This might seem like a weird question, but oh well, here goes anyway.
Both when I play and when I GM I notice that PCs tend to just go nova and use all their most powerful abilities as soon as they can (highest level spells, uses of rage/channel energy/ki). I know that if I want to stretch party resources thinner, I have to run more encounters per day.
The problem is *how* exactly to do that. People say "just run more encounters" as if it's easy, as if I can just write down "Ok, party has 5 encounters today", but that couldn't be further from the truth.
PCs more or less decide when they rest. If they want to stop in the middle of a dungeon, throw down a Mage's Private Sanctum and get spells back for the next day, is there any real way I can stop them? Or Teleport/walk back to the local inn, rest, and come back the next day?
I realize I could impose time restraints, like "You only have 5 days to resolve this quest or the king won't pay you." but on some -even most quests- I find there are no such restrictions, even in the case of Adventure Paths. It's one trick I can pull out, sure.... but right now it's my *only* trick. I'd like to have something else to keep the pressure on the PCs.
I like to have a mix of combat and roleplaying in my sessions. Usually if it's a good mix (from my perspective) we will only get done with 2-3 combats in a 4 hour session. Then, no matter where they are, the next week it's typically somebody says "Oh... I forgot how many of X ability I used... lets just rest and I wont have to worry about it." Even if everyone kept meticulous track, there's not a lot to just stop them from doing this anyway. Whenever players level up as well, they will immediately rest to gain access to their new abilities.
suggestions? What do you guys do?
You can run encounters together sometimes. Let's say the group have cleared out a third of the keep and gone off to rest. When they return the enemy are much more alert. After a couple of battles the alarm is raised, and another group of enemies arrives just as the players are in the middle of healing from the last battle.
You could offer bonus experience for achieving objectives in a certain time frame.
You could insist on the players recording things properly on their character sheets and have them leave the sheets with you between sessions so they don't 'forget' how many spells they have left.
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Time limits are the best. They come in all shapes and sizes.
Maybe the quest must be completed in a certain amount of time or the bad guys win - whatever they're trying to do, they succeed on a certain date so they must be stopped before that. The PCs might not even know. How embarrassing for them if they take three days to clear out a dungeon to rescue the kidnapped princess, only to find her mutilated body on the sacrificial altar, and she's only been dead for a few hours.
Maybe the NPC who hired them gave them a time limit for some reason - if they waste time, they don't get paid, or he'll send someone else, or he might even punish them for their incompetence.
Maybe the intelligent enemies prepare for the PCs return - instead of clearing out the second half of the dungeon, 1 room at a time, each with a simple encounter, now they have to face an impossibly tough, prepared, mega-encounter with all the enemies ready to face them in the grand hall in a single overpowering battle, complete with ambushes, new traps, the works. Hopefully, it's bad enough that the PCs end up running away and learn their lesson that it's a bad idea to let the enemy prepare.
Maybe the intelligent enemies just run away in the night, taking their precious loot and even more precious XP with them. This could even result in the PCs failing a quest (for example, the local lord wanted them to kill the necromancer in his lair in the woods, but now the necromancer ran away, so the local lord is irate that the PCs failed).
Maybe there is an unknown separate event that will happen, dragging the PCs into a new quest while their older one is just not done yet. I've used this a lot - they have cleared out much of a "random" dungeon (no specific quest for them) but then they go back to town to rest, or level up, and something big happens in town and now they must deal with that so they never really go back to the "random" dungeon. Sadly, most of the good loot was at the end with the boss, and now they never get that loot (and I make sure they're aware that they missed out).
Maybe there is a rival adventuring group who will clear out whatever parts of the dungeon the PCs fail to clear out, so if they go back to town to rest or level up, they come back the next day just in time to meet the other group coming out with some great loot - make sure the PCs are not evil, or make sure the rivals are clearly too dangerous to kill them, or otherwise you're just replacing the dungeon encounters with the rival PC encounter and letting them get the rewards anyway.
All of this kind of stuff can be used and recycled, even in APs that don't have such time limits explicitly built into them. Nothing mentioned here is so unique or rare or impractical that the players will accuse you of metagaming or punishing them - if this is the 4th time they cleared out half a dungeon and came back the next day to find the monsters have fled to parts unknown, they can only blame themselves because it's only natural to have most intelligent monsters recognize a losing scenario and act in their best interest to survive/flee.
Obviously time pressure is a good tool though it isnt always a good one, and can backlash the other way in large dungeons. But if you dont want to or cant do time pressure: Random Encounters.
