I have a party of six level 12 characters. The party make up is a Paladin, an Archer Rogue, a Word Sorcerer, a Soulknife, an Inquisitor and a dodge tank made up of Ranger 9, Rogue 2, Monk 1. I am currently having trouble trying to find types of combats to challenge them. It is not enough of a challenge because the Paladin isn't even having to use smite evil in epic level CR combats for the party.
The paladin has a Cloak of minor displacement and a 34 Ac which make it incredibly hard to hit. The character is doing 25-30 per swing and that is without critically or using smite evil. So what I want to know is if anyone has suggestions on how to stop such a character. High AC, High Saves, Swift action self heals, Highest damage dealer in the party.
Currently I don't think it is a problem that is making the game not fun for the other players though it is hard to find combats that do any damage to the Paladin, Dodge Tank, or Soulknife. All of their ACs are over 30.
So my question is does anyone have some advice on how to challenge these characters without blasting the Rogue, Sorcerer, and Inquisitor into a million pieces?
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Neutral Spell Casters come to mind. Puzzles, investigation encounters, perhaps a few more encounters in a day if you must run combat. More smaller opponents rather then one huge evil thing.
Role-playing, etc. Give them things to dot hat don't involve slaying things, maybe they have to capture some dangerous folks.
Someone with detect good and smite good, who wants to go after the paladin, can be as tough as you like without much threatening the rest of the party.
See the thing is that when it does come down to encounters the paladin and the other two are still incredibly hard to hit. As well as the fact that the paladin is still swinging up to 105 damage without a single critical hit or even using smite evil.
Normally the go-to way to handle this sort of thing is to go for the character's weak saves, but that's tougher here because it's a paladin (and I'm guessing that the RRM's saves are pretty solid as well.) Depending on the party's flight situation, encounters with flying enemies are likely to favor the half of your party that isn't getting to shine as much. Difficult terrain can also make fights more interesting for melee classes. Also, unless it's some kind of dervish paladin, touch attacks should have a dramatically easier time hitting it than conventional attacks, so look for monsters that use those.
Another thing that might work, depending on party dynamics, is to go ahead and just run harder encounters, where the front-liners have to protect the back row. Not only does this allow you to use monsters that can hit the front-liners, but it gives them another thing to worry about.
You can also just give the lagging party members better treasure for a while to help them catch up, while making encounters harder.
EDIT: Against the dodge tank, try invisible stuff. You're denied your dex bonus to AC against things like that.
A group of Shining Children could be a way.
They greater teleport (at will) in, and get a surprise round. During surprise round 3 of them use Wall of Force (3/day) to hem in the party and use a free action to activate their Blinding Light Aura (Fort DC 25 or permanent blindness). The save won't be that tough to make, but they'll have to save against each one (the more the better), so there's the chance of a natural 1. On the first round they fly up and away 50 ft. and use their Searing Ray (+19 ranged touch, bypasses all DR). Yes their evil outsiders, but it'll take the paladin a few rounds to catch them since he can't fly and needs someone else to use an action to do so. These guys aren't terrible by themselves, but they have definite strength in numbers.
How in the world did the paladin managed such an AC? Is he a sword and board paladin?
The cloak of minor displacement means lower saves.
We could really use the way the others are build and fight (other than the archer rogue and the sorcerer)
A wizard using Marionette Possession on a duped but innocent patsy, where the Paladin knows the patsy is innocent.
A member of a LN or LG-ish church that wants to commit genocide against a group of goblins / infidels.
A disease that causes townspeople to rage and attack everyone around them indiscriminately, that lasts a little longer with each new case.
Any encounter where combat just makes things worse. Of course, if you haven't used one of those before, definitely give your players some kind of warning. "Gotcha" paladin moments are very frustrating if the player is caught unaware.
PC combat maneuver defense is generally lower than PC armor class.
Our DM recently had a joyous field day with some giants using Awesome Blow against us. We're happy (hey, at least it isn't full attacks with keen gargantuan greatswords), he's happy (he hits) and the combats are hilarious (gnomes flying all over the place).
@leo That AC seems reasonable for dex-based sword&board paladin with a great shield and celestial armor. I have a 15th level such PC with an AC of 34, and although my damage is puny when not smiting, I sort of did that on purpose. (Giantbane instead of agile, TWF, and a sized small rapier.)
