I started Stolen Lands 2 week ago, and after 2 10h game sessions the players are almost at the point of attacking the Stag Fort (not that they know about it, they murder every single bandit without giving them a chance to surrender).
However I'm at a stopping point, they are simply too strong, especially the alchemist. With only 3 of them, I let them do 25 point buy to compensate, but the party of a tank ranger, alchemist grenadier and sorcerer healer/support summoner, even my augmented encounters are ruined, mostly because of 1 thing, bombs. Explosive bombs along with precision bomb which allows the min maxed 20 int 16 agi elf to make the bombs not target allies. Now at level 3, they do 2d6+5 damage, have an explosion range of 10 instead of 5 and also put the main target on fire for 1d6 fire per round using a touch attack, he's never missed 1 bomb since the campaign started and does a reliable 10 to 20+ damage per round.
I tried making him fight a grizzly bear at level 2 alone, send a dire bear at the temple when they were level 2, not to mention that anything that is not CR2 gets 1 shotted (or 2 shotted from splash damage alone half the time) by him. Honestly, I simply do not know what to do now to give them a fair challenge without sending 3 trolls at night to kill them. And that's also not talking about his knowledge in crafting that I'm sure will bite me in the ass, as he wants to control all of the market and shops when they eventually decide to settle down in the area post exploration. I'm pretty sure the Stag Lord's fort will be a nice challenge with the sheer amount of people inside plus the many lvl 3 enemies, but anything else is...meh.
Does anyone have suggestions for OP players/Parties in general?
Yes. When the bandits see how nasty he is? Have all of them target him with arrows. Turn him into a pincushion. And it makes sense tactically as he's the most dangerous enemy there.
Then after he likely survives that? Do it again. And again. Everytime he shows himself to be a big threat? Enemies go after him. Eventually he'll either get very paranoid and be so busy dodging foes that he's not a big threat, or he'll die. Preferably the former.
What level are they?
I tried that last time, sadly his AC is trough the roof because of shield potions, his dex and his armor, at least compared to the other pc's, that and max hp on every level from his dice roll. You do make a point however, but I'm also playing with hero points. I made them burn some vs the taztlwyrms and vs the dire bear at the elk temple, so I was satisfied with that. He burned 1 to escape the wyrm's graps while my other player, also entangled, burned 1 to act twice to use a wand of burning hands point blank to kill 1 wyrm. A satisfying encounter. I do want his character dead, but I'm not trying to cheap him dead too. Now the only challenges left before the Stag fort (which to will reveal by having the Oleg guards capture a bandit while they are gone) is the frog pond, Nestle's crossing and that's about it.
I'm thinking of making the frogs advanced on top of them being giant, and putting 4-5 of them instead of just 2-3. Or put 2-3 dire frogs, or 2 dire advanced frogs.
Odraude, playing at medium and being 3, they just hit level 3 last night, They have done 7 of the 8 quests mentioned in the first and last page of the book, cleaned the temple of the Elk and cleared the mite and kobold and the first bandit camp (those they did on level 1, but I was going easy on them). Cleaning the rest of the encounters plus the exploring exp plus finishing the stag fort, I don't see how it will net them the 4k exp they need to reach level 4, but I think they can handle being under-leveled for now, especially since they will gain an ally when they will fight the stag lord.
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Well your not supposed to actually try and kill off their characters just because they're a bit powerful for their level. The idea is to challenge them not to murder them off.
A better encounter for them probably would be a bit more of the small stuff that's spaced out so it doesn't all get mauled by bombs.
If you find that it really is a problem you should sit down and discuss that with them and probably bump their characters down a bit in the old point buy level. 25 points is supposed to create ridiculousness after all. It might have been better to have some NPC travel with them, they should run into plenty that could help out.
It's always important to remember that it's a game that everyone is playing and should be having fun with. If the PC's are too horrifically powerful just sitting down and talking is usually the best solution.