What I mean is, if they rest early, attack them in their sleep, remember if a caster expends spells in the middle of resting (IE sleep for four hours, cast 2 spells sleep for 4 hours) they get their spells back EXCEPT those expended in the middle of the rest (the 2 spells used in the middle of resting). If you cant directly attack them because they leave, or use defenses your enemy cant rationally use, put more encounters between them and their goal. Even if the 'boss' is in the next room, there is nothing stopping you from adding 2 more rooms in between and filling them with resource draining encounters.
Eventually the players may notice something and ask whats up, simply tell them that their enemies have regrouped and re-organized in the time that they rested, and that taking it slow will be a VERY long war of attrition. (PS its best not to use XP if doing this, and simply level up where appropriate in the story). You can flat out explain to them that if they dont go through several encounters per day, they will find extra encounters in their way on the following day. At my table its a gentlemans agreement, you press on as much as you can, then you retreat and rest (most dungeons have 10 or 12 encounters in them nowadays, so you have to do them over multiple days). You can either manipulate behind the scenes or just outright tell them, but they should never get to their goals fresh, just put more stuff in their way.
I'm pleased to see this discussion. This stuff should be covered more often. ^_^
The 15-minute work day is a big problem for GMs, particularly when players have spells or other methods to force the pacing to their liking. However, as DM Blake and others said, there's a lot that can happen in 6-8+ hours, and the enemy and world at large are not under the players' control (no matter who the players think they are). They can work 15 minutes and leave again if they really want to (all passive-aggressive tone intended, muahahaha), but promising the world will remain static in that time is generous.
I like to also include the natural world, in addition to NPC responses. For example: Battling in caves can destabilize them, springing leaks that eventually erode enough to collapse and/or flood whole sections. If this doesn't happen naturally, then the NPCs the PCs just attacked will probably force it, rather than face such unopposed power from the PCs again. A wall to a lava tube may burst open from the damage (or be deliberately burst open by enemies to impede the players), causing the heat level in the caves to skyrocket (forcing careful spell preparation and/or high endurance checks to survive in there, or simply blocking the area entirely from further exploration). And the NPCs may have used Stone Shape etc to reform the caves and keep them save, while trashing the areas the players know about and sealing them off behind rock, metal walls, and putting the passages under boiling water and poisonous volcanic fumes. Even if that means destroying half my base, I, the wizard or dragon the players are out to destroy, would rather do this than let the PCs march to me unimpeded. Scorched Earth Policy FTW.
So yea, having the natural world and the NPCs react to the players' presence and sudden disappearance can add a lot of weight to those hours the players took off napping, and may force them to prepare their spells and equipment differently. It adds more emphasis to utility spells and non-weaponized equipment too. What's that? The wizard prepared only damage spells and a couple uses of dimension door? That's unfortunate, since endure elements and maybe breathe underwater will be needed to explore further. Did anyone bring climbing gear and/or prepare Spider Climb? You are in caves, after all. Caves that are half collapsed and surrounded by new deadly pits that will plummet you to who knows where. Can anyone see in the dark and/or see past illusions? The enemies cast Darkness spells and filled the caverns with illusions while we were gone. Wow, they've been busy for the past 8 hours.
And oh darn it, the opposing wizard also summoned a whole clan of rust monsters into the room where the party last teleported out. A whole clan! And cast greater invisibility on them. Not cool, man!
But to be fair, no matter who you are, if your opponent disappears to go rest and is sure to return, who *wouldn't* set such a basic trap? :D
(btw, rust monsters may be too evil -- but it gets the point across)
This isn't a video game. The world doesn't pause when the players sleep, pursue other sidequests (chasing chickens! fetch quests!!), or dither.
Yes it's possible to jump to alternate planes where time runs differently (allowing the party to sleep 8 hours in 5 minutes?), but you can add side-effects to jumping across the time envelope to start making it dangerous, costly, interesting, and otherwise no longer a super silver bullet of plot-raping +7. I mean, extremely dangerous monsters couldn't possibly occupy such a plane... could they? And repeatedly jumping across plane boundaries with different time rates couldn't have any serious side-effects, right? I'm sure my sudden explosive incontinence is unrelated.
To balance that out, there are situations where letting the players rest at the rate they want is appropriate. If they want to spend 4 months slowly and carefully exploring the full depths of the caverns of IllNoth and there are no real time pressures, let them. But when there are reasons to put time pressures on the players (overt or hidden), do it.
put more encounters between them and their goal. Even if the 'boss' is in the next room, there is nothing stopping you from adding 2 more rooms in between and filling them with resource draining encounters.
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and that taking it slow will be a VERY long war of attrition.
...
if they dont go through several encounters per day, they will find extra encounters in their way on the following day.
