So a friend of mine is fairly new to GMing (this is his 3rd campaign) and appears to have gotten over his head. He started an evil campaign with a group of mutual friends, and has allowed a crazy amount of power creep into the game.
The current setup is:
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- All Pathfinder and 3.5 books are legal, rules conflicts default to Pathfinder rules.
- Stats are 7x4d6, reroll 1s, drop lowest dice, drop lowest score. The results of the rolls are an average stats that would require a 50 point-buy.
- All LA <= 2 races allowed with LA bought-off before the campaign.
- 6 lvl 6 PCs: a Orc Barbarian, Drow Ranger, Half-Elf Wizard, Human Fighter, Human Rogue(5)/Cleric(1), and a Nymph (8HD creature, no LA buyoff, treated as a lvl 8 druid for spells)
- He is generious with magic items, so the party's average wealth is now ~20k per PC... at level 6.
- Oh, and they freed a NPC Gestalt Sorc (10)/Monk (10) Half-dragon gnome from his prison, and this NPC has agreed to help them (played by the GM).
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He cannot challenge them (shocking!), and has asked me to help.
To me, one of the primary problems based on what he has discribed was that they are so strong, they brute-force most problems. While they do RP, they don't have to because nothing is a challenge for them.
I started to build a group of 6 lvl 8 "Hero" NPCs to start hunting them, designed for combat and capture (Two specialize in non-lethal damage to imprison evil, not kill it). I have talked to the GM about maybe having a prison-break scenero if some are captured.
My goal was to create a group that could TPK (TPC? Total Party Capture?)them in head-on combat, but with each NPC having an RP weakness that the PCs can exploit. Using 1 or 2 of these weaknesses should allow the PCs to win. Using more could get them bonuses or just be fun overkill.
My questions are:
1) Is lvl 8 (with level 8 wealth) strong enough to challenge this group and their NPC helper?
2) Should I try to challenge, or should I try to TPK/TPC? The GM likes the idea of the prison break, but...
3) The GM I am helping said he wants a "50/50 chance" of victory for the PCs, with "the Sorc(10)/Monk(10) determining victory, defeat, or a draw." This raised red flags for me. In my mind, NPCs should never determine victory or defeat. This turns your players into spectators. What should I do?
4) Any other advice?
To answer your questions:
1) No, go another level or two up.
2) I'd try to build it to TPK them and see if it even actually challenges them.
3) I agree, the DMPC shouldn't be the determining factor in combat unless it's absolutely necessary for the plot.
4) It's his campaign and he can do what he wants, but if I were running this game I'd disallow the 3.5 stuff and stick with Paizo only rulebooks. There is no way I'd have that powerful of an DMPC in the group to help them. That's a huge no-no to me for a DMPC to outshine the party, he'd leave the party really quick to do his own things or be killed off.
Once you have allowed things to get so out of whack with power creep, the CR system that the game was built on becomes meaningless.
The only solution I see is to take away most of their gear, and strip them of some of their ability scores to bring them down to a 25 pt buy (or much better a 15pt buy, which would still be a powerful group considering 6 players). If you want to use funky races, you could make them equal in power to core races.
Then just figure out a way to make the players happy about being half the character they were before. Easy right?
In other words, the GM needs to gather the players around the table, tell them he screwed up, and start a new campaign based around default level characters. It might make the players feel better about the whole thing if you tie the new campaign to their old characters in some way- for example dealing with the path of destruction these legendary outlaws have created.
There are many people on these boards who love playing with 25+ point buys, monstrous races, and 2X or more WBL treasure. Those are completely valid play styles. But if you are an inexperienced GM (under say 5 years of GM'ing) things will be a WHOLE lot easier if you stick with something like the default settings of the game.
Also, if you want really powerful characters, just play high level.
The only solution I see is to take away most of their gear, and strip them of some of their ability scores to bring them down to a 25 pt buy (or much better a 15pt buy, which would still be a powerful group considering 6 players). If you want to use funky races, you could make them equal in power to core races.
Then just figure out a way to make the players happy about being half the character they were before. Easy right?
In other words, the GM needs to gather the players around the table, tell them he screwed up, and start a new campaign based around default level characters. It might make the players feel better about the whole thing if you tie the new campaign to their old characters in some way- for example dealing with the path of destruction these legendary outlaws have created.
This is how I feel, but I saw building a group of crazy "Hero" NPCs as a fun mechanical challenge, and I do have some nasty surprises for them built into my NPCs (BoED cheese, class substitution levels from 3.5s PHB II, no-save spell combos, and a few others). If they are going to play dirty, so am I.
Also, the Wizard, Ranger, and Rogue/Cleric are all new to any d20 system, and only the Ranger has apparently been effective so far, so I think that is a saving grace.
I think the DMPC is the real problem (for my plan, his campaign might be past saving). I'm going to talk to him about limiting the DMPC in someway. Either that, or if he lets me control the good party while he plays the DMPC, I will just go nova on the poor half-dragon gnome.
EDIT: Idea! If I am in a TPK situation, let the newbie players escape, and let them shine breaking the more experienced players out of jail! Well, if this were my campaign anyway...
Well to start I think he may have over powered the party with gear and such. I have no idea about 3.5 D&D used to play/ run AD&D. When I build "higher level helper" NPC's I often short sift them in gear and or powers just to keep them more level and they stay only till they have accheaved their goal that they wanted/needed the party for.
On your Hero's build I would look to top the party members by at least 3 levels, to make sure they can fight over the party. As it was said many times they use brute force as their first tactic.
Look to make the heros gear as useless to the party as you can just to limit what they gain if they do win.