Every so often we see people complaining how ability x or y is waaaay too powerful because some PC broke the DMs precious toy (read BBEG) with little/no effort.
Almost every time it's because the BBEG was too stupid to get some henchmen working for him and thus help the BBEG if the PCs pull something unexpected...
Also often these DMs give me the impression that they don't think they challenged their players unless at least one PC goes below 0 HP at least every 2-3 combats. Honestly... if that were me RL: I'd seriously reconsider taking on different jobs/missions because obviously the current ones are suicidal and one day/crit I'm going to _die_.
Adventurers are survivors... not suicidal! They beat impossible odds not run in blindly risking their lives: there is no need for martyrdom, adventurers are heroes, not martyrs.
Now some players don't mind about their PCs dieing, however I usually put a lot of effort into my PC's backgrounds and provide the DM with possible plot-hooks to use (within reason, but then my DMs are usually reasonable folks to begin with). So building a new PC every month or two because the old one died, will have me switch to "cannon-fodder" mentality and thus make my PCs act more I-don't-give-a-damn suicidal tendencies and next to no personality/background/rp-opportunities. I usually am fond of my PCs and don't want them to die! And RL usually people don't want to die, so they act smart... not suicidal.
So why do DMs feel this urge to challenge their player by having them bite dirt again, and again, and again?
Wouldn't it feel more rewarding to have the PCs take care of that huge dangerous whatever by outsmarting it, luring it into a deadly trap without risking their lives, fully knowing that if they would have faced that threat head-on, the dangerous whatever would have wiped the floor with their mangled bodies?
To me it certainly would... so why the single-BBEG-damage-slugfest? why can't that big dangerous brute have a shaman-sidekick and minions? and if the big brute dies too fast, why not have that shaman-sideknick be the EvilGeniusMasterMind behind the entire thing in the first place?
Also it would be interesting to see how much the fighterish people's perceived usefulness changes, if they can actually heroically protect their squishy spellcasters without having to be scraped off the floor by these spellcasters every other fight?
tldr; what do you consider challenging as a PC?
- biting dirt every 2-3 encounter?
- luring that impossible-to-face-head-on danger into a deadly trap, without getting hurt yourself?
I've determined that an easy encounter is one in which my players walk into the fight, kill everything, use some Cure X Wounds spells, and are good to go again.
So the alternative is a challenge in which substantive resources must be expended (high level spell slots, piles of cash on a rezz, greater resto, etc) AND/OR a challenge in which tactics and planning are required. I'm happy if they sit down and discuss an approach and execute it successfully, regardless if the fight is then a cake walk or still difficult.
You can also combine them into an encounter that is suicidal if you take the direct approach, and only kills one or two PCs if they get it right. Character death is absolutely meaningless after about level 9 because you can just hop over to a temple or teleport to home base and get a rezz (or, heck, have the party's cleric/druid/whatever raise the person on scene).
What combat death does (somewhat cheaply) is ramp up the tension by reducing the party's combat capability and prove they can be killed. The first time someone dies in a fight, with my party, shows them that this combat is serious business. Then they start pondering if maybe they should have been smarter about the approach (yet, the next major encounter is still "kick in the door and start blowing things up" tactics yet again, sigh).
Character death is absolutely meaningless after about level 9 because you can just hop over to a temple or teleport to home base and get a rezz (or, heck, have the party's cleric/druid/whatever raise the person on scene).
This might be true from a metagame perspective, however RP-wise my character would seriously question his skills, if he's biting dirt on a regular basis... can he change something to fix this (items/magic)? if not, should he stop chomping off more than he can chew (less powerful foes)?
or maybe he cannot fix it and should just retire before the gods refuse to give him yet another chance at "life"?
Challenging? Truly challenging? At least party's CR+4. And no single enemies. Single enemies die because of action economy.
A challenging encounter should risk killing a PC if they do not plan properly, use poor tactics, do not fight as a team, etc.
However, challenging encounters shouldn't be happening on a daily basis. A normal encounter (party's CR) should use a quarter of the party's daily resources. Of course, judging what a quarter of resources is pretty difficult. It's downright meaningless for fighter, near meaningless for barbarian (they only have rage and once you get to about 20 rounds of rage for a day you shouldn't ever run out). For spellcasters there is a much more measurabel way to determine output based on spell slots used. But once you get access to 4th level and above spells usually only the top 2 levels of spell slots stay paricularly relevant to combat expenditure. The rest are usually involved in buffing.
As far as your character being overly concerned with his death, perhaps he's not meant to be an adventure if he is this afraid of death.
To answer the question of the two scenarios...Yes. Those are both challenging encounters, and I would consider a GM worth holding on to were s/he sprinkling them throughout the campaign. If one or the other happened exclusively or near exclusively I would get pretty bored pretty quick and start offering to run games.
