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I'm running a game with four 8th level characters. One is a hunter with a wolf animal companion.
They're heading into a fort occupied by gnolls. I plan on giving the folks character levels. Fighter o or ranger mostly with an odd cleric mixed in.
How many gnolls and what level in each encounter?
I'm thinking lower level guards with a sergeant or lieutenant at first and growing in toughness as they approach the chief.
I'm also thinking of making the chief like a video game boss fight. One big tough guy vs the heroes.
Ideas?
Thanks.
A lot of this depends on the optimization and battle capabilities of your group and how much challenge you would like. Assuming a "typical" rogue/fighter/cleric/wizard party I'd do something like 6 gnolls with 4-5 class levels outside the fort/guarding the gate or whatever. Perhaps one of them has if a bit beefier or has a level of barbarian and is the sub boss.
Maybe an encounter using the defensive advantages of the fort. Like a hallway with murderholes for arrows where the ranger gnolls are. PCs with good infiltration might be able to discover this and turn around the ambush.
For the boss you are going to run into the common problem of action economy. Either he'll be so much powerful than any individual that he runs the risk of straight murdering one. Or he will likely go down pretty fast and easy. Especially if your group has any good grapple/sleep/etc specialists.
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A lot of this depends on the optimization and battle capabilities of your group and how much challenge you would like. Assuming a "typical" rogue/fighter/cleric/wizard party I'd do something like 6 gnolls with 4-5 class levels outside the fort/guarding the gate or whatever. Perhaps one of them has if a bit beefier or has a level of barbarian and is the sub boss.
Maybe an encounter using the defensive advantages of the fort. Like a hallway with murderholes for arrows where the ranger gnolls are. PCs with good infiltration might be able to discover this and turn around the ambush.
For the boss you are going to run into the common problem of action economy. Either he'll be so much powerful than any individual that he runs the risk of straight murdering one. Or he will likely go down pretty fast and easy. Especially if your group has any good grapple/sleep/etc specialists.
Thamks. This helps.
Glad to help. Nothing worse than asking for some suggestions and getting 0 feedback on these boards.
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I have a standard progression when I am upping the ante on stock bad guys.
First I give them the the Simple Template: Advanced. This gives a +2 boost to natural armor and +4 to all attributes. This can fix most minor power deferential issues.
The next step is to fix the feats the critters are given. Usually they have a few lame feats that don't really help much. I will often swap out or just give them 2 or 3 new feats. My favorites are Toughness, Weapon Focus and sometimes Dodge. They are simple feats that add easily calculated boosts to the bad guys
By this point the bad guys should have a +3 to attack, +2 to damage, +4 or 5 to AC and 3 extra Hit Points per Hit Die.
I also usually get them some slightly better gear. Just 100 gold or less can go a long way. In the case of the gnolls, I would give them hide armor (15 gold), Heavy Wooden Shield (7 gold), and a Battle Axe (10 gold).
If that is not enough, I then give one or two bad guys in each group the Simple Template: Giant. That's a one step size increase, +3 natural armor, and +4 to both STR and CON. You also take a -2 to Dex and the size bump gives you a -1 to attack and AC. In the end, you get +1 to hit and +1 to AC. You also get a reach increase, + 2 to damage and another +2 HP per Hit Die.
If that is still not enough, I start adding class levels. Fighters are generally the easiest, but a dash of cleric or rogue can be fun. If I want to throw the characters a curve or just have a little fun, I'll use something else.
All of these bumps stack, so the power level can take off pretty fast. An Advanced Giant gnoll with Toughness, Weapon Focus and Dodge, as well as two levels of fighter can get scary pretty fast.
I think that critter would have a CMB of +10 and +8 to hit, and do a base of 2d6+5 damage with the axe. It would have 2d8+2d10+24 hit points. The AC would be 22, and the CMD would be 19.
Just follow that progression and something along those lines should get you where you need to be.
Good luck and happy gaming.
Here's some gnolls with class levels from the monster codex, if that helps.