This has its own problems. The PCs may enjoy the chance to get bonus XP and even bonus loot (even if it's only from the combat gear of the extra enemies).
Yes, I know you mentioned not using XP, but the CRB uses XP and it's just house rules that some groups don't use XP, so in the worst case scenario, players could metagame the system, always leaving before boss fights, letting the bad guys restock with extra bonus encounters, then kill those encounters for XP and loot, possibly leveling up, possibly doing it as often as the GM lets them get away with it until they've gained so many levels that they can just butcher the whole dungeon without resting.
Yeah, I took that to an absurd extreme, but arguably, any amount of restocking the dungeon with "extra" ("bonus") encounters just adds XP and loot to most groups.
Not that it's a bad idea, but I would still suggest that it requires time limits of some kind to create a sense of urgency for the PCs/players so that they definitely see the restocked encounters as a problem to be avoided rather than just an opportunity to gain bonus XP and loot.
put more encounters between them and their goal. Even if the 'boss' is in the next room, there is nothing stopping you from adding 2 more rooms in between and filling them with resource draining encounters.
...
and that taking it slow will be a VERY long war of attrition.
...
if they dont go through several encounters per day, they will find extra encounters in their way on the following day.
This has its own problems. The PCs may enjoy the chance to get bonus XP and even bonus loot (even if it's only from the combat gear of the extra enemies).
Yes, I know you mentioned not using XP, but the CRB uses XP and it's just house rules that some groups don't use XP, so in the worst case scenario, players could metagame the system, always leaving before boss fights, letting the bad guys restock with extra bonus encounters, then kill those encounters for XP and loot, possibly leveling up, possibly doing it as often as the GM lets them get away with it until they've gained so many levels that they can just butcher the whole dungeon without resting.
Yeah, I took that to an absurd extreme, but arguably, any amount of restocking the dungeon with "extra" ("bonus") encounters just adds XP and loot to most groups.
Not that it's a bad idea, but I would still suggest that it requires time limits of some kind to create a sense of urgency for the PCs/players so that they definitely see the restocked encounters as a problem to be avoided rather than just an opportunity to gain bonus XP and loot.
Well, I dont use xp anymore, and I also dont have much in the way of 'loot'. Money and magic items (besides consumables) are not connected in my world, you simply cannot craft permanent magic items by normal means. The players get abilities as they level up instead of the vast majority of magic items. But I agree its house rules, it just happens these house rules really help in the situation the OP is talking about.
I've never found it hard to have 5 or more encounters during a day. But then some of my session have no combat at all. It varies so much that my players are careful about expending resource too quickly.
Go read Revisiting Encounter Design. In short, make each individual encounter weaker and the party can face more of them each day. Then, start using the "time limit" and "reactive opponents" strategies to make "nova-ing" less worthwhile.
The OP's situation may be unique, but these sorts of issues in my experience tend to fall into the "you get the behavior you reward" category.
My players tend to know that using up their biggest spells is a potential problem. The trick is to have them learn to ONLY use what they NEED in an encounter.
Sometimes it's a hard lesson to learn.
If it were me I'd just play things out the way I think the challenges should be for a party of their level, and if they blow all their nova spells on lower level minions and run out before the big boss fight...
Oh well.
The OP's situation may be unique, but these sorts of issues in my experience tend to fall into the "you get the behavior you reward" category.
My players tend to know that using up their biggest spells is a potential problem. The trick is to have them learn to ONLY use what they NEED in an encounter.
Sometimes it's a hard lesson to learn.
If it were me I'd just play things out the way I think the challenges should be for a party of their level, and if they blow all their nova spells on lower level minions and run out before the big boss fight...
Oh well.
This. My players are always asking themselves is this the right time to "go Nova".
hm... I just can't agree with that post on the Alexandrian. His thought process feels ... outdated.
I don't see how sending a group of 15 orcs against a 7th level party and watching them all get evaporated by a fireball qualifies as "fun" for anybody. Fun is generated by overcoming challenges. No challenge = no fun.
Yes it's true I tend to approach the situation as every encounter should be a challenge. Rarely do I throw lower CRs than the party level against the party. Maybe I am reaping what I sow... but I consider it better than blazing through 5 encounters each of them ended with a single spell.
And that *STILL* doesn't stop the problem of not putting a drain on party resources. With easier fights, you need to commit less resources to each fight.
I will definitely take everything said here under advisement though. Even though I don't agree with the Alexandrian, this thread has been helpful. I'll try to play monsters far more intelligently, maybe that will help.