For me I think there should be a mix of threat levels, with an average of "the party uses a small portion of their resources to recover", while hitting a couple "breeze through" and a couple "OH MY GOD WHERE'S BOB'S HEAD?!" and more than a few encounters that hit somewhere between those tentpole type examples.
As far as your character being overly concerned with his death, perhaps he's not meant to be an adventure if he is this afraid of death.
There is a healthy middleground between biting dirt every second fight and a 50-33% chance of biting dirt on one particular challenging encounter after 3 "normal encounters", as you say ;-) and only with the wrong tactics, as you admitted yourself...
I'm asking all the DMs out there posting about how their players ruin their BBEG because class ability X is sooo unfair and their poor BBEG does not stand a chance.
Fights should not come down to "which side has the largest healing&HP-to-damage ratio".
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I'm always fond of having at least one encounter per session involve tactical considerations that ramp up the challenge. Terrain is a prime example, and my players have learned that you don't take the environment for granted.
Ugly weather forcing encounters into a much closer fight, rendering ranged combat difficult. Bad footing making charging or tumbling difficult. Unseen dangers in chest-deep water. The list goes on, and on.
Challenging encounters aren't always about who can suck up the most punishment - they're about ramping up the stakes and keeping the players engaged in the moment. Sometimes that means putting someone important at risk and making the party make difficult choices. Sometimes that means taking away an advantage the party normally counts on. Sometimes it means giving a clever party a way to ROFLstomp the enemy in a dramatic and satisfying way . . . only to realize the encounter isn't quite over, yet.
As long as everyone feels they accomplished something, the challenge was a good one.
Wouldn't it feel more rewarding to have the PCs take care of that huge dangerous whatever by outsmarting it, luring it into a deadly trap without risking their lives, fully knowing that if they would have faced that threat head-on, the dangerous whatever would have wiped the floor with their mangled bodies?
To me it certainly would... so why the single-BBEG-damage-slugfest? why can't that big dangerous brute have a shaman-sidekick and minions? and if the big brute...
I can recall many encounters where I included various terrain, weather effects, environmental hazards and other warning signs and tips that the fight with the big bad evil guy may not be so straight forward and what do they do? "I draw my sword and rush straight at him..." "GAWD!" The effort is the responsibility of everyone at the table.
As far as your character being overly concerned with his death, perhaps he's not meant to be an adventure if he is this afraid of death.There is a healthy middleground between biting dirt every second fight and a 50-33% chance of biting dirt on one particular challenging encounter after 3 "normal encounters", as you say ;-) and only with the wrong tactics, as you admitted yourself...
I'm asking all the DMs out there posting about how their players ruin their BBEG because class ability X is sooo unfair and their poor BBEG does not stand a chance.
Fights should not come down to "which side has the largest healing&HP-to-damage ratio".
You have a lot of demands for the GMs and you don't seem very happy with GMs in general.
Here's an idea.
Why don't you GM? Then you can act on all of your "suggestions," and maybe not be so angry about it all.
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Why don't you GM? Then you can act on all of your "suggestions," and maybe not be so angry about it all.
I already do... and it's not a gripe with the fellow DMs at my two tables, we all enjoy the games we have and learn from each other on occasion.
It's a gripe about DMs coming to this forum and complaining how their players beat the lonely BBEG because power X from class X is "broken/OP/whathaveyou"... these powers are not overpowered or broken.
But maybe these DMs need to learn how to do encounters right? And get a new point of view on how you can ramp up difficulty other then HP-slugfests... hence this thread to collect opinions and ideas.
Have a look at the last few pages of this forum concerning overpowered class features and what people suggest to correct this: 9/10 it's, why is that BBEG alone? where are his minions?
I normally give advice about how to solve the problem. Many times however they want to run the game a certain way for whatever reasons, which I understand. Their way of doing it makes the game easier than it would be otherwise at times.
As an example if you(any gm) sits a dragon down in front of a smiting paladin there should be no complaints about the OP of paladins or smite. That is a tactics issue to me.
That is also why I say what is OP/broken is subjective. You can use a high CR monsters, but if you don't play it to its strengths the effective CR won't be as high.
Challenging encounters don't have to be about how much player blood is outside their bodies. It can be about how engaging and demanding the scene is ; are the players having to try something new, that involves supporting each others abilities, using old abilities in a new way, working with missing or uncertain info, decoding why something is happening on the fly, or figuring out the role playing that isn't easy in a very rare and multifaceted encounter.
Challenging encounters don't have to be about how much player blood is outside their bodies. It can be about how engaging and demanding the scene is ; are the players having to try something new, that involves supporting each others abilities, using old abilities in a new way, working with missing or uncertain info, decoding why something is happening on the fly, or figuring out the role playing that isn't easy in a very rare and multifaceted encounter.
That is true, but most players dont see puzzle monsters/encounters as challenging unless they are in danger.
