For context, I'm running the Mummmy's Mask AP. The party is currently in the Sightless Sphinx, the final dungeon in the fourth book, and the party is currently half-intentionally underleveled at lvl 10.
While the party is not out to build the most out and out broken combos that are possible, a lot of them are veteran Pathfinder players that manage to get the best out of their builds, and they managed to put together a group that works together incredibly well.
Consisting of a monk, paladin, bard, synthesist summoner, sorcerer and ecclesitheurge cleric.
The monk has insane damage output with flurry of blows, the Stunning Strikes that target Fortitude, and incredibly high AC (currently 31 with buffs) and mobility. Obviously the frontline, and one that manages to take out any enemy frontline before they can even make a dent in the monk.
The Paladin is similarly tanky, with built-in sustain with the lay on hands. Not as mobile and as many attacks as the monk, but high single target damage with smite.
The Summmoner (Synthesist) is built for grappling, with about a +30 bonus to any grapple attempt, and a CMD to match. Unless the enemy is specifically built for being able to escape that (particularly demons with their at-will teleport, or a Freedom of Movement buff), no enemy has a realistic chance of escaping that grapple. At best, they can squirm out of the pinned condition back into grapple and at least keep the Summoner busy for half the fight.
And the summoner has an insane HP pool and AC.
This is an absolutely lethal combo with the bard's favorite spell: Cacophonous Call. No standard action to free one-self from the grapple. No escaping when you only have one move action and the monk's base speed is already twice your own. And that for 10 turns? That enemy is basically gone from combat. Oh, also, it's a dirge bard, so not even undead are safe.
Followed up by Blindness, especially on the enemy casters.
Bard and Cleric are also great at undoing any CC put onto their party or getting them out of sticky situations with Saving Finale and Dispel Magic and Ethereal Jaunt. (And if the Cleric has nothing to heal, that's just a free +2 AC buff to whoever needs it the most right now.)
The sorcerer is fine enough damage output from the backlines.
Inbetween the monk, paladin and cleric, the party also generally has great wisdom saves, and overall solid saves.
The bard-ecclesitheurge-sorcerer backline is very squishy, but it's often hard to reach those, especially with melee enemies, because the three frontliners (especially the large-to-huge Synthesist) can block hallways and grapple-pull enemies away from the squishies with a ridiculous range.
I am more and more struggling to have encounters feel challenging and meaningful.
I basically run no encounter by the book. Every enemy by now - at least the standard minions - already get an advanced template and their HP set to 100% by default.
(Boss encounters may get some more fine tuning. Hell, I'm about to add Legendary Resistances and Legendary Actions to some of them.)
I also tend to just adding in two or three more minions at least.
And sure, as mentioned above, some encounters naturally come with buffs against certain effects of the party, like the teleport out of a grapple.
Obviously I don't want to blanket negate any of the player builds. But I also don't think that slaughtering their way through 30 nameless minions just to use up some of their resources is particularly thrilling gameplay, especially in the long run. Especially with the time combat tends to take...
The flipside would be to overtune an encounter so much that they basically just assassinate the squishy backline in some way. (See problem above - encounters of primarily/solely melee creatures rarely manage to even get into the ballpark of the backline).
I have a hard time justifying any intelligent creature facing the party to not try to run away after they mowed down the first two enemies, while the enemies in turn barely got to touch the party.
Now I'm looking at the next upcoming encounter: Rathos, a Broken Soul. The abilities and stats are well suited to actually leave some dents in the front line, especially with that Torturous Touch, and the Baleful Gaze can majorly debuff the entire party, depending on their rolls.
I look over to his will save and..... +1. You gotta be kidding me.
One Cacophonous Call and that combat is over.
Sure, Rathos is just a mini boss, but that would be so anti-climactic, especially after I build him up as the 'once second-in command' over the last couple of sessions.
I will be buffing that will save for sure. He's also not fighting alone, as survivors of previous skirmishes have gathered around him. Will add two or so spellcasters to his side with dispel magic at the ready. Maybe Haste too? That base speed of 20 feet is underwhelming.
Even so, I worry about whether the combat will feel dramatic enough. And after that? How would I stop the party from just retreating to rest up again so they're rejuvinated for taking on the big boss? Or should the boss just leave at that point? Because obviously, fleeing from the party seems like a reasonable action at this point, unless the enemies outnumber the party by 1:3.