True Morgen, but this is my second time DMing, and while I am not actively trying to kill them, I do play some creatures how they should be ( a bear on fire might kinda run away more often then keep mauling it's target) I did not expect 25pb to be ridiculous, since our stats are usually even better then that when we roll the dices. I originally wanted to give them 20pb when they would have been 4. And in retrospect, it's only the alchemist that's really messing things up, while the other 4 are strong, but well balanced and with some weaknesses.
You cannot make a shield potion. It is a personal spell.
Alchemists can?
I know it's weird, but drink a potion, and poof, shield spell.
Technically the alchemist is drinking a shield extract.
Have someone use a Wand of Gust of Wind on them. Have him hold his attack until the alchemist throws. Use the gust, have the bomb deviate and hit the party. Then have the Wand weilder flee and with the next group of foes do it again.
Mind you, even with a 20 Intelligence, he should have only 8 Bombs unless he's one-tricking himself with Extra Bomb feats. Assuming a human with three Extra Bomb feats? That's 14 bombs. Keep track of them. Once he's out, he's useless. (BTW, his extracts should last the same amount of time as spells of the same type. So that Shield extract lasts for a few minutes at most.)
Also, keep track of splash damage. If it's close to the party? They get hurt too. The others may turn on him and tell him to tone it down because they're getting hurt by "friendly fire" which would further limit his usefulness. Splash damage becomes your friend in this situation.
Don't be afraid to have foes retreat when hurt. And have them always target the alchemist as the greatest threat to them. Doesn't matter if he has a high armor class... a nat. 20 will still hit, and if there's a crit? You could take him out by accident.
Mind you, normally I don't go for killing characters. But this chap sounds unbalanced.
Yeah, but he gets his bombs back everyday, and they explore once per day, Fights dont last more then 3 rounds really. He's never ran out. Splash damage can't hurt the part with one of his alchemist abilities to remove some squares from the splash zone. I tried having some retreat but he picks up a longbow, ranger takes longbow and sorcerer takes xbow and they always drop everything.
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Then up the hit points of all the encounters to max. Give your encounters the hit points to stand up to that abuse. And give them incentives to investigate multiple areas rather than sitting things out.
Personally I consider hit points to be a suggestion. If a foe is sticking around too long? I'll lower them. If the foe dies too fast? I just keep the enemy around so the combat's more interesting. The point is for the game to be interesting and enjoyable. If he's not making it so, then fudge.
It's a time-honored GM trait. =^-^=
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My default answer - swarms.
Yes, he has AoE attacks, which normally demolish swarms, but if he doesn't get the drop on them, his bombs are less useful. Especially if he has to catch himself or his allies inside those bomb blasts.
Also, allowing them to blow everything in one encounter per day is murdering your critters; don't let that happen. Have some survivor that they didn't notice track them down and attack while they're less prepared.
Actually that's something else to consider. These people have slowly been whittling away this bandit force. The bandits will have noticed that day by day another group no longer responds or sending in word as to what's happening. They know someone is out there.
So they should send out scouts... with several who hangs back, hiding, and who watches what happens without doing a thing. They then sneak back to the camp and report on what they found.
This means the enemy now has battle tactics and the like. And this doesn't even have to come out of the final tally of men - create an encounter for this using extra men that weren't in the module.
Then have them lay an ambush and get the drop on the alchemist first thing. They specifically target the alchemist because they know this is the biggest threat. Then they go after the rest of the group... and hopefully lose. But what they did was take out the alchemist, which was in fact their goal.
Further, LEAD them into the ambush! Have them find tracks or the like. Don't even have it be obvious! Describe the trail as "trying to hide their path" but not being good enough. Don't forget, these men have been hunted and are in danger of being wiped out. They're not going to sit back and wait. They're going to do what they can to eliminate this threat.
Well, you're throwing 25 point buy PCs against NPCs that are built on 10 (if they are NPC classes) or 15 (if they are PC classes). I'd say up the point buy on your minions and such to make up for the disparity.
I'd like to mention that a level 1 monk can have both Deflect Arrow and Snatch Arrow; and at level 2 the evasion can come in handy vs the AOE bombs.
