My level 13 group has been having an inordinate amount of trouble getting past an encounter with an Ancient White Dragon and some souped-up Frost Giant minions. I designed it to be a severe encounter but it does seem the White Dragon always manages to get the group too low on health for it to even be called a fight by the time the giants are slain.
Now yes the Random-Number God has also had it out for the players so I can't discount the random factor making this harder than anticipated, but the amount of weight the Dragon pulls does bring up the question, are there some monsters made to be solo-encounters by design?
While any input you have on the Ancient White Dragon specifically would be appreciated, I am also asking about other creatures in general.
Sometimes, it seems, a monster's stats might be shifted around a bit to suit their typical roles, but overall their combat prowess remains similar for their level.
This is most obvious at levels -1 & 0, where the creatures have attack bonuses about as high as 1st level creatures, but do much less damage. As a minion by default, they kind of need those stats to have an effect w/o the damage spikes that "lower attack/more damage" might cause (especially w/ so many dice rolls). Same expected damage, just parceled out in smaller, more consistent does.
And then there are abilities like "Pack Attack" where the creatures kind of need numbers to work as effectively as their level suggests. These would make for poor solo encounters (and given the nature of many of these creatures, I think are meant to flee when pack numbers drop too much).
Personally I look at saves as shorthand for a creature's better roles. If Ref is highest, they can fare better against AoEs so work well in numbers, while boss's kind of need balanced saves so they can survive focused fire (and so tough battle results aren't as dependent on which save the party targeted).
On the flip side are the abilities, i.e. auras, where having one creature with it has its intended effect, but it's no worse when more creatures are added. Those abilities sync well with solo encounters (or alongside minions immune to the effects). AoE effects are similar. They're good at dishing out a boss's amount of damage w/o singling out and eliminating an unlucky PC. (This is why I think Draconic Momentum exists, so that when one PC suffers a crit, the dragon's enabled and/or encouraged to spread out the damage the next round.)
Which brings us to your dragon which does suit being a boss quite well w/ its breath weapon & Ground Slam as AoEs, and also 3 (!) auras and battlefield control. It has flight to avoid being dog-piled and its minions are immune to most of its boss abilities. So yeah, it's effective at being a boss. There's synergy.
But it's not too strong to work as a sidekick, thug, or minion later (and some of its abilities work well in those roles too), nor are its raw stats beyond what its level suggests (as opposed to 3.X where most dragons were specifically made to be tougher & memorable, which threw off the math).
So yeah, specific abilities and stat balances will effect which roles suit a creature, but no creatures seem intentionally built to exceed their level.
As a Severe encounter, the party kind of needs to be prepped. Fire's the obvious requirement, but Resist Energy cuts down a lot of the nickel & dime damage that could accumulate quickly. And then Fly of course. The party's at a level where they kind of are expected to have it whenever needed, but might not have made the investment yet.
As mentioned by others I wonder if part of the problem is tactics. Perhaps the most severe PFS1 encounter I've run is where two NPCs ambushed the party on city streets (so they're unprepared). One was the final boss, a flying spellcaster, and the other a melee warrior who kind of needed support but was stranded alone on the ground. The party swarmed that easy target while the spellcaster pummeled them mercilessly. Only one player prioritized the caster (and almost made a major difference for doing so), but yeah, oops, inconsequential target. Maybe that's what happened here? Why bother to set up flight this round when there are Frost Giants I can attack immediately?
And then there's party composition, but that has too many variables to address secondhand. I could see some normal parties crushing that encounter while "better" parties struggle.
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My level 13 group has been having an inordinate amount of trouble getting past an encounter with an Ancient White Dragon and some souped-up Frost Giant minions. I designed it to be a severe encounter but it does seem the White Dragon always manages to get the group too low on health for it to even be called a fight by the time the giants are slain.
Now yes the Random-Number God has also had it out for the players so I can't discount the random factor making this harder than anticipated, but the amount of weight the Dragon pulls does bring up the question, are there some monsters made to be solo-encounters by design?
While any input you have on the Ancient White Dragon specifically would be appreciated, I am also asking about other creatures in general.
Exactly how 'souped-up' are the Frost Giants? Are they actually a decent threat to the PCs, or just a (very successful) distraction?
What is the composition of your Party? What actual tactics are they using? Do they have any better options?
What tactics is the Dragon using? Can the PCs actually get to the dragon without going through the minions first?
My level 13 group has been having an inordinate amount of trouble getting past an encounter with an Ancient White Dragon and some souped-up Frost Giant minions. I designed it to be a severe encounter but it does seem the White Dragon always manages to get the group too low on health for it to even be called a fight by the time the giants are slain.
Now yes the Random-Number God has also had it out for the players so I can't discount the random factor making this harder than anticipated, but the amount of weight the Dragon pulls does bring up the question, are there some monsters made to be solo-encounters by design?
While any input you have on the Ancient White Dragon specifically would be appreciated, I am also asking about other creatures in general.
Nothing to do with the dragon, you just put 3 creatures with AoE effects at high level: These are deadly, especially if you don't have characters with Evasion. Between the 4d6 from each giants + 2d6 per round if they fail the save + Wide Swing + 16d6 from the dragon + 3d6 because of the aura = a whole world of pain.