Mind you, it's never my goal to kill the party, but I want them to feel like they could, in fact, die. And I want to get there without constantly having to target the squishy backline as an opening move. That doesn't seem feasible for every combat scenario, especially ones where the party barges into a room of enemies and manages to engage first.
I'd love to keep this campaign filled with tension, without having to just throw out and completely redo every encounter and dungeon planned in the remaining two books.
Dominate the bard (scroll of Limited Wish ==> Geas) and have him Cacophonous Call the party. I’m sure party will still be fine, but it will at least be a memorable road there, and that’s really the goal.
In general very hard to balance things for a party that large.
Usually, Pathfinder is very robust in its trade offs, meaning that for a PC to become too during in one area/tactic, he'll be weak in other situations. However, this quickly go out of the window when you have larger parties because the extra members can cover the weaknesses of the others, specially with a experienced party.
Based on what you've mentioned, the party is Uber specialized in combat and I believe that by making your enemies more powerful you'll just push your players into spending even more resources into offense.
My advice in how to challenge them? Do so out of combat. Focus on social interactions and knowledge and let them mop the floor with their enemies. Don't engage in an arms race, because then it will become rocket tag and lead to frustration. With some luck you'll show your players that resorting to cheese builds they can "win the game", but that isn't that fun.
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If you use an AP as written (typical 4 players) for a 6 person groupe of expirenced players - then no wonder they steamroll everything.
My advice is
1) more minions!!! Could come as reinforcements a few rounds in, so you can evaluate if there are needed or not. Could come from another direction to threaten bard and sorcerer.
2) make good use of terrain and hazzards. These makes combats memorable and fun as well as difficult.
3) Limit vision on the battlefield makes the players come up with new strategies. Could be smoke, Darkness, Fog, Illusions or muddy water if under water.
4) Rebuild NPC enemies, as they are much weaker than equal CR monsters.
5) check your players abilities. Cacophonous Call fx. is a mind effect.
Lots of monsters are immune to mind effects like; undeads, construct, vermin, plants, oozes and swarms.
I have to agree with Khan. The game and published AP are based on a party of 4. You have 3 frontline specialists, 2 9th level casters and a support character. From the looks of it your casters can easily stay back and act with little or no interference. You also actually have 3 support characters including a bard. Each support character acts as a force multiplier which makes your oversized party even tougher.
The paladin is one of the toughest classes in the game. Smite evil in an undead heavy campaign is incredible, but the thing that makes the paladin tough is his defenses. He has the best saving throws in the game and immunity to multiple effects. Lay on hands as a swift action means he can absorb insane amounts of damage that manage to get through his defenses.
In all honesty you are probably going to need to completely rewrite the AP to challenge this party. Every encounter is going to have to be adjusted. I have not played the AP and without knowing the builds of your party it is difficult to give advice. I would start by doubling the number of minions and maybe giving them all the advanced template or something similar. You may also need to make the locations larger to accommodate the extra combatants. Any bosses might need to be reworked or replaced with something tougher. Maybe a mummy lord instead of a normal mummy.
I have to disagree with Khan. At least their first point. You should use exact experience, divided equally between all participants. That means more players will be stronger at the start, since they were going to be level 1 anyways, but they'll keep leveling up slower and slower because the xp is being divided between more characters, causing them to round off as about equal in power to what they would have been if they had only been 4 players.
What's more, is that the treasure is now divided between 6 PCs instead of only 4, making them INDIVIDUALLY underleveled and undergeared once you get to the point of the final dungeon of book 4 of an AP.
That is, if you run it as is.
You should never run any pre-existing module exactly as is though, since that makes backstories for the PCs next to useless, due to never being a part of the module.
download Combat Manager. When you import bad guys, be sure to use max hit points, add a template or two, then add extra mooks until you equal or exceed APL.
For major NPCs, build them up in Herolab, then add levels to equal or exceed APL.
this should be a good start on challenging the party - without having to rewrite the encounters to be anti-party specific (metagaming)
Possible boost for Rathos specifically, swap his feats vital strike and improved sunder for cut from the air and spellcut.
Vital strike isn't as useful for a natural weapon build, especially with torturous touch as an option when full attack isn't possible - and I don't think that touch attack works with vital strike.
It's a general boost to combatting spells, and a very simple rebuild. By no means super metagaming like adding some kind of specific extra defense or immunity to nausea or mind-effecting to counter cacophonous call.
