| joep |
The players in my group are very experienced. They seem to walk through creatures easily.
I've got a monk with stealth in 30+ range
The Ranger has multishot, rapid shot, point blank, etc+ and his BAB is 19 using these. Throw in a favor enemies and he's 23ish
Cleric buffs them with Bless, Prayer, Blessing of Fervor
Wizard uses Fireball, not caring about party members since monk and ranger can avoid damage.
fighter has massive HP, so he can take hit and then Cleric heals him
They are even using Hide from Undead, level 1 Cleric spell to walk past undead and got to main guy. Unless the undead has intelligence to make a save.
If a creature has DR then the fighter just Sunders the weapons on the creature and the wizard uses Ray of Enfeeblement to lower the strength. Leaving the creature with no weapon and doing no damage while they kill it easily.
How do I make it more challenging without over powering the players and taking away the fun.
| Corvino |
What sort of level are we talking? That'll help give appropriate advice.
It's worth taking advantage of the party's weaknesses. If you hit the Fighter or Ranger with a high DC enchantment spell you might well be able to turn them on the party.
Make sure that they're fighting several foes rather than one large one, that way they don't have an action economy advantage.
Enemies shouldn't be dumb. Get them to split the party, use ambushes, have buffers & disablers who cast intelligently.
Deadmanwalking
|
Firstly, bear in mind exactly what CR means.
CR = Average Party Level +0 to +2 results in an almost surefire win for the party, just costing resources to do.
CR = APL +3 is starting to be a real threat, and CR = APL +4 is actually a fair fight, at least in theory.
Coincidentally, that last one is the CR of four NPCs of the same CR as the party's level. So...the 'clones of themselves' fight (or another party of the same level with the same WBL). Or several other options.
Secondly, bear in mind action economy. PCs fighting a single opponent will usually win, no matter how powerful they are. Parties fighting a group of opponents don't do quite as well...unless those opponents are pathetic enough to all get swept away by a fireball. So you want single opponents powerful enough to be a real challenge combined with
For example, a level 8 party fighting a CR 10 leader and his four CR 6 minions are in for a very difficult fight...way more so than fighting a single CR 12 (who, as you note, they can shut down with weight of fire) or even sixteen CR 4s (who they can use area effect spells to dispose of more easily).
Thirdly, as noted, targeting weaknesses is a very real and good strategy that intelligent enemies should absolutely use.
| joep |
What sort of level are we talking? That'll help give appropriate advice.
It's worth taking advantage of the party's weaknesses. If you hit the Fighter or Ranger with a high DC enchantment spell you might well be able to turn them on the party.
Make sure that they're fighting several foes rather than one large one, that way they don't have an action economy advantage.
Enemies shouldn't be dumb. Get them to split the party, use ambushes, have buffers & disablers who cast intelligently.
They are 11th level
| DebugAMP |
Use the terrain to your advantage. Most of my favorite encounters I've run and played in made heavy use of terrain hazards. I'm not a huge fan of domination effects simply because I don't like having uninvolved players, but focusing on action economy is definitely important. Make sure you include some fodder in the fight to chew up actions and pull party members out into the open. Putting traps onto the battlefield also makes for an interesting mix, especially since I'm not seeing a rogue on that list for detection. Incorporeal creatures, swarms, and robots are definitely more challenging mobs when they aren't prepared for, so you could consider using those, however they are also pretty long and dull combats if the party just sits there smacking it for a few points per turn and healing up. Another idea is to build the whole day of encountering with this in mind. Include a series of encounters specifically designed to deplete resources that builds up to your challenging encounter. Also, don't be afraid to stagger arrivals of enemies. It helps keep them from being nailed by AoE, and gives you a bit of flexibility to up their numbers if it seems too easy.
| Mark Hoover |
A level 11 party should be looking at CR 13 or higher fights. That CR is just the measure of how tough the monsters are to start. The CR may elevate when you start factoring in tactics of the enemies, terrain advantageous only to the enemies and other things.
The party is able to optimize for any kind of combat; their villains at this level should be doing the same. Four frontline melee monsters, even with lots of HPs and attacks, will probably die horribly and without posing much threat. If however you have a harpy zen archer, a heavily armmored black dragon, and an invisible stalker cleric of Asmodeus with enough gear and class levels to get them up to CR 13 or greater, now you're talking.
Attack the party in waves; have the big bads and their minions hit-and-run; even though the PCs likely have the ability to see invisible creatures use invisibility plus stealth to get better positioning; outfit NPCs with truly worthy gear; supplement the CR of the villains with a couple CR's worth of auto-resetting traps (heck, just an auto-resetting Acid Spray trap that deals 1d6 acid in the area can be annoying and a resource drain, especially if your villain is immune to the damage).
