So i am new to Gming, but it has always been my passion, to create stories, even if i am not going to play them.
Anyways i have seen that solo humanoid encounters are not effective at all, against a well structured 4 man party. even if the CR is adequate.
Let's say a group of 4 level 5 players. their APL is 5. a hard encounter would be CR 7. Still i've seen that they can beat a lvl 7 humanoid easily, au contraire from monsters.
Do you guys rule this specially in some kind? because i've been wanting to change the rules when is solo encounters for humanoids.
Any comment would be deeply appreciated.
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What you're looking for is action economy. Find a BBEG that can take full advantage of free, swift, and immediate actions. Then, for a full round attack action, find something with multiple attacks.
Simple example...Crane Style Monk. Can deflect a melee attack. Give him Deflect Arrows, and now he can deflect one ranged attack. Make sure he keeps Flurry of Blows...he has multiple attacks.
Another example would be something with natural attacks. Claw Claw Bite is a great multiple attack build, on a variety of different races/classes.
One thing to understand, is that a 'hard' encounter isn't one the PCs are very likely to lose, just that it will use up a moderately significant portion of their resources. Generally speaking an encounter that is 50-50 win-lose is APL+4. Obviously, you don't want a lot of those, as 50% of losing outright means 50% chance of ending a campaign, but if you want a very significant encounter, especially if their are not other encounters proceeding it, that is probably more where you are aiming for.
The issue with single humanoid encounters at that level though is the only way they can compete with the action advantage of a whole party is pretty much 'rocket tag.' If they can neutralize a PC in a single action, they have a fair chance of lasting long enough to achieve victory, as the action economy of the PCs gets removed. Of course, no one wants to get neutralized in a single action, that tends to be unfun, and also it can make for really swingy encounters where a bad roll or two on either side at the beginning can make or break the fight.
One thing you can do is pump up the defenses on your big bad. That can make a fight take longer, helps to deal with action economy since more of the players actions have no effect (if they need to roll an 18 to hit or the big bad needs to only roll a 3 to make a save then a lot of actions won't effect the outcome as bady, and as long as the offense of the big bad is significant not deadly that can make for a fairly epic battle. Unfortunately, sometimes it can end up being frustrating as well, depending on the personalities of your players and it can be tricky to ensure that they have enough defense against the most powerful PCs but aren't pretty much immune to the actions of other PCs.
In general, it is far easier to add in a couple more bad guys as well as the big bad then get a big bad tuned in exactly to be a significant challenge without just wiping out PCs.
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It's not about ruling or making exceptions, it's about using the humanoid intelligently with proper tactics.
They should be taking advantage of all the advantages having a brain and thumbs allows them.
Terrain, lighting conditions, combat maneuvers, positioning etc. should all be taking into account when running a solo humanoid encounter.
A single humanoid standing out in wide open field at noon is an easy challenge for any group, but take that exact same opponent and put him up on a narrow ledge crouched behind a statue and he becomes an order of magnitude more difficult for any party.
Look beyond the targets stats and use better tactics and tricks. Mostly things that keep him out of full attack position and they are usually fine (until the real save or suck abilities kick in from the casters).
Action economy eh, yes i was thinking about a homebrew to give dual initiative to a solo encounter.
raising defenses is definitely something i have failed, because humanoids tend to suck on innate defenses, but i will probably do it next time.
The thing is this, i wanted to create a 4 guardians of the elements theme, in which the 4 NPCs are the main enemies of the players, and they need to be solo encounters and be epic.
i was also thinking about Gestalt. but still don't know what CR should i give to a Gestalt character.
i had this in mind for the 4 characters of the elements.
Draconic Knight of Fire.
Samurai of the Wind.
Warlock of Ice
Monk of Earth (Thinking about a Synthesist/monk :P)
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As Brad said, the big problem is "action economy." The players have 4 turns and the villain only 1.
The easiest way to fix it is giving your boss some minions. This can take the form of a larger fight or the boss being proactive and coming to his minions' aid. Often, the latter makes more sense than a boss just sitting in a room anyway.
That said, "don't do that" isn't the kind of advice you're probably looking for.
What I Do
I end up building NPC enemies using the monster guidelines rather than as though they were PCs. They end up both being easier to run and a fair bit more durable. You can do the same thing by using a monster's stats and just describing them as humanoid.
Alternately, after you've designed the enemy, check against the table in the back of the Bestiary to see what sort of CR the stats fall into. A fight that feels like a "boss" will be several CR above the average party level (anywhere from 1 to 4, depending on how well built the party is).