Sir Longears wrote: My advice in how to challenge them? Do so out of combat. Focus on social interactions and knowledge and let them mop the floor with their enemies. Don't engage in an arms race, because then it will become rocket tag and lead to frustration. With some luck you'll show your players that resorting to cheese builds they can "win the game", but that isn't that fun. We have, in fact, circumvented a bunch of the chump combat by diplomatic solutions. Inbetween the paladin and bard, diplomacy and deception roles are no challenge either, so really, as long as the party wants to try a diplomatic solution and doesn't completely fumble the approach, they can do so (and I happily let them do so).
*Khan* wrote: If you use an AP as written (typical 4 players) for a 6 person groupe of expirenced players - then no wonder they steamroll everything.
My advice is
1) more minions!!! Could come as reinforcements a few rounds in, so you can evaluate if there are needed or not. Could come from another direction to threaten bard and sorcerer.
2) make good use of terrain and hazzards. These makes combats memorable and fun as well as difficult.
3) Limit vision on the battlefield makes the players come up with new strategies. Could be smoke, Darkness, Fog, Illusions or muddy water if under water.
4) Rebuild NPC enemies, as they are much weaker than equal CR monsters.
5) check your players abilities. Cacophonous Call fx. is a mind effect.
Lots of monsters are immune to mind effects like; undeads, construct, vermin, plants, oozes and swarms.
Already doing a good bit of 1, 3 and 4. It's certainly keeping the combat dynamic, but I don't want to just bloat the chump encounters by adding more numbers - plus, when those arrive in 1d4 rounds, the party has already dispatched the majority of the first encounter, so it's just them steamrolling another group of 4 or so reinforcements.
5 - as mentioned, the bard is a dirge bard, so undead aren't safe, and this campaign is centered around a (largely humanoid) cult and plenty of undead.
I don't want to stuff the campaign full of too many encounters that have zero ties to the plot, so aside from the random one-off, constructs, plants (desert campaign, too) and swarms are not such an easy solution.
Reksew_Trebla wrote: I have to disagree with Khan. At least their first point. You should use exact experience, divided equally between all participants. That means more players will be stronger at the start, since they were going to be level 1 anyways, but they'll keep leveling up slower and slower because the xp is being divided between more characters, causing them to round off as about equal in power to what they would have been if they had only been 4 players.
I don't use experience at all. I use milestone leveling, and as mentioned, the party is technically already underleveled for where the AP wants them, and they're still steamrolling just about any encounter (even those I buff with Advanced templates and extra combatants).
I grok do u wrote: Possible boost for Rathos specifically, swap his feats vital strike and improved sunder for cut from the air and spellcut. Spellcut is certainly an interesting and kind of flavorful feat. Keeping that in mind, thank you.
So what I'm getting from all of this is to basically keep doing what I'm already doing, just more. I realize there's no easy solution to a party like this, particularly when I really don't want to just blanket counter their intentional character builds.
Thank you all! I'm still open for more specific advice either way, but I guess I won't get around really trying to either cut or rework most of the encounters in this AP.
Adjusting an encounter for a party is often a difficult task. One thing that can help is to do some analysis on the encounter. Figure out the average damage the party will do and use that to determine how many creatures should be in the encounter. Use a DPR spreadsheet or something similar to figure out how long the combat will run. This is also helpful for figuring out if you need to boost the power levels of the creatures. Factor in the boost the party is likely to have up in your calculations.
I prefer to create my own adventures and do this all the time. I generally have a good idea on how any particular combat is likely to go especially a boss fight. For the most part my boss fights end up being fairly close and often the players are not sure they are going to survive, but so far, I have had very few deaths. Occasionally a character may be knocked out, but death is fairly rare. But the players never realize that the odds favored them.
Mysterious Stranger wrote: Adjusting an encounter for a party is often a difficult task. One thing that can help is to do some analysis on the encounter. Figure out the average damage the party will do and use that to determine how many creatures should be in the encounter. Use a DPR spreadsheet or something similar to figure out how long the combat will run. This is also helpful for figuring out if you need to boost the power levels of the creatures. Factor in the boost the party is likely to have up in your calculations.
I prefer to create my own adventures and do this all the time. I generally have a good idea on how any particular combat is likely to go especially a boss fight. For the most part my boss fights end up being fairly close and often the players are not sure they are going to survive, but so far, I have had very few deaths. Occasionally a character may be knocked out, but death is fairly rare. But the players never realize that the odds favored them.
