You were all so helpful with my last question (https://paizo.com/threads/rzs43bgx?PCs-want-to-take-over-their-homeland#1) I was hoping I could get a little more advice.
My murder hobo PCs are running roughshod all over the NPCs I've created to challenge them so far. The first was a one-on-one arena battle that lasted exactly one round. Actually, half a round. The challenger, despite being three levels more advanced, was eviscerated by three attacks, two of which crit, leaving him disemboweled and very much dead. A full 20hp more than needed to render him unconscious.
The second battle was an ambush on a political opponent. This guy was twice their level. It took three hits from three characters, but he's dead, too. I had to make that fight up on the fly as I had no idea they would attempt an assassination of a second-in-command. They loved it, and I do mean all caps LOVED IT, but I think they would like a greater challenge even more.
Any ideas how I can make some Orc Chieftains last longer than one round, without simply cranking their AC and HP? I've thought about some tough animal companions, bodyguards and putting them at a tactical disadvantage with the terrain, I'm simply looking for some memorable and unique ways to make the targets less killable.
FYI, they have crazy high stealth, disguise and bluff, helping them get close to targets.
as I've said before elsewhere, terrain is the spice to an encounter. Not only do they change things up from a rock-em-sock-em robots encounter, but they can add depth and complexity and make for memorable events. I mean, which is more memorable, fighting a dude in a hallway, or fighting a dude on a swaying bridge over a yawning chasm, while pterodactyls try and swoop in and carry either of you off?
have the orc tribe camped on a snowy cliff face, where deep drifts and falls can be problematic and where willy chiefs may cause an avalanche to bury their would-be assassins.
Or a geyser field, where at any moment a boiling spout of sulfuric water can erupt to cook alive anyone too close
Or a vast plain filled with the beasts of the tribes, grazing nearby and with but a shout could be called to stampede by the chieftain.
But besides that, generally for any kind of encounter to have staying power, it can almost never be one on more than one. DnD/Pathfinder has never been good at that because of action economy. So minions, companions, cohorts, or whathaveyou need to be there to help soak up some of the extra attacks the players get as compared to the lone boss.
Also don't forget that there a lot of modifiers for all of those skills that make even crazy high levels uncertain; lack of cover/concealment, light levels, glaring differences in wardrobe to background, how well do the guards know the people they're trying to disguise themselves as, etc...make them work for it, but don't make it impossible, that will help make the encounter tense and memorable as well.
I'll agree with all of the above. Encounter design is a difficult art, and missing by even a narrow margin can make the difference between memorable and humdrum.
If you need to, consider a council of elders-type thing; a group of tribal leaders every bit as brutal and efficient as the PC's. Nothing stops a group of murderhobos in their tracks like another group of murderhobos.
Well, behind every great man, is a greater woman...
So, put the Orc Witch with the Chieftain... stack Dark Sister with Scarred Witch Doctor... give her 3 more levels (making her level 12), so she can summon her Night Hag... give her the Coven Hex, obviously.
Change the Chieftain to a Witchguard Ranger, or better yet, an Eldritch Archer-Hexcrafter Magus with a HornBow and the Coven Hex.
Add a Witchfire to Coven, and you have yourself a party!
Mind going into a little more detail on the fights you have had already?
A one on one fight with 2 crits and a hit(so pounce? didn't have to move up? ranged attacks?) to eliminate an enemy 3 levels higher before that enemy gets to act seems a little off.
No problem. The party comes rolling into the capitol of their former tribe. They are all outcasts of one form or another, only two of them are even remotely well known. In the center of the city is a fighting pit where all matter of disputes, challenges and criminal proceedings are dealt with. As expected, they want to see the quality of the challenges, so I have the pre-prepared opponent just finishing off some poor idiot he bullied into a challenge. They ask around and find out this guy is well known for challenging newbies so he can kill them and take their stuff, as in allowed under law. The face him down outside the arena and issue their own challenge - but only one is allowed to issue the challenge, so the loudest of the party takes him back into the ring. The Arbiter states the case, the challenge is deemed worthy and acceptable. The PC is level 8, the NPC is level 11. They are 5 feet apart when the Arbiter steps out. PC wins the Initiative roll, take his 5 foot step and does his full round action, all three hit with two crits. He does something like 140 damage. The crowd goes wild, the PCs go wild, the NPC has served his purpose of introducing the arena and the basic concepts of this Tribe's version of justice, challenge and honor.
After talking with two of the other clan leaders on the Elder Council, they figure out that in order to overthrow the sitting Tribal Chief they need to weaken his faction. They don't want to go after him directly, but they do want to weaken his clan, so they decide the best option is to assassinate the vice chief of the Tribe chief's home clan. I have not set up this exact encounter, so I pick a PFSRD NPC that fits the bill, whip up a NPC sheet in Roll20, drop him into a generic market map and let the PCs go at him. One of them rolls disguise check to mask himself as this guy's boss, the Chief of this rival clan. Others roll high stealth checks for the crowded market. The mark rolls very poor perception. They pounce upon him and after three attacks he's very dead. He was level 15. As they retreat with the body they disguised player shouts to the crowd something about that's how you deal with a traitor with a high bluff check. They have plausibly covered their tracks and I'm going to let them get away with it and see how the political ramifications land. The Chief they're trying to frame will, of course, have an iron clad alibi.