Because they are only 3 Odraude, and initially I thought the adventure was made for 15 to 20pbs. So I figure hey, 25 might give them the edge the lack of a 4th guy removes. And honestly, you can't make bombs not hit, touch AC is almost always ridiculously low. Point blank range, something I forgot and his agility gives him a +5 to hit on bombs, so he hits almost everything in the greenbelt on a 7/8+ and a lot on a 5+.
Further checking the book makes me see that they are missing the fight vs the frogs, david nestle, the boggard, the bandit fort and the spider's patch of berries, although they might not get the berries since they find Bokken to be rather insane and annoying.
Frogs will now be Dire Giant Frogs. David Nestle's watery death will make him impervious to fire/unable to be set on fire. The Boggard will have an Advanced Slurk and have a character class, probably barbarian, or even cavalier as he rides his boggard, should they try and kill him.
As for the bandits, I'l trade their boring gear of longbow + shortsword for more customized gear, at least for those in the bandit fort. Stag Lord's first action, if he can, will be to focus fire the Alchemist, and then drunkenly snipe people.
I *think* that should work to make it somewhat interesting.
15 min workday's are indeed annoying, I roll random encounter on every hex at 5% like they say, and 15% added if they stay the night. So on 1 and 1-2-3 on a d20 they get something.
On a nicer note however, and a rather odd one, one of my pc's almost died 3 times in 2 days, from me critting with some suped-up monsters. This led to the healing sorcerer (allowed him some healing spells in his spell list from an interesting character concept that is not min-maxed) to question his role. At 16y old and wanting to live a life with less responsibility in the temple, he's beginning to find his brush with death every so often to be traumatic, but keeps going with the other 2 thinking they would keep going on without him, and die. Making them see explorers quit the land, trappers sob at the loss of a leg or even a co-worker from a monster attack is really shaking him up, he's drinking the entire stag lord's reserve of booze by himself, since the elf alchemist is extremely boring, and the Surtova ranger is too stoic and obsessed with making something of his own to care about fun.
Dude more encounters a day with more mobs. He'll run out of bombs before the BBEG.
Party attrition will add challenge, xp, and loot. Everyone wins
Any suggestions for the faeries? I want them to encounter them, but they purely and sorely refuse to leave any gifts. I had the faeries loot some of the sorcerer's maple syrup and absinthe and now he just wants to beat them up for theft.
They did spot them once, well 1 did, at night, and he failed the diplomacy (having none) roll, so the faeries went in a panic, color blasted him to daze him, and ran away.
Throw a shambling mound his way then watch him squirm or maybe the Staglord has a couple of tiefling officers who has fire resistance
I'd prefer not to make it too outlandish, but all of the bandits, + owlbear + bandit lord all around the fortress (that can catch on fire) should be fun
shield potions, his dex and his armor
Try to throw more ambushes at the party so he doesn't have a chance to take a shield extract before battle begins.
I run a game with 7 people at the table. We used the 15 point buy but due to the number of players, I had to up the ante to not have encounters last for one round and be laughable. Here's what I do to keep it interesting and fun for the players:
1) Use the community made 6 person conversions that you can find on the site here. -- these are great resources and an awesome start for upping the ante.
2) Double the number of people/creatures in each encounter. -- this is the single most powerful tool you have as a GM. Often just upping hp to a creature, or giving it an advanced template really doesn't equalize the playing field that much. IT may make the encounter last for an extra round or two, but often does little beyond that. Adding in multiple foes is MUCH more difficult for the players to negotiate. Especially when you've got someone liek an alchemist with AoE bombs in play. Small gorups from multiple attack angles -- your job is to sap their resources (bombs) and keep the pressure on.