I think my next campaign will certainly be a homebrew one. Maybe in a different system. We'll see. But for now, I enjoy both this AP and PF 1e, despite the little hurdles.
This is certainly how I want my combats to feel. Not necessarily all of them. On occasion the party is free to steamroll some goons. But definitely not as much as they do right now.
My current rule of thumb for adjusting HP is that I want the enemy to be able to survive at least one full round of attacks from the monk. Maybe even two. But as I mentioned, I don't want to just pad the encounter with countless more minions and end up doubling the duration of the combat.
I think some of my recent enemies certainly could have needed a bit higher adjustments to their attacks and damage - but that one is also tricky to balance, when the Summoner has almost four times as many hp as the Sorcerer.
Any enemy that can be a reasonable threat to the front line would surely be able to one-shot the squishies, and I don't want that either.
But maybe I'm just still to hesitant with how much I buff the encounters and just have to learn to make the party deal with it.
*Khan* wrote: ...
2) make good use of terrain and hazzards. These makes combats memorable and fun as well as difficult.
3) Limit vision on the battlefield makes the players come up with new strategies. Could be smoke, Darkness, Fog, Illusions or muddy water if under water.
...
You would be surprised how much stone wall and\or stone shape spells can effect the overall combat when used to divide the party and cage some of them off. remember that a lot of spells and abilities relay on line of sight and\or line of effect.
another thing is the silence spell, more so with enlarged area of effect, the enemies can cast it on themselves if they don't plan on voicing off any spells or abilities.
-I like to cast it with my warpriest on himself when he fight off other casters, he can fervor self buff as swift action while they are stuck without any of their vocal abilities.
and last but not least, anti-magic (which radiate from the caster) can be nasty if said caster doesn't relay heavily on what it negate. (my synth summoner had it rough when faced angels that could spam it in way of the wicked. the synth-suit goes bye-bye unless his spell resistance kick in)
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I don't know the AP, so IDK who or what Rathos is, but I gotta assume Undead all over the place.
1. Braziers in the room/encounter area: currently they're sputtering out smoke from smoldering Smokesticks. The coals are also doused with any kind of powdered Inhaled Poison you want; burnt othur fumes, night's eye dust, whatever. pretend an expert NPC alchemist made it and up the DC if you need to.
2. Minions with spells who don't attack the PCs: take a kobold; give it 10 levels of Adept. This is a CR7 foe. If you want, give it Skeletal Champion too and push it to a CR8. Whatever the case, you've got a minion that can turn itself invisible and remain invisible while casting Bull's Strength, Cat's Grace, Protection from Good or Obscuring Mist. If Rathos can benefit from +4 Str or both a +2 Deflection and Resistance bonus against the PCs, he's got that kobold 5' from him, remaining invisible.
3. Animal Companions: if you're willing to build minions with class levels, take it to the next level and give them Animal Companions. Its a lot to manage but the AC gives the minion extra actions they can take every round.
4. Maneuvers: Dirty Trick/Blinded or Trip are great for groups. If a Large creature with a Reach weapon can pull off a +22 Trip maneuver against the paladin from 15', said paladin might be able to be surrounded by 4 minions all itching to deliver AoOs to the PC as he stands up.
5. Target the PCs weaknesses: I don't just mean their lowest save either. Someone's got a slow speed? make the party travel uphill or over difficult terrain. Do the PCs need to breathe but they're fighting undead? Flood the area, fill it with choking smoke or strangle them. If the PCs need to see hit them with every kind of Blindness-inducing attack you can.
6. Prep ahead of time, and use ALL of the villains' props: did you put a wand of Scorching Ray in the treasure of the room? Give it to a minion. Remember that a tanky paladin likely has a penalty to their Stealth from armor and detecting the sound of a creature walking is DC 10. If the villains know the PCs are coming 1 or two rounds ahead of time, make sure they've got any defensive buffs on, caltrops on the floor, etc.
7. Swarms and Trample: a Beheaded Cackling Skull Swarm is one way to go but just taking a simple Scarab Swarm and slapping a couple templates on it to make it CR6 can be a sure way to auto damage the PCs. Likewise, undead Large sized animals with a Trample attack should be big enough to grind down the PCs' HP without having to roll attack rolls.
8. Cover and tactics: a minion firing an arrow at a PC might have a +12 to hit and deal 1d8+2 damage; a minion standing behind a chunk of masonry is doing the same thing, but with a +4 to their AC. Resist the temptation to move the villains into the open, force the PCs to advance through their crossfire or AoO's. Last but not least, attack the party in waves if you can, covered by foes at a distance.
