Getting to the back row PCs

[Mark Hoover 330]

In this thread a poster said:

Melkiador wrote:

I've only played a few "archers", but I've played a lot of back row guys like casters and the norm is that enemies are constantly in your face.

I didn't want to derail the thread, so I'm asking here how do I do this as a GM; how do I make the "norm that enemies are constantly in your face" for the back-of-the-party types?

I run a megadungeon game and the characters often scout religiously unless they're on a clock. Between their senses and consumable utility magic items, it's hard to have a random encounter sneak up on 'em. Also, with all of this recon they often approach rooms or other encounter areas with SOME kind of forewarning of what's ahead.

And that's just it... the villains are always ahead. I've tried having enemies go invisible and run behind the party, but Glitterdust and high initiatives; I've tried the villains being gaseous form but the u-monk can use Ki for Gust of Wind; I've tried teleportation in combat but demons have to use an SLA and a Standard to do so.

I need to understand better methods of threatening ALL Of the characters. To that end, here's a very brief overview of the party:

Human Wizard (Fire Elementalist)7 with a Pyrausta familiar
Elf U-Rogue (Scout)7 with a grippili bard (busker bard) 5 cohort
1/2 Elf U-Monk 7 focused on grappling but otherwise vanilla
1/2 Dwarf Paladin 7 with special dispensation by me to have a War Bull as their Divine Bond mount; 1/2 orc cleric 5 cohort

Nearly every fight in the dungeon involves the u-rogue scouting ahead and letting the other PCs know what's coming. Then the party moves forward, their noise alerting the enemy but the rogue getting a Surprise round usually. Combat then unfolds, with the u-rogue, u-monk, paladin and the paladin's mount forming the "front line" where all the melee takes place.

These are enough bodies between the enemies and the wizard, 2 cohorts and the familiar in the "back" that those entities are rarely challenged by any kind of melee. Ranged attacks might target one or more of these PCs/NPCs, but the Wizard and the cleric cohort are builds focused around ranged combat.

The only time I've consistently worried the "back row" types was when using incorporeal foes. While the cleric has Channel Positive Energy he's not built exclusively to use it so it is a nuisance at best to such foes. That being said I'd rather not make the entire rest of the dungeon exclusively wraiths, ghosts and shadows.

[DeathlessOne]

Any easy answer is have some backrow enemies of your own that summon creatures directly in the face of the backrow PCs. Since summons TYPICALLY have lower stats than monsters of equivalent power, they should still pose a good threat against the squishies in the back. Also, play your spellcaster bad guys intelligently. Having some of them taking the time to learn how to DEFLECT ARROWS will save them from losing a spell to an archer that thinks they are clever.

[Mark Hoover 330]

Maybe I'm doing something wrong but the challenge seems to be keeping the enemy spellcasters alive long enough to get Full Round spells off. I suppose I could once in a while make bad guys with levels of Summoner but otherwise the second any of the melee types spot an obvious spellcaster they beeline for them to try and make sure their casting provokes.

[Chell Raighn]

You could still pull off ambushes even with the rogue scouting ahead. Remember, combat doesn’t have to start the moment the party enters a room that has enemies. Also keep in mind, a heavily armored Paladin with a war bull makes a lot of noise, and dungeon walls create echoes, so enemies up ahead will almost always know you are coming before the rogue scouts them out. With enemies forewarned they can adequately hide and wait for the most opportune moment to ambush the party. This gives your enemies an opportunity to get in close to the back line before the frontline can make a wall. Another option is to ambush the rogue as they are scouting ahead (depending on how far ahead they go) forcing the rest of the party to rush in blind but only if they hear it (the party doesn’t magically know combat started if they are not engaged themselves)… ambushing the scout can easily result in a couple rounds of only one PC engaged in combat. Having this happen even once will of course make the rogue more wary of scouting ahead too much causing them to stick closer to the rest of the party, this might seem bad at a glance but this is actually to your advantage as it reduces the time the party has to prepare for an encounter allowing you to better take advantage of poor placement to get at the back row.

Also… remember, just because the rogue gets in on the surprise round does not automatically mean the rest of the party does, nor does it mean the enemy looses their surprise round. Take advantage of the surprise round to move in close to to the back row. Unless the PCs have Combat Reflexes or Uncanny Dodge they can’t make AoOs until after they have their first turn, giving you ample time to move in and push past the frontline.

Another tactic is to only have ranged enemies come out of hiding at first… be sure to build these foes to withstand a few rounds of attacks from the ranged characters in the party though… the idea here is to lure the front liners out away from the back row so that your melee enemies can get to them when they leap out.

[Melkiador]

In my experience, it just happens naturally, but the main problem is that combat is loud. You can scout ahead and take out one room, but after that, the other nearby rooms should be on high alert. Some of those rooms should even be coming to participate/investigate.