And, perhaps most controversially, sometimes I just give them sweet powers. That takes more experience to eyeball (and not frustrate your players), but a puzzle that needs to be solved or a unique ability can make the battle memorable even if it's not particularly difficult.
Cheers!
Landon
Summoning is another option, although that does end up giving him mooks anyway. Still, it only counts the spell caster's CR, and the summon monsters can be rebuffed by Protection against [blank], which is a fairly simple and effective buff spell that parties might have on them anyway.
One particularly evil way to do this without making more physical threats would be to use a summoner with the First Worlder archetype. And they would only need to summon one kind of thing- Pugwampis.
Pugwampis might not seem like much of a threat with their base 6 hp and no attacks or spells worth mentioning...until you look closely at their aura ability. It forces intelligent creatures within 20' to roll twice and take the worse result on any d20 rolls (so attacks, skills, saves, etc). That is basically a 45' across circle of automatic, AoE, no save misfortune hex.
Now, take the summoner, which is a 3/4 BAB class with light armor, simple weapons, and a decent spread of buff and control spells, and then cripple the party with unluck, and you can have an encounter that could be difficult without raising CR. Throw a wee bit of spell resistance on the summoner (to force casters to roll an unluck affected d20 to get most spells in) and you have some rather good defense overall as well.
As soon as the party realizes what is happening, they will be distracted by the pugwampis (again, 6 hp, so it is easy to end their threat individually; but hey, that is why you summon 1d4+1, right?), during which time the summoner can buff themselves and maybe throw some of the classic battlefield control spells. Of course, the first worlder needs to make themselves immune to unluck, which means they need a luck bonus of some kind. I.E.-big shiny magical item that glows once the summonig starts happening. That means that the party can home in on and start sundering/stealing/dispeling/etc. to turn the tables on the summoner (of course, most of those options also require d20 rolls....mwhahha)
Overall, this allows you to have the party panicing, running around, and fighting desperately even if it is just one guy doing the actual fighting with some buffs added onto him. Maybe a bit annoying with the 2 rolls and failures, but you can have relatively limited resources so it would be easy to not press your advantage too much without making it look like you are going easy on them.
precisely sir, i wanted to have a NPC do something like Dazzling display, but the last time i did it, it failed horribly, and he wasn't even a solo.
i want the NPCs to be memorable and manly, to the point of not fighting cheap.
Thanks you very much btw, to all for teaching me. Balance is always the goal, not always easy to reach. :D
A good rule of thumb is, don't use solo enemies. Pathfinder doesn't handle it well. Also, there's something not very heroic about four PCs ganging up on a single foe.
If you want to use a solo enemy, the first thing to watch out for is that the PCs might kill him immediately. Hit points don't go up very fast with level, so four PCs attacking can reduce someone to zero in a round or two. This can also happen with things like the Slumber hex - failing a single saving throw can knock out a villain in one go.
Fortunately as GM you can cheat and increase Dex, Con and Wis as much as you want to boost AC, HP and saving throws. Don't overdo it - no-one likes fighting an enemy they can't hurt at all - and add 1 to CR for it.
Spells are also a good defense - I'll assume they can cast from scrolls with Use Magic Device if nothing else and that they have a couple of rounds to prepare. Stoneskin gives DR, Resist Energy if they're expecting to fight a caster, and Mirror Image will soak up a few hits.
There's also environmental factors - an enemy with ranged abilities who starts the battle a long way above the party, attacking from cover, for example.
Balancing offense abilities is usually a bit easier. Try to avoid 'kill a PC in one round' martial damage. Area effects are good.
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Action economy eh, yes i was thinking about a homebrew to give dual initiative to a solo encounter.
raising defenses is definitely something i have failed, because humanoids tend to suck on innate defenses, but i will probably do it next time.
The thing is this, i wanted to create a 4 guardians of the elements theme, in which the 4 NPCs are the main enemies of the players, and they need to be solo encounters and be epic.
i was also thinking about Gestalt. but still don't know what CR should i give to a Gestalt character.
i had this in mind for the 4 characters of the elements.
Draconic Knight of Fire.
Samurai of the Wind.
Warlock of Ice
Monk of Earth (Thinking about a Synthesist/monk :P)
Dual initiative is cheezy and I've hated it since they put the Mythic rules out.
Now that you have stated what you WANT to do lets see how we can make that happen rather then tell you not to do it like most of the comments here.
First I'm going to tell you to do something that everyone here rails against. You should look to MMO raid encounters for how to make this happen. Since it focuses on single big bad encounters against multiple PC's and has devoted millions on getting it right.