Remember that every minion you add to the fight will likely only last for a round, maybe 2; they need to be able to do something significantly threatening with a single combat round.
Don't be afraid to really gear up your enemies. Have them use treasure items if they can, or add extra potential treasure in the form of scrolls, potions and wands the villains have on them. Give the animal companions cheap, +1 armor or masterwork tuskblades or whatever.
Some great ideas in here. Thank you!
If you want to add a few things, I suggest lots of weenie minions that use Aid Another. My house rule to Aid Another is that for combat bonuses people don't have to roll: those who aid just give +2 to a target's attack rolls or AC. This means you don't have to spend lots of time rolling basically meaningless dice.
With the amount of undead in the AP, skeletons are perfect for this role. They will die quickly to any attack but they will require resources to handle and just a few of them can give significant benefits with minimal extra dice rolling, and they won't add anthing meaningful by the way of loot or XP.
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Just three little things to add to the List of suggestions
1.) Troops
2.) Traps
3.) Deception/Description
1.) In my experience Troops can help a lot against high AC PC.
They are like swarms, but bigger and in my opinion especially Zombies and Skeletons are perfect for it.
They are immung against single traget spells (Cacophonous Call), they auto hit (like a swarms) and there is a chance that, if AoE Effects are used against them, the PC that are currently in a troop, get some DMG too. Ofc not the Monk, who has evasion, but the Paladin and the Summoner.
And there are a lot of Skeleton and Zombie variants.
Like the burning skeleton (which is immun agains fire (Fireball) and explodes when killed. Or the Plague Zombie, which can give the PC a nasty disease. Ofc Paladin and Monk are immune, but for the summoner it adds and extra layer of "i dont wanna stand near this Zombies"
Troops in fog or smoke, where the PC dont immediately see that it as a whole Troop or where they can surprise/ambush the backline.
2.) Your Party als dont have a rouge, so i guess no trapfinding.
I dont suggest some powerful traps, but some pits (10-20 feet deep only) to catch the Paladin before a fight (extra round or two to get out, deppending on their climb skill) can make for a much harder battlefield.
As others have commented: Splitting the Party (via Stonewall for example) can have much greater use than one anticipated at first.
Even a pittrap, that doenst catch anyone in the Party, can split the Party up and is an obstacle which can get in the way (charging, coming to aid, flanking). Everything gets harder for the PCs.
Some Pittraps, that arent in the direct path, but on the sidelines could also possible catch the backline. If the frontline just uses the straight path in a room to get to the next door, they dont trigger the pittrap in the corner, from which the Party advances.
If a fight breaks out and the cleric wants to move a little but (for safety reasons, so that him, the sorcerer and the bard arent all in on place for an enemies fireball), he triggers the trap and normally it takes some time for a cleric to get out of a pittrap.
Medium Armor, not the greatest strength, not enough skillpoints to invest a lot in climb and a DC of 20 or 25 to climb out of it.
A 20 feet deep Pittrap and a cleric with 30 feet movement, which only counts as 30/4 if he climbs, so 7,5 feet, takes 3 actions to get out of it. If he fails it takes more time. Every action used to help him from the bard is an action not used to kill your minions.
There are also other rly nice traps, which dont have a high CR, but are annoying, like doors who lock themselve a few seconds after opening them (so the fronline can pass, and the backline stand before a closed door), traps that make smoke, snare traps, spring loaded panel traps (to throw the backline into the trontline, or the frontline back).
A lot of traps have not so great DCs so i would recommend traps that are useful even if completly evaded, like pittraps, or huge falling stones (which after they fall down, can block line of sight and line of effect)
3.) I dont rly know how good you can use that one. If you start describing your minions more colourful, your PCs might use some resources for a single HD 1 Skelton.
Let it stand behind two chests on the otherside of an otherwise empty room, with a robe on, a book and his belt and a wooden staff in his Hand. Describe the torches behind his back flickering when the PC are entering.
If the PC entcounterd (or heard) of mimics before, maybe the will even use some attack on the chests, if not in the next room, the chair in the corner is a mimic who falls the bard in the back, once the fight breaks out.