If, on top of it, you made a spellcaster out of the dragon and continued with other spells, you can really decimate a party. That's a tough encounter if your party doesn't have enough cold resistance (which is basic at level 13 but many players don't care raising it).
Exactly how 'souped-up' are the Frost Giants? Are they actually a decent threat to the PCs, or just a (very successful) distraction?
What is the composition of your Party? What actual tactics are they using? Do they have any better options?
What tactics is the Dragon using? Can the PCs actually get to the dragon without going through the minions first?
So far the group has tried this twice. I'll recount the first battle to the best of my memory since the second battle didn't see the enemy tactics change much; the party tried mixing things up a bit but the dice REALLY had it out for the party on the second attempt to the point I felt bad enough to bail them out so they could try again.
The party (all are level 13):
Kitsune Redeemer Champion of Pharasma
Goblin Wolf-Stance Monk
Tiefling Orc Giant Instinct Barbarian
Kobold Wand & Weapon Thaumaturge
Aasimar Human Warpriest Cleric of Desna
The enemies
(Lvl 15.) Ancient White Dragon (spellcaster)
(Lvl 11.) Frost Giant x2 (levled up without elite adjustment)
(Lvl 12.) Frost Giant x1 (Applied the elite adjustment to the aforementioned lvl 11 Frost Giants to account for a fifth PC)
NOTE: I do mean I leveled them up going by the GMG's tables, I pointedly DO NOT apply the elite adjustment more than once.
Before initiative, the group wasn't expecting trouble and was unaware how close they were to the dragon's lair, and thus did not pre-buff. The dragon did notice the group and had time to cast Resist Energy on himself and his minions, as well as Freedom of Movement.
In the first round the enemies all rolled a better initiative and so got to go first. The giants were far enough away that they had to stride twice to get in range but once they were, all of them used their breath weapon. Only the monk got out fairly unscathed thanks to dodging roll. The damage was bearable and a few were rooted in place, but then the Dragon flew in with his breath weapon and devastated most of the party from above.
The cleric casts a three-action heal to pad everyone's hit points and told the group to get close enough for her to touch them. I believe she intended to cast Resist Energy on the group, but alas, her advice went unheeded. The rest of the party immediately made to attack the Frost Giants to some success. They did do pretty well to save against the fear aura, but the blizzard made movement difficult on top of additional cold damage.
The giants would continue to use wide swings in melee, while the Dragon spent their first "off-breath-weapon" turn to caste haste on themselves; after which, any rounds they couldn't use their breath weapon, they flew in, ground slam/strike, hasted strike, and flying back into the air (preferring to stay 30 feet above the party). As SuperBidi has deduced, the sheer amount of multi-target attacks kept eating the champion's reactions, kept the party's health low, and the cleric felt pressured enough to keep casting heals just to buy the party one more round.
The party did eventually kill the giants, but it was a slow process since the martials all got caught up fighting a separate giant, but the only blow the Dragon had taken was a cleverly angled breath weapon from the kobold, and the cleric was out of heals. They decided to retreat, splitting up in separate directions to avoid all getting nuked by the breath weapon. The dragon, naturally being a faster flier, did manage to kill the barbarian and the champion before the rest managed to make themselves scarce.
The monk has caught onto, and voiced, how the lack of focus-fire made things much slower so hopefully they'll remember that for future battles in general. The champion's player has since rolled up a dual-wielding fighter, while the barbarian's player has since rolled up a life oracle. Another point that concerns me is that, except for the cleric and monk, they lack the ability to fly. Last I heard from Cleric they are considering preparing more fly spells but aren't sure what to lose to make room for them.
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Some definitely look to be. Usually when they have some way to cheat action economy and/or better baseline stats or DCs than other creatures of their level.
That was my exact thought when I read the title. It isn't as often the stats - though that is something to look at too - it is the actions and abilities that the enemy has.
Monsters designed to battle solo against a full party will have a lot of really nice free action or reaction abilities, or powerful multi-target or AoE attacks.
Since area effects are everywhere from their enemies this time, what if I just didn't adjust for five players?
That might be the trick. Severe encounters are already hard, and while the XP guidelines generally work, the adjustments for larger parties can kind of break down a bit if the damage isn't being spread around more too (which isn't happening in the case of focus fire or AoE-heavy monsters). Essentially two turns worth of free pre-buffing for the dragon also tips the difficulty of the encounter up a bit.
As SuperBidi has deduced, the sheer amount of multi-target attacks kept eating the champion's reactions, kept the party's health low, and the cleric felt pressured enough to keep casting heals just to buy the party one more round.
Yes, as I was expecting, noone has Evasion in your party but the Monk (and the Monk may not even have it if they base themselves on PF1 optimization where Reflex wasn't important when in PF2 it's the opposite with Reflex being the most important save at high level).