@Leo1925- Yes the Paladin is sword and board. The Soulknife is melee and has a cohort who heals and the Inquisitor is melee though defers to spells for buffs and debuffs often and has a wizard cohort himself. The thing is my party has A LOT of melee characters.
@ I'M INCREDIBLE!- That is a good idea.
Flying creatures are something that has stumped them in the past though flying creatures that are strong enough to challenge them is the trick.
I have been debating using more combat maneuvers against them though the trick is that the two of them (Paladin and RRM) are quite tough to use maneuvers on considering one has a lot of strength and the other is completely Dex based. Stopping the RRM is a matter of invisible opponents and darkness which Joyd suggested.
Touch attack no-save spells. Saves and armor won't help.
Nemesis targeting him specifically. Say an antipaldin archer that runs away after a few dibilitating hits from long range on his flying mount. Then comes back later. Rinse and repeat. Paladin should find it aggravating and then satisfying when he finally takes it down.
Flying or otherwise highly mobile opponents to keep paladin from getting multiple attacks.
One I particually like is changing priority. The paladin specifically gets a job from his church to keep the patriarch's nephew allive. He's not supposed to do the job for him. He's supposed to keep the nephew allive while he does the job. It could even be another paladin just not a very good one or very bright one. He will need to use aid another. Stop the flankers rather than taking out the BBEG himself. Chase after the idiot that charges into a bad location. Heal the idiot when he gets hurt. Drag himout when he gets incapacitated. Etc...
One thing that I have found in the past to deal with situations like this....is using multiple monsters vs. one or two bigger ones. The front line guys can only concentrate on one or two at most....so if you use a group of like 4 Cloud Giants, you might have better luck. At "morningstar +22/+17/+12 (4d6+18)", they should hit your players. With rock throwing at +12, you can even weaken them some on the way in.
Remember, a CR is supposed to be for 4 players. You already have 6. That alone will require you to up the monster level/count.
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Try different terrain or other environmental factors, such as wind or fog. Underwater combat is good too, especially against swimming enemies.
Combat maneuvers might be good, what are their CMD's like?
Low CR minions are a great way of controlling action economy without risking a TPK. Even a lowly level one commoner has to be hit at least once to be killed, and enough of them can really get in the way.
If all else fails use Dragons. Lots and lots of Dragons.
Lots of useful mooks.
For example like 4th level NPC bards. They CR 3 and pretty much useless on their own but in a group they can add to the challenge of a high level fight. Have them casting concentrated sound bursts. Take any CR 14 encounter and add 16 bards (CR11).
CR 14: BBEG (38,400)
CR 11: 16 Bards, Cleric, Oracle (12800)
CR 15 Encounter (51,200)
1D8 and save or be stunned for round looks wimpy but 16D8 and 16 DC 14 Fortitude saves, that's much more dangerous when you have CR 14 bad guy stalking around as well.
So the key is look for mooks who can actually do something, something minor that one on one is useless but concentrate them and BAM! About what CR 11 monster would do but spread out over 16 individuals. They can be much harder to get rid of if you spread them out.
@Leo1925- Yes the Paladin is sword and board. The Soulknife is melee and has a cohort who heals and the Inquisitor is melee though defers to spells for buffs and debuffs often and has a wizard cohort himself. The thing is my party has A LOT of melee characters.
@ I'M INCREDIBLE!- That is a good idea.
Flying creatures are something that has stumped them in the past though flying creatures that are strong enough to challenge them is the trick.
If the paladin carries his shield just for the AC then his damage should be laughable, if he uses it as a weapon then he has pays his dues for the things he does now (it's very painful to make and play for a lot of level a twf shield paladin). I don't know squat about the soulknife so i can't offer anything here. Ban leadership, 6 players and two cohorts are WAY too much IMO. Throw wizards in your encounters. Multiple enemies or even better enemy parties but be aware that too many enemy parties tend to make your players overequiped.
What Mercies does the Paladin have? If he can't remove Fatigue/Exhaustion, Ray of Exhaustion can be useful. It's only a 3rd level spell and hitting the Paladin twice with it automatically makes him Exhausted. Adding a 6th level Sorcerer to an encounter should barely modify the CR for a party of 6 12th level characters.