Let them roll Initiative and see how they react if they win, will they cast haste, or Cacophonous Call? If yes, they wasted a Spell for a different dressed HD 1 Skeleton. (Not that they have to every know this)
This also works in the opposite direction. A boss monster (or miniboss monster) can try to blend in the crowd of his minions. You dont always have to know immidiately which enemy is the strongest and the most fearsome one.
His stat block is miscalculated. He should actually have a speed of 15 feet as the template reduces his base speed to 20 feet and the heavy armor reduces it further.
You can save the spellcasters for the boss and have him take the drug Old-Mage and activate a scroll of Antimagic Field before the fight starts, perhaps even a scroll of Widened Antimagic Field. Will saves are overrated when he is immune to magic, and that will also negate Smite Evil and cause the Summoner's Eidolon to vanish, since it is treated as a summoned creature.
As for stopping the enemy party from fleeing, a Forbiddance spell paired with sealing/collapsing the exit behind them will do the trick. If the party does not come to the fight, the fight will come to them.
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You mention the backline a lot in your OP. Some thoughts:
1. Dimension Door delivery service: a 7th level wizard NPC is a CR6 addition to the fight; not much of a genuine threat to an APL 10 party. However that's 1 NPC that can bring 2 Medium creatures from somewhere ahead of the fight to the backline in a heartbeat. The wizard NPC enemy has no more actions this round, but if the 2 Medium sized foes were specialized for grappling and instantly began engaging the wizard and cleric, there goes a lot of spell support
2. Stealth: a Small sized foe with Stealth as a Class skill at around CR8 could potentially have a Stealth +20. Say for the sake of argument this foe had a 10 on their Stealth check to hide and wait for all but the backline of the party to move into the combat area; there's a good chance some or none of the PCs detect them.
3. Long Range spells: the humble Magic Missile travels 100' +10'/level. A CR8 NPC Skeletal Champion caster would be L8 in their casting class. That means from 180' away they're dropping 5d4+5 on the Sorcerer, Bard or Cleric. Use a readied action so that the damage disrupts spellcasting for extra oomph.
4. Reinforcements: I run a ton of dungeons in my homebrew campaigns and my players routinely sweep and clear them like a SEAL team, but occasionally they're either fighting outdoors or miss a room full of guards. In those cases, hearing the sound of battle is a DC 0 modified by distance and obstacles. If the big boss Rathos is being attacked and a handful of his CR7 Elf Skeletal Champion Fighter (Archer)6 guards are nearby, it could be super easy for their Hawkeye Perception checks to hear the scuffle and come running, targeting the Sorcerer with 4 arrows.
I get that you don't want to overtune the fight and TPK the party or invalidate their builds. The challenge though is finding the fine line between that and handing them a cake walk, and from APL 10 on that line gets finer and finer.
Adding more numbers to the fight just makes it longer, and potentially more deadly - interesting once in a while, but not super memorable. If you want your party to REMEMBER the fight, give them reasons to:
1. Taunt your players in real time: What does Rathos know about the plot that the party doesn't? What do they know about the PCs? Pick on them, taunt them with hints or clues, try to make the players feel that, even if their PCs win this battle there are still mysteries their foe will keep from them, reminding them how far behind the 8 ball they are.
2. Play tactically: how much time does Rathos have before the PCs get to them? What resources do they have, how can they use that time? Could Rathos bar a door, scatter caltrops or hoist a log trap in place? Do they or their minions have access to longer term spells like Cursed Terrain or Symbol of Death to ward the approach with? Does Rathos have an escape route planned in case the PCs prove too much for them?
Ju-Mo. wrote:
2.) Your Party als dont have a rouge, so i guess no trapfinding.
I dont suggest some powerful traps, but some pits (10-20 feet deep only) to catch the Paladin before a fight (extra round or two to get out, deppending on their climb skill) can make for a much harder battlefield.
The monk has super high perception and makes sure to thoroughly examine every room and hallway and door before the party approaches. With this AP being an ancient egypt-themed campaign and there being a lot of ancient tombs and such to explore, the party encountered a handful of traps already and is careful to not run into them unnecessarily.
The only way to have a trap go off would be to give them no time to check for traps.
Definitely gonna keep troops in mind. I almost forgot about them, despite going up against a handful of them in another campaign. Not sure if there's much room for those in the current dungeon anymore, but I'll keep an eye out for opportunities.
The last tip likely won't be as useful. The bard and sorcerer have high knowledge skills and in our game group it's common to roll to identify the enemies and their abilities.