They're smart, they've been playing for decades, some of them have been GMing for just as long. They know the Pathfinder system better than I do. They're min-maxing munchkins who are loving this evil party of murder hobos and spend hours pouring through online source material to figure out the best way to make their characters more lethal. And the dice love them.
Well, behind every great man, is a greater woman...
So, put the Orc Witch with the Chieftain... stack Dark Sister with Scarred Witch Doctor... give her 3 more levels (making her level 12), so she can summon her Night Hag... give her the Coven Hex, obviously.
Change the Chieftain to a Witchguard Ranger, or better yet, an Eldritch Archer-Hexcrafter Magus with a HornBow and the Coven Hex.
Add a Witchfire to Coven, and you have yourself a party!
That is brilliant! It will work perfectly for one of the Elders. I need to work out how the other two and the Tribal Chief will counter the party. And the Chief Arbiter. And the Leader of the Temple Synod. I just know they're going to murder them all.
Have the Chieftain and Witch and Night Hag and Witchfire be at the top of the camp doing Coven stuff.
Tarraced into the mountainside, across a narrow valley... rope bridges, "sky islands" on top of rock pillars rising from the valley floor, more rope bridges... switchback stairs carved into the mountain... lots of little camps with 2-5 huts around a firepit with tanning stands and various nonsense in each little camp...
A level 5-ish Dirty Fighter (Orc archetype for Fighter) at each end of every rope bridge with a slashing weapon and very specific orders on standing their ground and cutting the bridge if intruders are on it.
Archers at every switchback, and on the "sky islands" like watchtowers overlooking the bridges...
You get the point.
Tarraced into the mountainside, across a narrow valley... rope bridges, "sky islands" on top of rock pillars rising from the valley floor, more rope bridges... switchback stairs carved into the mountain... lots of little camps with 2-5 huts around a firepit with tanning stands and various nonsense in each little camp...
That is an excellent suggestion. Unless one of them is reading Paizo forum posts. But I really like the idea of the rope bridges. Some of them have rings of Feather Fall, but that doesn't solve their new problem of bridging the gap. This is easily a starting point for the final battle.
Thank you!
Terrain + integrated traps. Like, the traps don't even have to been particularly concealed. But just being there is a form of control against the party. And an opponent who is prepared could be using them to their advantage by pushing the PCs into them or running through trapped areas that they know how to not set off.
Also, it's typically a bad idea to create a combat with significantly less NPCs than PCs. The action economy difference really limits what the enemy can do, unless you start giving them multiple turns per round.
One of the easiest pitfalls in this game as a GM is looking at the CR of a monster/NPC and thinking "oh sure, this should challenge the party due to the infallible CR system" and then only put one monster/NPC on the battlefield, and then get absolutely crushed by lack of action economy and/or losing initiative.
When you design an encounter with one monster/NPC, and that one monster/NPC loses initiative and goes last (or even middle-ish with a party of 4+ PC's), by the time he DOES finally go in the round, he's been debuffed, surrounded, and quite possibly already 13 HP away from throwing loot at the party. If he wins initiative and goes first, he's still going to get crushed in action economy, but at least the PC's will have lost some HP or deal with some nuisance.
TLDR; if you want your monster to put up a proper fight, you need to give him backup with lesser monsters that can provide support or at least interrupt the PC's unmitigated slaughterfest.
Yeah, it's super important to put speed bumps in the way between a "boss" and the party.
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Archers! Lots of archers...they don't all need HornBows, we aren't looking for huge amounts of damage from everyone... we DO want relatively high accuracy, so no Deadly Aim or Rapid Shot.
Pretty sure an Orc Warrior 8 is still only ~CR 2. That is enough for Improved Initiative, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, and Weapon Focus (bow instead of Falchion).
Could switch the average Orc's Strength 17 and Dexterity 11 around, drop the 8HD stat bump into Strength (for a 12), give them all +1 strength rating composite bows. Obviously the 4HD stat bump increases Dexterity to an 18... accuracy is more important than damage.
They each have enough BAB's to shoot twice per round, and are accurate enough to take long shots across the narrow valley... the party is under constant fire. The incoming fire isn't particularly deadly, but it is constant.
This uses resources. Resources to heal. Resources to hide. Resources take actions.
Yeah, harassing the party with constant fire that doesn't do a lot of damage can be really effective psychologically. The most efficient method would likely be to ignore them and get to your target as fast as possible, but people have a hard time recognizing that.
