Hello all!
First, I am aware of the 6 Player Conversion; I suppose the first step will be to use that conversion (I used the conversions for books 1 through 3), but I don't think that is enough...
Two questions (rationale for why I am asking them is below):
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1. Should I really be increasing the power of enemies? I don't want things to be save or die, though, or is that going to be the only real option? I've heard a bunch of people consider this book to be really challenging with its fights, but it has only been challenging when I limit my players by putting them in a cramped space where they can only attack 1 on 1.
2. Is there a better way to run upcoming encounters so they remain challenging? I would like Ilthuliak and Nyrissa to be memorable fights, and I would also like the wriggling man to be challenging.
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My group is now in book 6 and they are fighting the fey in the fey realm. They are having fun; still, I want to ensure that I am not horribly mis-playing the enemies.
The group managed to take down the nightmare rook (at full power) CR 16 with taking only around 30-something damage to one player who was snatched. (The rook was killed before it could fly away). The ranger could negate its displacement and when he hit with a critical and the creature was 220 feet away, he staggered the Rook, which allowed the players to get another round of attacks on it.
The group also managed to take down Karstagg (CR 17), who only managed one hit before he died.
The adventure recommends a party level 16 before going into the fey realm... but my group, which had little trouble with those creatures, was the following:
Level 14 Ranger (gear is effectively Lvl 15)
Level 14 Druid (gear is Lvl 13 or 14)
Level 13 essentially a spellcaster who only uses fireball (Gear is Lvl 8 or 9-did not spend any money or take anything)
Level 13 Rogue (gear is level 12 or 13)
several others were inactive for this adventure- (a witch and another blaster caster) the above were the ones who participated in those fights.
Now, given the ability score array we used, my estimate is that the party's ECL is one higher, so if it was ECL 14 before, it's 15 after that boost.
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Environmental modifiers have worked- I combined the cramped spaces Narrow path -2 penalty on attack and dex tunnel with the Adv. lightning treants and had a hard-fight.
But when enemies lack reach weapons, they are destroyed. My group defeated the giants by math. (calculated that the ranger, who has a range of 1,200 feet and the spellcaster who has a range of around 220 feet (?) could blow them up before they could get anywhere near).
The Ranger has Deadly Aim, Manyshot, Improved Precise Shot, Staggering Critical, Precise Shot and other feats. He can do around 120 damage each turn and hit almost anything.
favored enemy (human +6, magical beasts +2,giant +2)
bow: +22/+22/+17/+12 (1d8+9/19-20x3)
favored terrain (forest +4, swamp +2, mtns. +4)
AC 32.
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Honestly.....
The simple answer is to cheat. (The more complex answer is to add the advanced template, additional youngest dragons to Illthuliak's encounter etc.) If they walked all over your baddies in the first round of combat and knocked them into negatives, don't tell the PCs. Just give the baddies another round or two to strike some fear into them.
I'm probably opening myself up to a bit of flaming in saying that.
In my honest opinion, having a campaign that spans years of real world play time come to an anticlimactic close in several rounds is just doing a disservice to your group. I've seen several threads on here that complain about the easiness of the final encounter in particular. Come hell or high water, that won't happen in my game. My group has spent too much time as players to deserve anything less.
I'm not saying you should pose impossible threats to your group or outright kill them, but allow for a little high level drama (and behind the screen hand-waving) in order to give your players a bit more fun.
High-level D&D combat is pretty brutal; the PCs can really dish out the damage and status effects. I've adopted a few tactics to compensate:
1) Max HP for named foes. This is really a must, or they won't last longer than a round, maybe two.
2) Split the group. If it's 4+ PCs vs. 1 bad guy, the bad guy is toast. You need to divide the PCs' attention somehow - this can be battlefield control, extra foes, literally splitting the group, etc.
3) Throw out the CR system. The PCs can handle stuff that should be way out of their league, according to the encounter guidelines. Throw on templates. Buff the NPCs out the wazoo. Swarm them with foes. They can probably take it. I would keep the XP rewards at the published amounts, though, or you'll just make your problem worse.