Do they have resistances to energies? At that level, the minimum is 5 resistance to Fire, Cold and Lightning, you may even consider having 10 in one of them (in general Fire, so not important in that case). 5 resistance seems ridiculous, but it makes the difference between life and death when you take multiple AoE damaging effects.Also, against dragons, you need ways to root them to the ground. Athletics is the obvious one (they are bad at Reflex, so Trip works wonder). Otherwise, potions of Flying. Every martial should have one as casters can't cast Fly 3 times in a row.
Anyway, it looks like a really tough fight. Dragons are always problematic monsters, their abilities are hard to counter but if your party has the counter they become just monsters like any other. So depending on the party, they can be normal fights or tough ones. As a side note, they knew about the dragon? They should have been massively prepared, then. You don't face such an opponent without any plan. I blame at least a bit the players in current situation.
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As a side note: Allowing the dragon and giants to prebuff is a strong move. If the PCs had the same option they would have been under Resist Energy, too. And I think we can both acknowledge it would have changed the fight a lot. Removing the monsters' main weakness is not a small move.
Prebuffing has to be used scarcily. When you have a Severe encounter, allowing prebuff makes it closer to Extreme, especially when the buff is a very strong one.
Anyway, Dragon encounters can be awesome. These are strong and charismatic monsters. I prefer my party to get wiped against a dragon (and one that seem to be an adventure boss) than against some random monster. I hope your players loved it despite how it went.
As a side note: Allowing the dragon and giants to prebuff is a strong move. If the PCs had the same option they would have been under Resist Energy, too. And I think we can both acknowledge it would have changed the fight a lot. Removing the monsters' main weakness is not a small move.
Prebuffing has to be used scarcily. When you have a Severe encounter, allowing prebuff makes it closer to Extreme, especially when the buff is a very strong one.
My 1e party had a similar experience, curiously against a white dragon too. We faced it twice when it was pre-buffed, and it wiped the floor with us; the third time the situation was reversed: we were buffed while it was not, and it didn't last one round.
Now, in second edition buffs are not as powerful, but they can definitely change the feel (and outcome) of the encounter.
... As a side note, they knew about the dragon? They should have been massively prepared, then. You don't face such an opponent without any plan. I blame at least a bit the players in current situation.
I can see how my summary may have given that impression but I gave that impression incorrectly. The party had no idea about the dragon the first time. Their destination just coincided with its turf.
Second time naturally they did know but... well I already mentioned how they apparently offended the Random-Number God while I wasn't looking right? :-P
It seems I have underestimated pre-buffs. The party had defeated monsters who had pre-buffed before this, but in retrospect, most of those were pretty tough fights too. I'll have to keep that in mind going forward.
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From your description, a lot of it also comes down to poor tactics from your players. They were clustered together, but not in a way that let them support one another. On top of that, you said the martials were apparently all fighting different giants (instead of working together to take them down one at a time), so it sounds less like a team and more like a bunch of individuals who happened to be fighting in the same place. I've seen parties lose to Low or Moderate encounters due to poor tactics, so it's not surprising they'd let a party lose two Severe encounters in a row.
Hey all! Thought I'd share, last session the cleric and fighter had to miss that session so I was forced to dumb down the encounter quite a bit to just a single bog standard Frost Giant and the Ancient White Dragon.
The giant, unsurprisingly, went down faster than you can say "critical success." The remaining party was smarter about their positioning, and brought some flight to keep harassing the dragon. Dragon still nearly killed them but they managed to win this time. Much as I would've liked for the whole party to get this sweet payback, it is what it is.
Though it does seem the party learned to focus fire; the next encounter against more numerous enemies showed them going one-at-a-time.
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Yeah there's a lot of different things coming together to make this hard for the party;
- Them not having flight options. I see Winged armor runes being popular, but really, flying options are sort of expected starting around level 7 already.
- No cold resistance. Sure, it's probably not the first resistance I'd buy myself (fire, acid, since those tend to do persistent damage a lot). But if you can get it, cold resistance applies to so very much this fight.
- Not a lot of area or fire attacks. Frost giants don't have amazing reflex saves, dropping some fireballs could help clear them out a bit.
- Enemies that are all immune to each others' area blasts.
- Enemies with lots of area effects, but also lots of ways to reduce PC mobility. The dragon's blizard difficult terrain doesn't bother the giants but hinders the PCs, and the giants' breath weapon causes immobilize on a failure, which is hefty; it's not Incapacitation and it's not only on a critical failure. And immobilize means that if you get knocked prone by the dragon's ground stomp you can't stand up.
- Lots of enemies with area attacks in general. The giants' Wide Swing could also be called an area attack since they can hit two people at full MAP with reach. The dragon's ground slam takes only one action and can be used multiple times per round. So enemies have very little MAP to worry about.
All in all this is an encounter where the enemies don't add up, they multiply each other.
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- Them not having flight options. I see Winged armor runes being popular, but really, flying options are sort of expected starting around level 7 already.
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Flight options for PCs are generally pretty sad: The 25' (at best) flight speed of the Winged armor rune is just pathetic compared to the Ancient White Dragon's 160' fly speed, and while other options might be a little faster, nothing will allow you to keep up with a 'native flyer' who doesn't want to melee...
PC flight options seem to be more for getting around obstacles than actually engaging flying foes.