3) Keep a steady hand and eye on the resources the party can use. How many arrows does your ranger carry with him? How many are available at Oleg's to purchase? Perhaps he's bought them all up already and the next time he goes back they are out of stock? How many arrows can he recover after a fight? An alchemist needs chemicals and components to make the bombs they can throw. Make them track those and make them costly to resupply, or even not available to the player all the time. Why on earth would Oleg have alchemical components for bomb making at a trading post int he wilderness that supplies trappers? Same as with gunpowder and guns (Often seen as game breaking) - If you only have 20 shots, will you use them on the family of badgers, or save them for the BBEG? Keeping resources limited at the early levels is a key.
4) Faeries -- Have them steal one of the alchemist's chemicals so he can only make half his bombs. Maybe Perlivash has taken to snorting sulfur-dioxide for it's 'effervescent and enlightening' qualities?
5) Random encounters -- start giving them a minumum of 2 per day, up to 4 or more. These don't have to be party killers, but they should keep tapping the party's resources. Also dont be afraid to have encounters not be 'kill this animal' but instead be things like 'you stumble upon the scene of a long abandoned picnic' or 'you hear laughing children playing in the mist' or 'you come across a stone circle that is emenating cold'...
In the end, its a balancing act. Your job isn't to kill the players, but to keep them challenged. Honestly in Kingmaker, especially early on, it's pretty easy -- you have limited access to supplies, a vast wilderness full of all manner of crazy things, and faeries galore to play with. I cant underscore enough that adding in multiple opponents is much more effective at creating a challenge than upping hitpoints and armnorclass. Have fun and enjoy it!
Well at level 3 his bomb does 2d6 + int + fire no?
The players are very rich now, selling everything they find for Oleg (albeit at a fair price) and putting it into credit to buy eventual magic gear, ingots of steel and iron for crafting, etc.
Having Perlivash take bomb material isnt very nice and fitting his character, however I'm starting to wonder the balancing issue for the alchemist to constantly have material for 9 bombs a day for a straight week in the wild. There's no listing for weight of bombs, he can just take them out of his ass everyday, same for extracts altough we can theorize he re-uses the same bottles, same for mutagen.
As for the bomb, Benefit: The alchemist’s bombs now have a splash radius of 10 feet rather than 5 feet (see Throw Splash Weapon). Creatures that take a direct hit from an explosive bomb catch fire, taking 1d6 points of fire damage each round until the fire is extinguished. Extinguishing the flames is a full-round action that requires a Reflex save. Rolling on the ground provides the target with a +2 to the save. Dousing the target with at least 2 gallons of water automatically extinguishes the flames.
It has 0 downside and is a straight upgrade to the regular bomb, he will probably keep using it until he gets other types of bombs.
I believe he needs the portable alchemist's kit to make his bombs. It's supposed to have all the necessary materials in it, so that's what he's making it out of.
I was a player in book one of kingmaker, so i don't know all the specific stats and whatnot, but I know the staglord had quite a few "jobbers" with him, probably level 2 warriors or something. If they all bum-rush him, sure he will kill some of them with bombs, but it only takes one of them to make it to him and grapple him to slow him down long enough for the big strong guy to get in there and ruin his day.
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I do have to concur with Jabberwonky. When I was running my Runelords game I started everyone at 2nd level. To compensate the first battle had six goblins instead of three. It... took longer than expected. I mean, if I'd just made all the goblins 2nd level Warriors it would have presented the same CR... but by increasing the number of bodies on the field, things become more complex even with Cleave and the like.
For that matter, double the number of archers significantly increases the chance of people getting hits on the Alchemist and taking him out. Make him paranoid. Don't let him control the battlefield.
I once had a group of level 10 AD&D characters flee from an encounter with Drow because they didn't know how many foes they were facing (and the NPC cleric/wizard was killed via Disintegrate first thing), despite the fact most of the Drow were 2nd level and honestly not that big a threat. This was a party that had never run from a fight before in their lives. They weren't even THAT badly hurt! (Maybe down a third of their HPs while having killed over half a dozen Drow, including a couple tough front-line drow fighters.)
If they don't know what they're facing for numbers then the fear factor increases. Make them scared for their characters lives, even if the threat is much less than they realize!