Then I have to figure out how to force the players to make the connection. I mean, even if I start using said consequences, are my players going to make the connection that bad stuff only happened because they took too long? I think not. I think what they'll assume is that bad stuff was part of the "plotline" and that there wasn't anything they as players could have realistically done about it. So as you can see, I still need more advice..
I have found that playing my monsters and NPCs as if they actually cared about their lives, loot and loved ones makes a huge difference in the game.
awp832, just a comment here, worth exactly what you paid for it, but if your party's reaction to your encounters is that they are all connected to the plot, perhaps a way to deal with things is to divorce a significant fraction of your encounters from the plot. In my games there is definitely a lot stuff that happens just because of things the party did that have no connection whatsoever to the plot. It's just stuff connected to the larger world they happen to be in.
I sympathize with the OP. The way Pathfinder does encounters was a tough learning curve for me as well. (Not that I'm an expert, far from it). I faced the exact same problem the OP had. I was so frustrated as a DM that I couldn't challenge my players. How did I learn?
I sent basically an APL+3 encounter at them. This set of monsters had action economy in their favor as well as one monster with flight (PCs didn't at the time). These monsters targeted the parties weakest saves and members. I had to, it was the only way I could find their breaking point and subsequently design better encounters. (don't worry they lived through the encounter, barely). I do not add anything less than APL-1 as an encounter. The party just steamrolls it. (boring for everyone, including me the DM). If I want a tough fight its APL+2 or 3. Standard is APL+1.
Pathfinder is basically an arms (more like Hit Point) race between the DM (read monsters) and the Players with the amount of healing the party has being the pivot. I know more or less how much damage they can dish out and how much healing they have (a lot!). I design my encounters to try and match that. There is no point in doing anything less, again they just plow through it without any resources consumed. And if they are not consuming resources, whats all that treasure for?
tl;dr More encounters. I have been trying this very same thing because the one or two fights a day does not phase them in the slightest. I have waves of attacks come at them. If they are resting I send the goon squad after them (when appropriate). I increase the encounter frequency and they are all APL+0,1,or 2.
I just read that article on revisiting encounter design, and I like it. Stretching the party's resources over more and weaker encounters and using equal or greater CL as the tough fights has a lot of valuable effects, like forcing players to manage their resources differently and encouraging more risk taking. Our current campaign only grants XP on completing quests, not stabbing things, so each encounter is a barrier to success instead of an opportunity to print more XP. And most enemies don't drop valuable loot, so it shouldn't hurt balance at all.
I'd like to try it. I don't think it's as simple as sending a swarm of low-level orcs at the party to be dispatched by a fireball. There's a lot of variety in encounter design beyond clustered minions (though I can understand awp832's concerns). It's definitely worth some experimentation.
After discussing this with my GM, he partially agreed with the article and also had some issues with it. It's definitely an over-simplification of a much larger conversation. But there are some things our GM is already doing similar to its recommendations, including having us encounter things well above or below our level (and it's our choice how we deal with them -- fight, talk, intimidate, avoid, manipulate like puppets, etc).
He also said lower CL combats go faster not because they're easier, but because there's less power being thrown around. From previous conversations with him, I think there's a lot behind this statement:
1) More power on both sides of the battle means more caution and defensive play, because a total party wipe is more dangerously close. The "combat swing" is more volatile with higher power levels, and a bad roll or two can suddenly turn a manageable encounter into a disaster. So players instinctively avoid doing things that are creative but risky. This also limits what players can justify doing: if you're not contributing heavily to killing the enemy faster or saving the party, you're killing the party.
2) More power (offensive and defensive) on the enemy means it takes longer to kill him, because he has more evasion, higher HP, and more options to defer death and avoid threats.
3) More power adds more things that must be tracked (abilities, conditions, movement modes, etc)
And so on. So you don't want every encounter working that way. Players have more fun with an encounter like that when it's not every encounter. And the really tough encounters mean more when they have those.
I don't see how sending a group of 15 orcs against a 7th level party and watching them all get evaporated by a fireball qualifies as "fun" for anybody. Fun is generated by overcoming challenges. No challenge = no fun.
Not so easy to incinerate 15 orcs if they are spread out, ambushing, firing arrows from cover, such that there are no more than 2 or 3 close enough to catch in a single fireball. If they're charging from 3 directions, with only half of them charging and the other half laying down covering fire (some of whom are readying actions to pick off any PC who starts casting a spell), then that Fireball might never go off and if it does, it won'k kill more than just a few of those orcs.
In fact, that wizard might decide to cast Magic Missile or Mirror Image instead, simply because he realizes there is no benefit to blowing a Fireball on a couple orcs.