Another factor can be the number of enemies. If your party constantly out numbers the enemy, then maybe the enemy never gets around to the back row. This can be an issue with having a large party size. Or having an adventure that relies on a handful of strong enemies instead of a large number of contemporary enemies.

[Mark Hoover 330]

The sound of combat is loud; DC 0 Perception check modified by distance and barriers. The paladin just walking though, despite a "golf bag" of weapons and heavy armor, is a DC 10 check with the same mods. Remember, the armor check penalty applies to the paladin's Stealth check, not a penalty to the general DC of Perception checks to hear them.

Also, I tend to build encounters that have a CR roughly equal to APL +1 to +4. At the same time, I want a chance of at least ONE monster/foe actually hitting or affecting the PCs. I have characters with ACs of between 25-27; 30 if the u-monk moves through threatened areas. Their saves are all ridiculous, the paladin stays close enough until after round 1 that folks are getting a massive bonus against Fear, and so on, so I usually budget one "bruiser" type creature into the mix that might actually stand a chance of dealing some damage before buying it.

So, the rest of my CR budget is like a couple handfuls of CR 3-4 foes that aren't even enough of a threat to the fire wizard to survive getting to the back row or 1-3 "minions" of around CR 5-6, but now the party outnumbers the bad guys.

Reinforcements from other rooms... well, this one's just on me as a GM. I'm strictly following the source material I'm using as written, which usually spaces out encounter areas between 80-100' apart and from level 2 down in the dungeon usually involves a door being closed between areas.

This means that if a fight is taking place, the closest reinforcements might be 80' away behind a door, adding +13 to the Perecption check to hear the sounds of battle. THEN those foes nearby may or may not be inclined to actually help; some are mindless undead, others are inert guards of their rooms, and still others are specifically afflicted with a madness from the dungeon that compels them to stay put.

Could I just ignore the source material and change things on the fly? Yes, and I have from time to time, but when I do it's more work for me so I don't do it often.

[rorek55]

invisible creature that specifically waits for softer looking targets to show up before attacking them.

Enemy caster that dimension doors himself and his two friends onto the backline.

Creature with reach, and blindsight (though I doubt there is one at this level)

It seems you allowed leadership, if you are allowing their cohorts to take part in battles, up the APL by +1 for your encounters.

Creatures with touch attacks are scary for most of the PCs aside from the monk.

Alarm spell- can easily beat a rogue that wants to scout, since they have no ways to deal with it, even if they know its there.

Have that paladin make stealth checks whenever the rogue does, don't let him get off with a "10" stealth roll simply because he doesn't want to use it. If anyone stealths, everyone does.

And as always, remember-
PCs are supposed to be good at their jobs (clearing a dungeon), so going several rooms without a real threat is acceptable. Just wear them down a bit, and then throw a hard encounter at them. Perhaps a few demons have taken interest, or been summoned?

[Neriathale]

Use the official PFS method - set every combat on a very small map so that the entire party have to start every encounter within 30' of the opposition.

[rorek55]

Neriathale wrote:

Use the official PFS method - set every combat on a very small map so that the entire party have to start every encounter within 30' of the opposition.

Truly, a detestable method. Effective, but detestable and build limiting. lol

[Mudfoot]

You need something to just get in the way, so that a) the PCs at the back can't affect the fight in the front like they want, and b) so the chargers at the front can't get to the enemy spellcasters like they want.

The usual answer is mooks, but it might be furniture, traps, a big cloud of fog, a spring-loaded door that slams shut behind the paladin, or just a bend in the corridor.

I think your real problem may be the pre-published material that's set up to pander to the PCs, and they've got used to it: open charge lanes, encounters a long way apart, enemies that apparently don't cooperate and not enough mooks.

[Dragonchess Player]

Some tried and true methods:

Battlefield Control- Bull rush (especially effective/efficient via Shield Slam), entangle, hold person, push/pull, trip, various wall spells, etc. to immobilize or otherwise inhibit/prevent the front-liners from being able to block access to the back-row PCs.

Mobility- Dimension door, flying, leaping, and/or secret doors (or even just Small opponents using reduce person to move through Tiny openings and ending the effect* before attacking) to get behind the front-liners; even something as simple as using summon spells (possibly using options that reduce casting time to a standard action and/or Reach Spell metamagic to increase the range to Medium) to subject the back-row PCs to AoO can make things harder.

Traps- Some of the most effective traps are the ones that disable or separate PCs from the party; dropped or sliding barriers, falling nets, pit and chute traps, teleport traps, etc.; be careful not to overuse the "split the party" traps, since they can be disruptive to running the session.

*- Duration 1 min./level (D)

[Hugo Rune]

I just started reading Mark's first post and immediately thought that scouting ahead isn't always a good idea. There are plenty of excellent creatures that can act as sentinels.