Add in an opponent with some mobility and suddenly the exhausted Paladin is constantly playing catch up for the encounter.
Ray of Enfeeblement (no save) is useful as well, reduces the Paladins attack and damage.
Enervation is another great spell if they have low touch AC's and makes them all around more vulnerable.
An Adult Red Dragon (CR 14) with a Sorcerer 12 (CR 11) is within budget for a CR 15 encounter. If the party isn't very good at dealing with flying opponents, the Sorcerer stays mounted on the dragon while they do periodic fly-by's. Once the dragon is confident the party is weakened some he lands, while the sorcerer takes off on his own. The sorcerer focuses on debuffing the party and adds a few extra buffs to the dragon.
Haste (the dragon can cast it) plus Greater Heroism from the Sorcerer gives the dragon a +30 to attack with his bite and claws.
@Irontruth
The ray of enfeeblement got hit with the nerfbat in PF so i recommend against using this spell.
@Hecknoshow- Their CMD's are all pretty good. Against a giant trying to grapple or disarm them maybe the paladin or RRM would fail though overall they all are quite shored up on defenses. See I have a hesitation on using dragons because i have actually about 0% luck at getting them to really make a difference against the party. If they are evil the paladin does double paladin level when smiting.
@voska66- That is a truly terrifying combat. That is along the lines of what I need though the BBEG having a literal swarm of bards is unlikely without a quite large explanation.
Though this is all really good stuff I will take into thought because I have been struggling on how to fix this issue for six or so months. To do a small recap of ideas.
*Invisible opponents
*Touch Attacks
*Antipaladins
*Terrain
*Minions
@Leo- The damage the Paladin deals is up to a max of 105 a round without a single critical hit or even using smite. The damage is not really laughable considering the weapon used is holy so anything with DR x/Good is taking full damage.
@Leo- The damage the Paladin deals is up to a max of 105 a round without a single critical hit or even using smite. The damage is not really laughable considering the weapon used is holy so anything with DR x/Good is taking full damage.
First of all the paladin's smite does paladin level x2 extra damage on evil dragon, undead and evil outsiders only in the first attack, then it reverts back to paladin levels in damage.
About the damage of the paladin, i suppose you mean in a full attack. That means that he uses his shield for attacking and that means that he has pained himself in order to make it to 12th level with that build. If he doesn't use his shield to attack then how in the world he does have a DPR of 105 when full attacking with one one-handed weapon without using smite?
@Leo- Yes in a fullround attack just using the shield as AC the paladin swings at max 35 per hit. With three attacks per round. Wielding a +5 Holy Longsword (1d8+15+2d6). This is if the creature is evil though The party chipped in and got the Paladin a second weapon (+1 Brilliant axiomatic longsword). So even against no evil the paladin does significant damage. The character also has the Improved Critical feat with longswords. So This is where that damage is coming from.
@Irontruth- I forgot most of those spells don't have saves. I will have to use some of those.
Non-combat encounters.
@Gishjunkie- The party has lost people over time and when that happens gear falls into the hands of the party that normally wouldn't. Though you have a valid point.
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I have a Paladin in my group (although much lower AC) and what I've found out is that bigger groups of lower level tend to make for much more interesting encounters with him. Also as some others have pointed out, combat maneuvers and an interesting disposition of terrain may make the encounters more challenging
use sunder, theft, tax's etc to get the wealth by level back down or add extra/ higher CR enemies to balance it out.
When you say lost people did they die? If so why are the party members automatically hanging on to the equipment. A paladin at least should understand property rights why didn't they go to that characters family, church, backing organization, creditors or possibly even buried with them? The party should have at least provided a decent reimbursement to those agencies if they felt the equipment was vital to their mission. If the characters just left the party why did they just leave their stuff behind?
If overabundance of equipment is the problem try a couple of the listed suggestions to pull it back some until they reach a little higher level. The next time they go into town and a representative of the courts comes up to them and expects a particular piece of equipment or a monetary reimbursement for the injured parties mentioned previously it will be an interesting role playing opportunity :)
What the others said, way too much money.
Also yes the damage is laughable compared to a two hander.