Another way to do it is to have an ambush where your 15 orcs are above the ceiling in a fairly narrow hallway. Maybe it's a fake ceiling, or an illusion, or whatever. They jump down right in the middle of the whole group and begin swinging away at everyone. Nobody will use a Fireball because that will cook just as many PCs as orcs.
Yes it's true I tend to approach the situation as every encounter should be a challenge. Rarely do I throw lower CRs than the party level against the party. Maybe I am reaping what I sow... but I consider it better than blazing through 5 encounters each of them ended with a single spell.
Again, if your party wizard has 5 fireballs prepared, and you give him 5 well-clustered groups of weak enemies and he nukes all 5 encounters, well, then yeah, you might be making things too easy and too boring for them.
If he has 5 fireballs prepared and you send one single big enemy, even if it's CR-1, then that wizard might not waste a fireball on it. Heck, he might even just tell the fighters "You guys kill that, I won't waste any spells on it" - and that gets funny when the group finishes the dungeon and the wizard has not cast ANY spells all day because he was saving his AE Nukes for fights that never happened, and then the fighters say "We're keeping the loot because you didn't cast any spells today"...
If he has 5 fireballs prepared and you send 8 Azers instead of 15 Orcs, I don't think he will use his fireballs.
If he is wandering through the dungeon blasting everything with fireballs, maybe the evil wizard who owns the place will start casting Fire Resistance and/or Protection from Fire on some of his minions.
If he has 5 fireballs prepared, what will he do when you get to the underwater section of the dungeon?
And that *STILL* doesn't stop the problem of not putting a drain on party resources. With easier fights, you need to commit less resources to each fight.
This is true, but you can have MORE easy fights. For example, if a CR+2 encounter uses 1/3 of their resources, then you can only have 3 of them, while if a CR-1 encounter uses 1/10 of the party resources, then you can have 10 of those.
Then I have to figure out how to force the players to make the connection. I mean, even if I start using said consequences, are my players going to make the connection that bad stuff only happened because they took too long? I think not. I think what they'll assume is that bad stuff was part of the "plotline" and that there wasn't anything they as players could have realistically done about it. So as you can see, I still need more advice..
OK, so you throw a handful of encounters at the party and they waste all their spells on them, then they run into the Big Boss (tm) and they lose the fight because they were out of resources, are you suggesting that they will blame you, or blame the adventure, and not blame themselves?
If that's the problem, then just ask them some pointed questions.
"Why didn't you use your Hold Person spell on the boss's lieutenant?" And when he says he was out of Hold Person spells, you then ask him "Maybe because you wasted them on stupid orcs that your fighter could have killed?"
And
"Why didn't you use Cure Critical Wounds to keep the fighter from dying?" and when he says he used that during the orc encounter, you then ask him "Maybe you should have just used a few charges from your Wand of Cure Light Wounds instead, saving your important life-saving spells for a real fight?"
Etc.
I think they'll get the hint.
I don't see how sending a group of 15 orcs against a 7th level party and watching them all get evaporated by a fireball qualifies as "fun" for anybody. Fun is generated by overcoming challenges. No challenge = no fun.
2 things.
I think it's how you play those 15 orcs that is going to make the difference.
Also I would disagree with your comment "No challenge = No fun." Sometimes the funnest encounters are those that make your character shine. If every encounter is a near death experience you never really appreciate how truly powerful your characters are becoming. Because sometimes opening a door, casting fireball into a room filled with Orcs, and then closing the door as they all incinerate is freaking Awesome. Should this be every encounter? No, but now your party is one fire ball short when they face the 15 ogres.
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I agree, you do need those encounters that remind you "holy crap, I can launch fireballs from my hands and totally incinerate those things! That was awesome!". The treadmill of increasingly powerful foes always matched perfectly to your abilities can get very tiring, and very disillusioning. There's less satisfaction in leveling up and becoming exponentially more powerful if you don't get to revisit your old pond and incinerate the amoebas there that used to give you trouble. :D
"Hello Merlo. When you last knew me, I was too weak to face you..." *bursts into flames and summons elementals* "...BUT NOW I AM MORE POWERFUL THAN YOU CAN POSSIBLY IMAGINE!" That sort of occasional experience is rejuvenating to the soul. Wholesome, even.
Likewise, sometimes you need to face a real challenge, something that strains your abilities or forces you to run away, to remind you of your limits and give you a goal of something to eventually overcome and overpower. Someday you're going to make even THAT THING bow to you.
I personally intend to cast flesh to stone on it, then use the resulting statue as part of the components for a stone golem, one of dozens that will guard my palace halls, ever vigilant against threats to my absolute rule...
...but I digress.