For example a Quasit, motionless and invisible sees/detects the rogue go past. He then operates a lever that brings down a pair of solid portcullis and releases a press ceiling. No more rogue. The Quasit then resets the trap, leaving a smear of rogue on the floor and ceiling.

[Lynceus]

Yeah, I cut my teeth on old school dungeon crawling, where scouting ahead was the norm. But every time I try it in a modern game, I run into the fact that stealth is garbage.

You need cover or concealment to remain hidden, and nearly every monster in the game has Darkvision or some special sense to make that hard; and even if not, if there's any skill a monster is going to have, it's Perception.

For every workaround you come up with, there's a monster out there that just doesn't care. You're invisible? They got tremorsense. You can fly? They have blindsight. But even if your Rogue is so good that none of these factors slow them down...remember that all this scouting takes TIME.

Sure, the Rogue could have the ability to stealth quickly, and Trapfinder so they don't have to slow down to detect traps. But bear in mind, even if Trapfinder triggers, they still have to deal with the trap. So I suggest using a few traps, nothing major, just to slow them down.

I personally like things like caltrops, marbles, or even spike growth/spike stones if I'm feeling vile.

So here's what I would do. Next time the Rogue scouts ahead, pull them into another room and run everything away from the rest of the party.

Then leave them there and come back to announce "the Rogue has been gone for 5 minutes. How long do you wait?"

"Ok, now it's 10 minutes. Still waiting?"

"It's been 15, you sure you still want to wait?"

I'd be shocked if your party has the discipline not to decide the Rogue must be in danger and charge in before he's back with his scouting report.

[Mark Hoover 330]

The challenge with taking the player out of the room when scouting is the fact that the u-rogue has a Message spell she can cast Message at will as an SLA. The PCs aren't high enough level for permanent anti-magic zones yet and if she gets close to foes when whispering I check the DC 25 Perception check to hear the rogue speaking, but otherwise the characters are generally in communication with one another.

I've done the "traps slow you down" bit. A couple of times I've had to scrutinize the player's rolls; this player has never once failed a Disable Device check when I've used published traps as they're written.

As for Stealth, the source material I'm using calls out that on level 1 the cave walls have irregular shapes, niches, crannies and such that Medium or smaller creatures can usually find Cover enough to Stealth when adjacent to walls, and then from levels 2 down there are wide, open hallways but with pilasters, statues, buttresses and such along the walls.

These details are supposed to be a double edged sword, making it possible for creatures to Stealth against the PCs just as easily as PCs can use the skill. The problem, of course, is that I allowed these players to roll their stats and 3 of the four characters have insane Wis stats (lowest is a 16) and have maxed out their Perception skills.

Alarm is a good call out, I hadn't thought of that so thanks. Also wall spells; I should start making use of Stone Shape, Wall of Ice and so forth. Fog has the issue of being blown away by the u-monk's Gust of Wind ki ability but Solid Fog maybe?

I tried a Web spell a couple levels ago; everyone made their save. Last session I tried a Thorny Entangle spell during an outdoor mission; again, most everyone made their save and while the cohort cleric who failed took some damage and got slowed down, the effect was dispelled by the wizard PC next round anyway.

I think a lot of answers for my original question just boil down to magic. Stone Shape or other spells to make spontaneous barriers between front line PCs and the back row; teleportation magic to pop up behind the characters; Summon spells to drop foes right into their midst.

Bottom line, I've GOT to stop using monsters from the bestiaries and start custom-designing more foes. Standard, generic monsters don't usually have Solid Fog or Invisibility and Dimension Door as their SLA's. I'm going to have to start adding dedicated enemy spellcasters to fights.

[Neriathale]

How far can you tweak the dungeon design? Add narrow corridors that only one character can get through at a time so the front line can’t deploy, koboold sized cracks in the walls and ravines that can’t be crossed by the entire party at once.

Crossroads and multiple tunnels so the scout can’t check every possible route ahead

Really big caverns with lots of levels and entrances that have a lot of things moving through them. The threat can enter between the scout and the rest of the party.

Terrain that can’t be easily negotiated by one person alone (underground rivers, sinkholes, slimy climbs)

Cloakers and other beasts who see a lone scout as a nice snack. Or that use fear effects and send him running off down an unexplored tunnel.

Hallucinogenic mushrooms or other things that mess with the party’s ability to think tactically.

If you want to get really nasty, Confusion spells and fog cloud are a bad combo.

[Lynceus]

Magic is, after all, the only way to stop magic. Now some will call you out for letting players roll their stats, because that does make them stronger than what the game assumes, but it's fine, you just have to realize that being permissive to your players will lead them to walking all over you unless you compensate, which it sounds like you have.