First, the terrain is always on the BBEG side since the PC's have to come to him.
Your Knight of Fire encounter? Put him at the foot of an active volcano with a field of lava burst fields. He's immune to it but the PC's have to constantly keep moving and burning resources to handle the hazard. (Hint: Reset energy fire doesn't really protect you from lava)
Second, these guys are TOUGH but not hard to hit. They usually rely on two of three different survival mechanics which translate great to your goal.
A). Enormous HP pool, simple, straightforward and avoids frustration from the miss fest that high AC/miss chance encounters cause.
B). Recharge method, they have a mcguffin/ability that lets them rapidly undo damage/status effects that the PC's need to stop. Whether it's draining the life from an opponent or victim or super healing or body swap ability it's something that lets them go from almost defeated to full strength.
C). Achilles Heel, these guys can only be actually killed in a very specific way otherwise they just keep going.
Third, divided attention. The BBEG finds away for a significant portion of the party to focus on something other than beating in the boss. Usually dropping an effect on someone that must be dealt with right now or it gets really bad. Like a bomb effect on that guy so he explodes, or a magic portal summoning in reinforcements, or even an escape tunnel that must be closed or he gets away. Anything that requires the party to split it's attention.
For your idea let me throw a few possibilities out there to get you thinking in another way.
Fire Knight. He's attempting to set off a massive volcano near a major town by channeling the power of multiple elder Fire elementals via a powerful ritual into it and the PC's are trying to stop him. He's already gotten the volcano started and is in the middle of a field of magma geysers bursting from the ground. He's immune to it (fire resistance and evasion for the explosion AoE) and extremely tough (250+HP's) but the ritual is keeping him from really defending himself (low AC from not moving around much).
The party has to deal with constant magma explosions (keeps them moving) while splitting their attention between beating down the BBEG and breaking the connection between the fire elementals (who are imprisoned by the ritual so are non-combatants).
Their research or Wizard lets them know killing the BBEG before undoing the ritual releases a dozen enraged elder fire elementals to rampage across the town.
It's still just a fight between the PC's and the Big Bad but requires them to do more then just dogpile on the boss. Give the final fights a hook and everyone gets to contribute and your fights get more interesting.
It's not about ruling or making exceptions, it's about using the humanoid intelligently with proper tactics.
They should be taking advantage of all the advantages having a brain and thumbs allows them.
Terrain, lighting conditions, combat maneuvers, positioning etc. should all be taking into account when running a solo humanoid encounter.A single humanoid standing out in wide open field at noon is an easy challenge for any group, but take that exact same opponent and put him up on a narrow ledge crouched behind a statue and he becomes an order of magnitude more difficult for any party.
Look beyond the targets stats and use better tactics and tricks. Mostly things that keep him out of full attack position and they are usually fine (until the real save or suck abilities kick in from the casters).
This. Challenge is always--always--more about behavior than stats. A relatively bright child can defeat an iron golem in most situations likely to have one, but Tucker's kobolds can really ruin a 10th-level party's day without any class levels at all.
A solo villain has already violated a major survival rule by not having minions to throw in the way. An otherwise canny villain will even the odds by choosing the battleground and the fighting conditions--working from total cover and/or concealment, choosing advantageous terrain, surprise, spells, traps, hostages, dead-man's switches, or even just plain running away to fight on a better day.
A foolish villain? That villain is going to lose. Badly. It's not a bug of the system--it's a feature, and one of the few aspects of Pathfinder combat that mimics real-life combat with any degree of accuracy.
Just give him the ability to hit and then run away. That's how a lot of single video game bosses are. Do something like a spring attack build with tons of stuff to make it run fast (1 level in barbarian for the extra run speed, take fleet multiple times). Then give him a bunch of stuff to hide behind and super high stealth to avoid getting shot.
Solo opponents can be solo and not solo at the same time. Consider these minions that are built into the solo humanoid's CR:
- Animal Companions
- Familiars
- Eidolons
- Special Mounts
Your dragon knight for example may have a giant lizard they're riding around on. Now that "solo" NPC can take certain Move actions using the mount's Move in place of their own; this means they can be firing arrows from afar, then charge and still have actions, and even make a Ride check to bolster their own defense.
Another idea is to incorporate extra monsters but in a sneakier way. Consider the lowly zombie:
You spy a shambling corpse of the restless dead staggering toward you preceded by the stench of the grave. As it draws closer you notice a strange slick of ooze drooling from the sagging rot where once it's mouth had been.