Dafydd
|
Mooks mooks and more mooks. A single foe is a dead foe. I found having a foe for each party member built into the encounter made it more challanging, especially as flank was suddenly not an option until someone took down their foe. Also, keeping in mind Fireball spell, and the dangers of being bunched up. The party tries to lure 1 enemy towards another? (to flank or prep for AoE) Well, the enemy might spot the tactic and charge another PC, maybe even getting flank as well.
Not saying every encounter needs to be 4v4, but the 1v4 is always gonna end bad for the 1.
Also, vary the enemy make up. Been seeing lots of undead? Who created them? Cultists, demons, others? You do not have to remove the undead, but there is a source of them somewhere.
Terrain, use it to your advantage, especially in ambushes. If the enemy is smart enough to set an ambush, they are smart enough to set it in the most tactically sound location they have access to. EX. Bandits spot the PCs on the trail. They guesstimate the path and advance along it. If they find wide open areas, they get the horses for skirmish tactics. Mountain pass, set up banks of archers on higher ground.
If the PCs have an organization as their foe, start having foes learn from the dead (11th level PCs, so speak with dead if not more powerful divination could be used, but is all background so does not really matter). Fireball is a common tactic, fire resistance starts popping up. Healing Magic, time to desecrate the battle sight. Sunder+Enfeeble, send in the golems (or other minions with SR and natural attacks).
The same stock foes over and over gets stale. Varying as the PCs grow can keep it interesting too.
| SmiloDan RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32 |
Terrain and mooks are the way to go. Eat up resources, including action economy.
Maybe traps of negative energy that hurt the PCs but heal the undead mooks?
If they are using fireball a lot, counter it with cover.
Are your fights usually in big square or rectangular rooms? I like to sprinkle in columns and damaged columns for cover and difficult terrain. Narrow tunnels connecting lots of smallish chambers (10 to 15 feet across) can be fun too. Also, balconies and terraces and narrow bridges.
Use a mix of monsters in each encounter. Just 2 or 3 different kinds of creatures, especially ones that synergize well. Also, try to use Combat Maneuvers. Bull rush them into fires or off cliffs, disarm their favorite bow and shoot them with it, steal the cleric's holy symbol and the wizard's spell component pouch, use dirty trick for a bunch of minor de-buffs, grapple or swallow a PC--then run away with the PC, resulting in a chase scene. Sunder can be kind of a dick move if you destroy their favorite magic item, but damaging armor and shields and weapons so they have the broken condition can be an effective debuff.
Use non-lethal damage. A lot of PCs panic when they think they are going to be captured--and have all their loot stolen!
Make the PCs climb a cliff, and hit them with a bunch of sneak attacks (they lose Dex to AC when climbing). Or waste resources flying and dim-dooring.
But remember to keep the encounters fun--11th level PCs should be very successful at what they do! Let them shine.
| joep |
Actually I running the Rise of the Runelords.
The party was level 10 and now are level 11
The party consists of the following
Ranger
Monk
Cleric
Fighter 8/Barbarian 2
Arcane Trickster 3/Fighter 1/Wizard 3/ Rogue 3
They were on Jorgenfist, and completely bi-passed the lower caverns and went right to the Ancient Library
It was basically a cake walk for the party and they are supposedly below recommended level
| Errant Mercenary |
Actually I running the Rise of the Runelords.
The party was level 10 and now are level 11
The party consists of the following
Ranger
Monk
Cleric
Fighter 8/Barbarian 2
Arcane Trickster 3/Fighter 1/Wizard 3/ Rogue 3They were on Jorgenfist, and completely bi-passed the lower caverns and went right to the Ancient Library
It was basically a cake walk for the party and they are supposedly below recommended level
What Ive noticed from APs is that somehow the parties are supposed to be challenged by many low CR fights one after the other, until the BBEG of the chapter or dungeon. They also like to throw unprotected casters at the party (RoTRL does this often).
This isnt a challenge (at all) in Pathfinder, and the AP writers seem to keep doing the same over and over. Numbers scale so low CR dont pose a threat (kobolds excluded).
Solutions:
-Add more enemies to increase action economy
-Combine many of the dungeon rooms into fewer, higher CR encounters. AP has 10 zombies? Pick up a couple of shades instead and slap them to the second-in-command boss of the dungeon.
-Apply templates to your enemies. Make them crit immune for one, DR for another, elemental resistances (vs fireballing)
and my #1 rule when running APs...Apply a straight "Advanced" template to EVERYTHING in ANY AP. Fast way is +2 to everything and max or 75% hp (if you want a durable fight).