But in the end you must find a way to reduce the wealth they now have, i suggest you tell them to re-make their equipment with whatever wealth you want them to have.
Also an undead mook swarm. Hordes of Plague zombies with a JuJu Zombie sorcerer mixed in. You can have low HD zombies since they'll probably only fail the save on a 1 anyway. This means you can easily have over 30 zombies. Have the sorcerer open with waves of fatigue/exhaustion to limit action economy. For extra fun lower the number of Plague zombies and have their Death Burst be a Tick swarm. Distraction for the casters, auto damage for everyone, immune to weapon damage.
@Irontruth
The ray of enfeeblement got hit with the nerfbat in PF so i recommend against using this spell.
It did, but even minimum for a Sorcerer 12 is -3 Str. If you've already hit him with a minimum Enervation, Ray of Exhaustion twice (auto-Exhausted), that's a minimum of -5 to attack and damage, -3 AC, -1 to all saves and -4 to Reflex saves (remember, there's a dragon).
The point of the Sorcerer in this encounter is to be annoying and debuff the players. Make him as difficult to kill as possible and to go after him would mean ignoring the dragon. As long as the Sorcerer is mounted on the dragon, the dragon can just move him out of melee range, moving into range gives the dragon AoO.
To borrow a concept from another poster, the Sorcerer is being mind-controlled by the dragon (or some other evil-doer) and the party knows it. Heck, introduce the Sorcerer earlier as a potential ally, now the party is trying to rescue the Sorcerer from the dragon, he's just not making it easy.
Oh, and replace the dragon's Grease spell with Mage Armor, that plus Haste and Shield give him a 38 AC, that should slow the incoming damage a little bit.
You don't need to take away wealth, just stop giving them more things until they grow into what they have. I would talk to them, see how they feel about the difficulty of encounters and if they want a more challenging game, they will agree to leaner times in regards to loot for a while.
@Irontruth- Yeah taking away the wealth seems a touch too mean lol. It isn't really their fault so no need to punish them. i can just adjust treasure for the next two levels to be minimal till it works itself out.
This whole issue in itself currently hasn't caused the worst problem and that would be the other players not having fun. So until that happens I am not desperately worried about it. More of a preemptive way to fix this before that happens.
@Irontruth- Yeah taking away the wealth seems a touch too mean lol. It isn't really their fault so no need to punish them. i can just adjust treasure for the next two levels to be minimal till it works itself out.
This whole issue in itself currently hasn't caused the worst problem and that would be the other players not having fun. So until that happens I am not desperately worried about it. More of a preemptive way to fix this before that happens.
I disagree that it isn't their fault, they should know what they doing when they were keeping the gear but the no wealth for a couple of levels should do the trick.
What the others said, way too much money.
Also yes the damage is laughable compared to a two hander.
But in the end you must find a way to reduce the wealth they now have, i suggest you tell them to re-make their equipment with whatever wealth you want them to have.
I suggest you NOT do this for any reason.
Players will get upset if you take away their stuff.
If they've got more wealth than they should have, you can balance that by giving them less over the next level or two. But don't take away what they already have, they'll hate you for it.
Taking things away does not go well.
What the others said, way too much money.
Also yes the damage is laughable compared to a two hander.
But in the end you must find a way to reduce the wealth they now have, i suggest you tell them to re-make their equipment with whatever wealth you want them to have.I suggest you NOT do this for any reason.
Players will get upset if you take away their stuff.
If they've got more wealth than they should have, you can balance that by giving them less over the next level or two. But don't take away what they already have, they'll hate you for it.
It depends on how mature the players are, i have this being done to me 3 times, twice was because of crafting feats (after the remake they were banned) and once because of a miscalculation. If you can understand how the system works, want a challenge and don't want to make your DM's life even more difficult you accept it.
That is understandable though if I am already fine on the front of no player disputes there is no sense is doing that. I am just going to wean them of it for a few levels and the issue will fix itself. Taking away stuff from players will almost 100% of the time make people upset. It is easier to background fix it than heavy-hand it and actually do anything like that. Just makes more sense to let them get hit by bigger things for some time till their gear isn't making them breeze through any longer.
A cavalier can challenge a foe to combat.