The zombie has an alchemical ooze swarm sloshing around inside it, hitching a ride until prey can be found. This ooze swarm can be whichever variety you want and it only reveals itself when the creature makes a slam attack or is hit in melee. You don't have to describe it as a second creature if you want the fight to appear as an epic solo battle:
As you surround the rotten undead the fighter's axe bites deep into it's putrid flesh. A terrible reek issues from the gelatinized innards of the creature which issue forth in a nauseating spray as if water from a ruined dam. Fighter, give me a Fort save...
Point being now you have 2 attacks and 2 separate threats for the price of describing ONE monster.
Finally there are traps and hazards. The APL you're trying to hit is 5 right? Imagine a winter witch for the water element, and she's only level 6, however she's surrounded by a sheet of ice that is dangerously fragile in places. Beneath the ice are deep crevasses (CR 1 20' pit traps) which she glides across easily using some hex or power she has. The PCs in the meantime have to navigate an ice field making balance checks or waste resources flying and such, while also avoiding the pits that confound their attempts to gang up and melee/flank with the witch.
There are walls, fogs, trees, fire gouts, frozen terrain and still more that can rob PCs of options or help defend your solo. There are also traps, clouds of poison gas, pools of acid, and other things to threaten your PCs while your solo is fine. Finally consider things like fast-flowing streams, howling wind, driving rain, or intense heat to cause fatigue, minor ongoing damage, or debuff the PCs.
Hmmm you are right, positioning and terrain edit is something i've definitely not done, and thank that i've put this thread now i see, maybe i'll make a dungeon for each villain. inside a volcano, in an ice tower, in the elemental air plane, and spelunking. And finally PCs will reach the lair :} now this looks more like pathfinder :P
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One thing that's great with passive sources of damage (dangerous terrain, swarms, and damaging auras) is that they push back against the action economy. Every time someone acts, they get dinged. Even if the villain is vulnerable, there's only one of her.
A random pointer for terrain encounters: give a round of foreshadowing before the big hits. If there's going to be a lava eruption, have it start bubbling the round before. Then anyone who doesn't get out of the way has only themselves to blame.
Remember you can give a little extra XP (equivalent of bumping the CR up 1 or 2) for terrain that's very favorable for the enemy.
Dual initiative is cheezy and I've hated it since they put the Mythic rules out.
I agree with you in general, it usually just feels like a hack. But it can do wonders if you match it up with the right flavor.
Ettins are the obvious one, but also certatioidi and even stuff like hydras. I'd probably give quicklings a pass too, just on principle.
For humanoids, anyone possessed by a spirit or outsider can work (person at one initiative, spirit at the other). Pushing things, I considered it for a certain AP villain with warring personalities.
Cheers!
Landon
Take a look at the GM's Guide to Challenging Encounters thread and associated doc. Alexander Augunas repeats some of what others have said about action economy and breaks encounter design down into very clear elements.
Given your interest in the single humanoid, the things to consider are things that take away or split the action economy of the group. You can do this in a number of ways:
Blocking line of sight while giving the opponent a way around it (Fog & Fog Cutter Lenses, or peep holes in walls).
Blocking or hampering movement (pits, chasms, ability to earthwalk, fly, etc). If the party flies, but you've got a Master of Winds as the opponent, give him a home base with constant hurricane force winds throughout - no flying without significant fly skill checks.
Providing special defensive gear/abilities that will reduce (but not totally neutralize) some of the key capabilities of one or more party members - A scroll of Spell Resistance or even Shield of Law (if you've got chaotic characters) can make it tough for the casters. Or the classic Boss use of a scroll of Protection from Fire, when that's the element to which he/she's vulnerable.
Provide minions - this is a standard response, but may not fit given your focus.
Consider including skill check associated mechanisms/effects that require split attention by the party. For example, a couple of arcane mechanisms giving off blasts of energy on a cycle, which, if left uninterrupted, will kill the party/cure the boss, gives you something else to divide the parties efforts. Someone's got to figure out how to turn each one off, while others battle the big bad.
And most importantly, have the Boss fight smart. If he/she is surprised, try to get some separation, then disengage, prepare, and resume the fight only when he/she's ready to lay the smack-down.
APL 5? You should send a CR8 or 9 at the party.
Consider too, the use of neat little items like mistmail (chainmail shirt that turns into a cloud of mist. SUDDEN CONCEALMENT. Another is boots of spider climbing. Now he's standing on the ceiling laughing at the group.
Simple environmental things too, like there's a secret door that leads up to a balcony where he has 50% cover and higher ground. Stuff like that.