I appreciate the cheat suggestion and I certainly will do it if necessary, but my players know the game far too well. They reverse engineer almost every situation and get very angry if they don't think the numbers add up properly. I will consider having the rolls for initiative turn out a bit better for the enemies if it's a close call, at least to give them a chance to take a shot at the PCs. Thank you.
Re: Spatula:
1-Before you mentioned that, I did not realize that Paizo only gave out average HP to enemies. Thank you.
re 3- Not a bad suggestion, but what would you suggest to run interference with ithuliak, nyrissa, and the wriggling man? Just slapping on a template won't fix the Rock/Paper/Scissors one shot kill-supremacy problem I have.
I'm looking for a multi-faceted, thinking-person's showdown with each of these bosses.... Kargstaad going down before he could do more than 2 one shot attacks on people (only 1 of his many many attacks), and the Rook getting blasted before he got close enough to do more than snatch one person and move 5 feet in the air, was a bit problematic. In retrospect, I should have had a few swarms of ravens lurking in the forest, harassing the PCs as the big Rook came. (I mistakenly thought the Rook could take the shots... essentially I forgot that one of the PCs had just taken the Staggering Critical feat... and I had not expected he would roll a critical... which gave the PCs a crucial reprise at just the right distance to hit the Rook (even with distance negatives to shoot).
I've had some success with adding in terrain difficulties and I think I need to do something about the PCs air superiority? What might be some of my options? Nixing the air superiority is a bit of an issue.
Question: Could the first nyrissa they fight be an illusion? One of the PCs has a perception about +45 and I have a bunch of elves and half-elves, a wizard who can see invisible, etc. ... just looking for a rules-appropriate way to distract the players (I would homebrew it but this group *will* get exceptionally upset if I do that).
Thank you for the wind strength idea.
I cannot believe I did not think about that before: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/environment/weather.
I think the druid might counter it with Control Weather... but I am unsure if he's powerful enough to have that yet. It will at least slow them down, though!
One of the best things I ever did to balance a final boss was this:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?290212-Best-4E-Tactical-Encount ers/page4
(down to the third post)
This was a 4E creation of a WoW boss. The thing I'm pointing out here was the brilliant phase idea. The boss has multiple "forms" that you fight in succession. Each has certain amounts of HP, and its perfect for dealing with status effects and full attack surrounds because the boss reforms after each phase in any location and with no status effects.
Make each form different and you have a memorable final encounter. :))
Oh, and if they're mad because that appears like homebrewing, then just take Rasputin from the Reign of Winter AP as a reference. He is similar.
re 3- Not a bad suggestion, but what would you suggest to run interference with ithuliak, nyrissa, and the wriggling man? Just slapping on a template won't fix the Rock/Paper/Scissors one shot kill-supremacy problem I have.
Indeed. Any fight where one side gets 4+ turns to every one turn of the other side is heavily weighted against the second side. So you need to add (effective) actions to your side and/or denying actions to the player side (which is generally harder).
It's hard to say what exactly you should do to the encounters - you know your party better than anyone. If confronted with a huge black dragon, will they have the resources to give everyone acid resistance/immunity? Or are they more likely to keep it from acting with negative conditions, or will they just do so much damage that it'll be dead in a round? Will they try to dispel her protective spells? I would maybe throw in a few CR 15sh cohorts (half-fey black dragons, maybe, or half-dragon fey), and re-tool her spell list and feats to counter the party's likely actions.
The wriggling man can have some pre-summoned planar allies (maybe give him a gate scroll or spell). You may want to re-tool his spells and equipment as well. He doesn't have a lot of HP, so giving him some way to avoid crits (fortification armor, for example) is useful.
Nyrissa could use a bigger room and some allies.
The big thing with allies is finding some synergy. A spellcaster that can buff the main villain in useful ways (bards are often great for this) can enhance their effectiveness by a lot. In 3e/PF, whoever buffs the most before the fight often has a major advantage.