It depends on how mature the players are, i have this being done to me 3 times, twice was because of crafting feats (after the remake they were banned) and once because of a miscalculation. If you can understand how the system works, want a challenge and don't want to make your DM's life even more difficult you accept it.What the others said, way too much money.
Also yes the damage is laughable compared to a two hander.
But in the end you must find a way to reduce the wealth they now have, i suggest you tell them to re-make their equipment with whatever wealth you want them to have.I suggest you NOT do this for any reason.
Players will get upset if you take away their stuff.
If they've got more wealth than they should have, you can balance that by giving them less over the next level or two. But don't take away what they already have, they'll hate you for it.
Alright, fair enough. How about "most players will get upset about it" then?
@Petty Alchemy- A party of Neutral Cavaliers to challenge each party member away from the others could provide an interesting and testing combat. I like it.
Thanks again everyone. You have been most helpful. Sometimes you just run into the blocks where you are missing the obvious by being so close to it lol.
Alright, fair enough. How about "most players will get upset about it" then?
I see that now, i just can't understand it. Can you explain it to me why this happens?
@leo1925- Well the thing is no matter how a player gets something they will in some way feel they earned it at least in some way. This come especially from gear. Lets say the party downs a dragon and gets the treasure. In this example the Dm messes up and gives them weapons or armor or something that is unbalancing. If the Dm at a later time says "Hey I am going to take away that gear you got because it is unbalancing." Yes some players may understand but all of them to some degree is going to feel your taking away what they fairly earned. It is just easier to let them keep their prize and fix things subtly. That way no one feels like their hard work gets eliminated because of a math mistake. This holds true of any situation of where you are taking something from the party that seems like this or a dues ex machina. Why not just let them keep it and fix the issue covertly. Unless it is really making other players feel as if they aren't being treated fairly.
Rust Monsters and a failed knowledge roll make this a great equalizer.
I can understand that players can feel entitled to treasures they have come to own but at the same time its a game. A DM is their to make things challenging and interesting. If the local judicial system lays a claim against some of their loot it can be just another challenge to face. a opportunity for the odd professional skill like barrister to get some use. Who says that the claim is even valid. Someone maybe trying to pull a con on the adventurers. Some use of diplomacy to gather information to learn that no one knows anything about the person and can't verify their claim. Some use of librarian, scholar, or local knowledge to find some obscure law or custom that will help the barrister to defend their ownership of the item.
At 12th level the characters should be pretty well known and while that may provide some clout it also can make them targets for confidence men and scam artists. If you make something like this another challenge that has to be faced rather then a giant nerf bat It can make things seem totally different to a player. If they lose it is a penalty of the game not the DM being a jerk. If they win, they earned some experience and worked for their treasure.
Ultimate Paladin attackers...
Goblin Anti-Paladins. Have them use something with touch attacks (anti-paladin/alchemist combo comes to mind, throwing bombs with smite active).
@Supreme- That isn't a bad idea if you gave a Rust Monster the advanced template so it might have some chance of actually doing a bit of damage.
@Narrater- I like it. It is a good way to make them use skills and at the same time have to think of ways to get around the situation.
I tried doing a combination of some of the this listed above in my game earlier this week though what I found out is that anything that is effecting saves that isn't solely focused on the Paladin, Soulknife, and RRM alienates the rest of the party almost completely.
Example: If I use a Dragon of appropriate CR the Rogue,and Word Sorcerer both flee from the dragon and it makes their character out of the combat basically.
Example I used Shining Children which are great creatures. Both times they attacked the party the Rogue was blinded and couldn't do a thing. Others were blinded as well which is the point though by the time the party gets the melee unblinded the Rogue gets forgotten.
Besides having the Rogue get a Cloak of Resistance any ideas how to continue to challenge the others while no alienating those with crap saves?
@Supreme- That isn't a bad idea if you gave a Rust Monster the advanced template so it might have some chance of actually doing a bit of damage.
Thing is, you mix them in with other monsters. They're bound to start destroying equipment if you just mix them with actual monsters. It's Touch as well, meaning that they're going to hit most of the time against a Full Plate paladin.
Throw one or two into the groups every so often and your players will quickly have pieces of useless or even obliterated equipment.
Granted if the paladin has a high CHA and/or CON, RAW might not cut the reflex DC, but you can tweak that as a DM.