I didn't read much of the discussion but this essay should fix most problems: revisiting-encounter-design
Basically you don't have to threaten to kill or even wound the PCs to challenge them. Challenge all kinds of ressources not just hit points. Diversify encounters - if every encounter is potentially lethal they all feel the same. Reward intelligent play aka give the PCs meaningful choices.
Question: how (in a homebrewed megadungeon) do I specifically target resources outside of HP? I suppose memory moss could suck up spells, and the kobolds could sneak up and pick a character's pocket, but seriously, that just seems mean and should be used sparingly I would think.
Incidentally I've read that article before and it has a very valid point. I've utilized the advice for about a year with 2 different groups and mixed results, but now I'm going back to an older bunch of players and rebooting my campaign. My hope is that the megadungeon and other combat-heavy sites in the game will really showcase the "lots of diverse encounter levels" mentality.
This is hard to deliver at first level. A single kobold warrior and some fog as an obstacle, or maybe a pair of fire beetles can be a little interesting, but cake-walking most encounters can be draining on both the players AND the GM. This is why I made up some random encounter tables spanning CRs from 1/4 to 3 for the first game and have used this liberally.
Basically this random element helps my players understand fight AND flight and keeps them from thinking that most everything will be one-shotted. The key to these tables for me though is to use only mindless encounters. Vermin, undead, low-int magical beasts or even animals. This helps me story and treasure wise.
But if there's a way to design encounters to specifically remove OTHER resources, please explain.
I don't try to make every encounter challenging, but I do suggest GM's try to whittle away at resources. Once you know the group well enough you can set up the battles so a certain amount of spells have been cast, as an example to know when to put them against the boss fight.
Trapping them in a dungeon and interrupting their sleep can also work to challenge them. At higher levels trapping players is much more difficult.
Well, when I design an encounter to be challenging (like the BBEG battle at the end of an adventure), part of the decision is how well does the bad guy know the PCs? If the BBEG is familiar with the PCs' typical modus operandi, then he'll plan to speficically counter their big guns.
For example, in my Runelords game, my party hits extremely hard in melee: we have a barbarian with a reach weapon who can dish out 100+ hp / round on a full attack, and a ranger/rogue with an improved invisibility item that can do similar amounts of damage on a successful full sneak attack. The blaster wizard acts as both artillery and battlefield controller, while the priest has been optimized for buffing and battlefield healing, and rarely lets the PCs get below half hit points.
The party is weak at ranged combat and doesn't have a lot that can overcome mobility challenges.
So, if they're going against a known enemy that's familiar with their tactics, the first thing a knowledgable enemy does is try to neutralize the barbarian's ability to get close enough to hit; and if he does, that he can only take a single attack. BBEGs often have see invisibility active to help counter the rogue's sneak attacks. And the BBEG ususally has a battlefield controller on its side to offset the wizard and/or cleric. Plus a bunch of expendable mooks to act as a meat sheild and force the PCs to use up precious resources getting by them.
That said, for less-important encounters, I let the PCs use their toys to their full advantage. Sometimes deliberately so, in order to let them fall into complacent default tactics-- I want it to be a bit of a surprise when their enemy exploits their weaknesses. That also serves to make the Boss Battles more challenging and memorable.
I also like recurring bad guys to have an escape plan. It's great if such a recurring bad guy can get away two or three times-- it makes evenual victory all the more sweet when the PCs can finally foil his exit and defat him for good!
Another trick to pull out once in a great while is the "boss battle fake-out." The PCs think they're in the Boss Battle, so they pull out all the stops and use thier biggest guns. But, while the fight wasn't exactly easy, just as the PCs start to celebrate (or loot the body), the real BBEG enters the fray... after the PCs have used up a good amount of their resources!
This is generally overdone in video games, but is rare enough in tabletop games that you can make it a real surprise if you use it sparingly.
Man Mathius; I really admire the strategy on either side of the table in your game. From an RP perspective though, I can't even imagine the long-term psychological damage the PCs are dealing with.
They nova a couple times a day and routinely need BoL in even THOSE few encounters. After a while they'd be nervous wrecks! Imagine thinking that when you sleep you're vulnerable to BBEGs who can, in a single shot, kill you instantly, and that's with all your best defenses! Not to mention that with their lives flowing that way, they have at best 10 minutes of actual work to do every day which depletes most of their resources, so even if they go back to town and rest afterwards their vulnerability is even worse.
I played in a game like that once. Our GM would routinely take advantage of said vulnerabilities. It got so that EVERY encounter was plotted, planned, so that no trace of our presence could be left behind and our foes couldn't find us. Of course they inevitably did; no party is perfect.
I remember thinking in character that nowhere was safe anymore. We couldn't trust anyone. We were CONSTANTLY moving from place to place, making RP situations that much more challenging for always being unfamiliar. It was...dark.