Also, double-check Alchemist rules. Make sure that the player isn't playing fast and furious with the rules.
Having played an myself from level 6 to 10 I know he's not pulling a fast one on me, and he does have his kit with him at all times. I will have some bandits rush them soon, maybe give them some dogs, etc.
Use other types of enemies that provide different challenges.
Casters with touch attacks, swarms that avoid armor and use distraction, breath weapons and other abilities that target saves. Also, Kingmaker is the PERFECT venue for bringing out the Weather and Terrain rules. make it rain, sleet, hail, or just be windy. That's what I did. Can you imagine being ambushed by Chimeras in the fog? That encounter was nuts.
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Oooh! Yes, unleash the dogs! Riding dogs are actually fairly dangerous! :)
You'll want a fairly wide dispersal so that you don't have the PCs all shielding the alchemist. And you can always use reserves that charge to go into hand-to-hand with the alchemist while avoiding the others.
And I think I'm never going to allow an alchemist in my game. ^^;;
Honestly, having run one as a GM, it really isn't all that tough. Sure, 2d6+5 sounds awesome, but they run out of it very quickly. Rage chemist has more staying power and even then, it really isn't that difficult to combat unless your combats only involve level 1 warriors.
Yeah, they're certainly nice and can be useful to the party, but they're far from broken. Kingmaker is just really, really convenient for X-per-day characters like alchemists (and most casters!) because of the very heavy "15-minute-workday" of the sparse random encounters and few scripted combats in the first couple of chapters.
Yeah, pretty much that. That's why when I ran it, I did add more locales with more encounters, or the single encounters would be of the Challenging-to-Epic difficulty, using the weather and environment rules to put players outside of their comfort zone. Underwater fighting with a devilfish, the Chimeras in the Mist, and before the game ended, Winter Worgs in the snow.
There are some good ideas here, mostly the weather. Mixing some encounters up to make them challenging and to make them go oh shit a few times would be great. While I won't outright kill them (I fudged some dices early on) I remember that with Hero points, I can and will make them spend what they have to survive. Encounter rate will be cumulative too instead of a hard 5 and 15%
Snowstorms and blizzards man. They are the bane of all classes at early levels. Casters have to make concentration checks, melee can't charge, and ranged attacks either have huge minuses to hit, or they can't even see anything in front of them. Fog is also nasty, but be prepared to use the Pinpointing rules for invisibility and let the party know about them. Precipitation and wind are good for making ranged attacks a bit harder. And finally... throw a freaking Tornado at them once. I did that (when they are somewhat higher since it's CR 8 I think) and that was probably one of the most memorable encounters I ever ran. Of course, throw in a lot of sunny adventures too, since it's rare to have all that weather happen one after another. Believe me, I studied to be a meteorologist back in the day.
I'd suggest using Dodeca Weather for a tighter, more realistic weather patterns. It's a dollar and very well done in my opinion. Also, Dodeca Encounters is a simpler way to do random encounters. And, it's free. Plus, it gets you to use that d12 that no one save for barbarians use.
It's not the time of year for a blizzard or snowstorm. Rain and fog can work however.
And finally... throw a freaking Tornado at them once. I did that (when they are somewhat higher since it's CR 8 I think) and that was probably one of the most memorable encounters I ever ran.
CR 10 actually. It's about the right time of year in my game for one to show up, too.
A Tornado Elemental would be a pretty badass high-level monster. The normal Air Elemental's vortex doesn't quite ever get powerful/big/fast enough.
Sorcerer's always sleeping a full night for his spells, the ranger always takes the first 4h guard shift and the elf takes the second, needing only 4h of sleep, ending with the ranger waking up and the sorc finishing his spells. I'l still give them 1-2 tries to not kill every bandit and extract information. But for the rest it's going to be an interesting boss fight near the end, even with Akiros helping them. I do expect them to try and convince the guards, or Mikmek (now a level 1 ranger trapmaster) to come with them.
They really don't like Mikmek ingame but love him out of it.