I'm going to have to throw *a lot* of enemies at them. They are 5 PCs and 3 animal companions. In the first adventure I ran for them I nearly TPK'd them with a three way battle between a young black dragon with 8 nestlings, and a rival band of dwarf treasure hunters. It took hours and they fell one after the other. If I hadn't made the dwarves good aligned and willing to "help" the PCs, and distracted them with 5 animated statues arriving at the end of the battle, that would have been the end of the entire campaign before we even started. Getting the CR correct is a delicate thing, and I'm sure the players knew I nerfed that encounter right at the end to prevent the TPK.
But yes, I'm going to throw everything at them in this final chapter. Lots of lieutenants, lots of spell and HP draining minions at the beginning, a few gauntlets, disadvantageous terrain, traps, and maybe something in the air to harass them.
This forum is the best.
One of my favorites for NPC's, using NPC classes, is Warrior 4/Adept 4...
8HD
4D10 + 4D6 = ~36 base HP
BAB +6
Base Saves +5/+2/+5
CL 4, 2nd level spells
Still only around CR 3. It does require a 12 Wisdom, but that's easy enough to accomplish on an NPC. You get 4 feats... which is enough for two combat feats, one survival feat, and one magic feat... plenty for an NPC of this level. Giving them a set of traits can do wonders for NPC's.
They don't have complicated class abilities to track, but they have a few spells like Bless or CLW or Obscuring Mist or Protection from Whatever.
I'm going to have to throw *a lot* of enemies at them. They are 5 PCs and 3 animal companions. In the first adventure I ran for them I nearly TPK'd them with a three way battle between a young black dragon with 8 nestlings, and a rival band of dwarf treasure hunters. It took hours and they fell one after the other. If I hadn't made the dwarves good aligned and willing to "help" the PCs, and distracted them with 5 animated statues arriving at the end of the battle, that would have been the end of the entire campaign before we even started. Getting the CR correct is a delicate thing, and I'm sure the players knew I nerfed that encounter right at the end to prevent the TPK.
But yes, I'm going to throw everything at them in this final chapter. Lots of lieutenants, lots of spell and HP draining minions at the beginning, a few gauntlets, disadvantageous terrain, traps, and maybe something in the air to harass them.
This forum is the best.
Personally, I like knock-down-drag'em-out fights, both as a player and a GM. They're challenging enough to make the adrenaline start pumping, and can provoke 'cheers all around' when someone rolls high in a clutch moment right when they needed to.
In your case, I think you made the right choice to give them a knock-down-drag'em-out fight and pull punches at the end to prevent the TPK-- obviously you don't want to do this a lot though, they catch on, those sly buggers.
One thing that I do to "mask" the "pulling of punches" is to have the baddies do a "soft retreat". If I feel the sway of battle leaning against the party and in my favor, I'll have 2-3 of the baddies spend a round either double-moving or withdrawing to a more advantageous location for attacking next round, such as to find high ground, cover, or create a choke-point. This is one way that doesn't seem too obvious to the players, while giving them 1 round to catch up. Another thing I do is "play to the PC's strengths" for a round. If I know a PC has high SR or a strong Save to probably thwart a spell, then I purposefully target that PC with the spell they can most likely Save/Resist, rather than going after the PC I know will fail it. This can also give them a round to catch up and this strategy is not obvious at all because according to the PC's the baddies are still in full attack/kill/maim mode. And as an added bonus, when the PC saves/resists, they get warm fuzzies and a high five from the group.
On planned super-challenge fights that I make with plenty of prep, I'll usually keep an ace up my sleeve for some type of "punch pulling" intervention. Think Fellowship of the Ring when they were completely surrounded and certain doom was imminent, and then a Balrog shows up and scares them all off. Like, a fight starts going sour, and a Drow assassin shows up, kills/wounds the BBEG, and takes the mcguffin, while 3 of the baddies immediately start giving chase to the Drow. But if the PC's emerge victorious with major/minor wound-licking, the Drow shows up on 2nd watch that night to steal the mcguffin-- that kind of stuff.
Thank you all for the excellent suggestions. We played last night and it turned into a 5-hour marathon where they narrowly managed to win after I threw at them a multiple orc fighters, orc rangers, trolls, orc sorcerers, orc witches, all on five separate islands connected by bridges, and on the sixth and final island I had the treacherous Council Chief, his Arbiter who was a Daughter of the Dead Inquisitor in disguise, a resurrected half-orc monk from an earlier adventure, the chief's pet Giant Bear, 3 Alips and an Adult Black Dragon, the mate of a younger black dragon they had killed in the first adventure. In fact, they killed the mate and the whole brood of hatchlings and this was one mad dragon. The Daughter of the Dead opened up on them and kills the NPC allies they brought, one of the party and two animal companions. I intercede with another NPC we've used as a deus ex machina before and bring them back with 10hp, but not the NPCs. The rest of the battle is a slog but they pull it off by the skin of their teeth and I don't have to pull any more punches. They seems realty pleased with the conclusion. Thanks for the great advice!