Especially the "some clear idea" part which is so vague statement that it means little. For me "have some clear idea of the location" is nowhere close to "you must know where the location is to be able to teleport there".
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Throw out the CR rules.
Seriously, just chuck them. At 13th level, they're getting imprecise anyway, and you've already undermined their limited utility by allowing a monster race PC, and by playing kingmaker.
Monster race PC: Level adjustment was removed from Pathfinder for a reason. It was making CR completely unreliable. There is no such thing as a Garuda PC by RAW — the bestiary sidebar says "characters" but it means "non-player characters" or any monster that advances through class levels. NO PCs. You're not totally screwed by allowing a Garuda PC< but you need to understand you've taken a step away from functional CR. One step away from functional CR is usually okay. But...
Kingmaker: The Kingmaker adventure path pretty much obviates one of the central CR assumptions, that the players will with some frequency face multiple consecutive encounters at the same site. Varnhold and some of the dungeons are an exception, but depending on how you handled XP the players might be overcompetant by that point. If you want to challenge the players with isolated encounters, you need to balance those encounters for the PCs at full strength. That means sending them to the regions that are APL +2 or more.
Player competence and character wealth also interact with CR... but I'm not even going to ask you about those because Monster race allowance and Kingmaker alone are enough to make CR worthless. Hell, Kingmaker alone is.
But all is not lost. Functional CR balance is a luxury. If you're running a 13th level sandbox campaign, you're a good enough GM to eyeball it. Eyeballing has distinct advantages over CR, mainly, you can tailor the threats to your party's strengths and weaknesses. You need to be impartial. You're not trying to "teach them a lesson" just because they haven't been challenged. You're trying to get the game functional.
You can still use CR as a good measure of comparative power between monsters. It's fine for that. But avail yourself of the notion that CR will help you balance encounters. Every time you throw out one of the key assumptions (WBL, Party Size, Player Competence, GM Competence, Ability Scores, Encounter Sites) CR gets less and less accurate, to the point of irrelevance.