I'm not out of ideas yet. The Message spell, however, has limited range, and is blocked by Magical silence, 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal (or a thin sheet of lead), or 3 feet of wood or dirt blocks the spell.

Silence is a low level spell that an enemy would likely employ to sneak up on the party! Imagine the Rogue, scouting ahead, when he bumps into someone who is magically silenced!

It sounds like what you need to do is conspire to have the Rogue separated from the party by a physical barrier for them to realize the flaw in their strategy. How about an unstable section of tunnel that could cave in?

Back to the Silence, a trick I've used in the past to Silence PC's is, rather than try to target them directly, cast it on a physical object, such as a Tanglefoot Bag, and hit one of the party members with it. Now they have a magically silenced bag of glue stuck to them.

Enemies that can lurk out of line of sight and pop up out of walls and floors behind a Rogue can be fun- Earth Elementals can do this with their Earth Glide, and a pack of humble Shadows can prove to be an equal pain in the behind.

Also, how about having intelligent enemies have patrols moving through corridors? The Rogue sees the patrol, runs back to the party, the party fights the patrol, the sound of battle alerts the real enemies further ahead?

I remember reading once that terrain that suits the enemy is part of their CR, so adjusting the battle maps so that the enemies get the advantages of high ground, difficult terrain between them and the party, cover that ranged attackers can use to their benefit (don't underestimate the power of the humble arrow slit), or even neutral monsters (an underground stream cuts through the cavern, and swimming in it are Dire Gars, minding their own business, until someone decides to jump in to get to the enemies on the other side...).

Misdirection is a wonderful tool as well. Have a guy who appears to be a squishy Wizard actually be a Monk (or a hulking Barbarian using a Hat of Disguise). Or vice versa, the guy in the Kung Fu getup is actually a Wizard! If the Rogue brings back the wrong information, then his scouting was for naught.

[DeathlessOne]

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

Maybe I'm doing something wrong but the challenge seems to be keeping the enemy spellcasters alive long enough to get Full Round spells off. I suppose I could once in a while make bad guys with levels of Summoner but otherwise the second any of the melee types spot an obvious spellcaster they beeline for them to try and make sure their casting provokes.

Your players are smart. It is usually the best tactic to take any obvious spell using enemies down. You are just as smart AND you have access to more tools then they do. Just give the enemies a one-time use item of your choice that casts the summon spell of your choice. There are plenty of them to choose from. No need to even touch on the summoner class, or tweaking the enemies beyond adding an item.

Just... don't use the same tactic too often. You already know your players are smart.

[Mudfoot]

Message is only a cantrip, so don't expect it to be great. It sends whispers, and they're not loud. So if the rogue or the other PCs are somewhere noisy (waterfall, unearthly groans, combat, busy street) they'll have trouble hearing it. And if they're busy at the time, it makes it that much harder. The spell doesn't imply that the listeners can overhear anything other than the speaker, though (so noise isn't transmitted).

Lynceus suggests patrols. Patrols aren't necessarily there to fight; they're usually there to alert the other defenders, and then fight. They should have whistles or bells or gongs or loud voices.

Opponents are allowed to run away, too, especially with terrain, summoned monsters and other mooks to block the way. Although I expect the PC monk will be able to catch them, he'll then be on his own and (ideally) out of sight on the wrong side of an obstacle.

[Hugo Rune]

I still say a Quasit hiding near the ceiling whilst motionless and invisible for a total of +56 to Stealth is near impossible to spot. Given they have excellent senses, including at will spells, never need to sleep and are all to aware of the price of failure; they would make an excellent sentinel.

[rorek55]

Hugo Rune wrote:

I still say a Quasit hiding near the ceiling whilst motionless and invisible for a total of +56 to Stealth is near impossible to spot. Given they have excellent senses, including at will spells, never need to sleep and are all to aware of the price of failure; they would make an excellent sentinel.

for them, maybe. But I doubt it would happen twice. See invisibility knocks that stealth check down to a 16, and then it wouldn't even be able to stealth 99% of the time.

[Sysryke]

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

I tried a Web spell a couple levels ago; everyone made their save. Last session I tried a Thorny Entangle spell during an outdoor mission; again, most everyone made their save and while the cohort cleric who failed took some damage and got slowed down, the effect was dispelled by the wizard PC next round anyway.

Don't give up on those AoE control spells. Maybe add some extra harassing features or enemies to keep your caster from succeeding at dispelling. If the effect can stick around for multiple rounds and/or fill the engagement area, then your players will have to make multiple saves over the combat. In theory somebody has to fail at least once, and in the meantime they're at least encumbered by the static penalties of those spells. Having other enemy characters spamming other debuff spells and attacks can also make this more effective. If all else fails, cast the web, then AoE burn it up before your PCs can get out of the way.