Also, when re-building the main villain, be sure to make use of all the splat material that the players are using but that the monsters never get. For example, the crane style feats - take a -1 penalty to hit, gain +4 dodge to AC, can negate 1 hit/round and can make an AoO when you do so. That could be pretty brutal on Ithuliak.
I just moved TWM and Phomandala into Nyrissa's (much resized) room.
Ilthuliak in my game is well into a metamorphosis into a Black Dragon/Tarn Linnorm hybrid (and yes, I did remove Runt), so she'll have two separate initiatives to play with, which evens the field a little more.
Boss phases actually sounds perfect for Nyrissa.
The other lead enemy I'm trying to improve is the Misbegotten Troll. I am using the 6 player version as a starting point, then I'm giving him Teleport 2x/Day and/or Dimension Door 2x/day, so he can close the distance with the party. Thank you for that suggestion.
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You are correct with the supposition of how my party prefers negative conditions. Once those hit, they can take out a 350HP enemy with fast healing 10 and DR 10 in 2-3 rounds.
The druid has been shooting out dispel magics, but most of those have fizzled (sorry, Druid).
The witch misfortunes enemies- so they have to roll 2 times. And some enemies, (less now that they have the higher-level better saves) have been ice tombed- good work witch. However, for better or worse, this is devastating when combined with the ranger's range and the druid's versatility.
Current Thoughts:
I think the way forward, with Nyrissa at least, will be to use the 6 player version-ensure that she can hit the players at close quarters- with them getting trapped in the room- maybe cut off from each other with funhouse walls made out of walls of force and fey-like with pink walls that have a chance to cause nausea; and then to design something for Nyrissa's stage 2.
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QUESTION:
Is there any spell that can protect from magical arrows? Protection from arrows is overcome by a +1 weapons, so that's no good- the ranger has a +3 striking, etc. bow.
QUESTION:
Is there any spell that can protect from magical arrows? Protection from arrows is overcome by a +1 weapons, so that's no good- the ranger has a +3 striking, etc. bow.
Displacement is good vs any single-target attack, ranged or not. Entropic Shield (cleric 1) gives a miss chance vs. ranged attacks. Stoneskin? There are some cleric spells that give DR/alignment, as well.
I've found that unless your AC is astronomical, miss chances and hard-to-beat DR are your best defenses against weapon attacks at high levels.
Also consider the Deflect Arrows feat, or a magic item that replicates it.
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QUESTION:
Is there any spell that can protect from magical arrows? Protection from arrows is overcome by a +1 weapons, so that's no good- the ranger has a +3 striking, etc. bow.
Fickle Winds may be what you are looking for.
That's a great idea. Thank you for the spell.
Hopefully it also deflects "seeking" arrows... on a read, it appears to do that.
+1 to Victor. I've rebuilt nearly everything in the books, and players frankly should expect the GM is going to change things. The books are always written as just starting points and basics, with the expectation that each GM will alter and adjust as needed for their group.
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Thank you for the wind strength idea.
I cannot believe I did not think about that before: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/environment/weather.I think the druid might counter it with Control Weather... but I am unsure if he's powerful enough to have that yet. It will at least slow them down, though!
And this advice goes for all magic in the First World man....Its the First World, Home of the original Uber Magic. Magic gets to do whatever it wants and no one can tell it otherwise unless they have Subtype:Elder in their stat block. So if the druid casts Control Weather, I would have a very very angry Lord Nimbus, Archduke of the First World Thunderclouds come and put the smackdown on the druid, or else just torment them with fickle weather and winds throughout their visit.
Have fun using the First World as a watered down Wonderland, especially with your group. I would have such fun with a group that was always saying "Well the book says it is this way..." or "...how is that possible?" Just grin like the Cheshire Cat and say "How could it NOT be this way. Its the First World!" You should probably ease up though once they reach the teeth grinding stage of frustration, which is just before heads explode, lol...
No one should enjoy a visit to the First World who isn't a gnome or an anarchist, hehe...