And with a single skeleton, I doubt a Cacophonous Call would be the first move. That would be the monk rushing in and knocking it to pieces.
Some nice tips in there though, thank you!
Tom Sampson wrote: His stat block is miscalculated. He should actually have a speed of 15 feet as the template reduces his base speed to 20 feet and the heavy armor reduces it further. Interesting! Though I think I will just to ignore this. With the party being as high range and high mobility as they are, I don't want to limit his movement any further.
Tom Sampson wrote:
You can save the spellcasters for the boss and have him take the drug Old-Mage and activate a scroll of Antimagic Field before the fight starts, perhaps even a scroll of Widened Antimagic Field. Will saves are overrated when he is immune to magic, and that will also negate Smite Evil and cause the Summoner's Eidolon to vanish, since it is treated as a summoned creature.
Oh, Antimagic is actually a great suggestion that could fit well here. Don't even need the drug, I planned to give him a spellcaster or two by his side anyway. Would make them useless too of course, but frankly, they're not doing much against the party anyway.
Edit: Oh I see, it's centered on self. Yeah, Rathos casting it on himself would make sense then. Scroll should still work. Excellent idea.
Mark Hoover 330 wrote: You mention the backline a lot in your OP. Some thoughts:
1. Dimension Door delivery service: a 7th level wizard NPC is a CR6 addition to the fight; not much of a genuine threat to an APL 10 party. However that's 1 NPC that can bring 2 Medium creatures from somewhere ahead of the fight to the backline in a heartbeat. The wizard NPC enemy has no more actions this round, but if the 2 Medium sized foes were specialized for grappling and instantly began engaging the wizard and cleric, there goes a lot of spell support
2. Stealth: a Small sized foe with Stealth as a Class skill at around CR8 could potentially have a Stealth +20. Say for the sake of argument this foe had a 10 on their Stealth check to hide and wait for all but the backline of the party to move into the combat area; there's a good chance some or none of the PCs detect them.
3. Long Range spells: the humble Magic Missile travels 100' +10'/level. A CR8 NPC Skeletal Champion caster would be L8 in their casting class. That means from 180' away they're dropping 5d4+5 on the Sorcerer, Bard or Cleric. Use a readied action so that the damage disrupts spellcasting for extra oomph.
Good tips, definitely gonna make use of some of them I think.
Mark Hoover 330 wrote:
1. Taunt your players in real time: What does Rathos know about the plot that the party doesn't? What do they know about the PCs? Pick on them, taunt them with hints or clues, try to make the players feel that, even if their PCs win this battle there are still mysteries their foe will keep from them, reminding them how far behind the 8 ball they are.
2. Play tactically: how much time does Rathos have before the PCs get to them? What resources do they have, how can they use that time? Could Rathos bar a door, scatter caltrops or hoist a log trap in place? Do they or their minions have access to longer term spells like Cursed Terrain or Symbol of Death to ward the approach with? Does Rathos have an escape route planned in case the PCs prove too much for them?
Hmm taunting is fun. Gonna have to think of some things.
Definitely trying to set up the Rathos encounter a bit more dramatically. He had some minions that escaped the encounter with the PCs that can report to him, could spy on their plans through the scrying pool a bit, and heard the party planning to retreat to rest.
He certainly learned that the gathered cultists can't really stand up to the party, but he has plenty of time to prepare for them now.
An arcane spellcaster who casts antimagic field is largely useless and fragile, the guy with the antimagic field becomes the focus of combat, and the moment the antimagic field holder dies, the encounter likely ends since everyone will get hit with all manner of spells targeting their weakest saves, smite evil, summons or eidolon, and what-have-you. I would much sooner recommend you make Rathos the guy with the antimagic field since otherwise he risks becoming more of a sidenote in his own boss fight where everyone focuses on killing the guy with the antimagic field and then he gets taken out with ease the moment the antimagic field falls.
Also, you should probably switch his half plate with full plate.
Yeah, that makes sense. I at first thought Antimagic Field was an area you place somewhere like Silence, but it's not. Rathos using it on himself makes perfect sense though.
Though technically an Antimagic Field would suppress Rathos' own supernatural abilities, if I read it right?
I guess I could change those to be Extraordinary Abilities though if I really wanted to.
Antimagic Field would indeed suppress Rathos's own supernatural abilities. It suppresses all magic, including supernatural abilities and magic items (like his own armor or a player's cloak of resistance or magic belt). Even the Paladin's Divine Grace and immunities go away while standing in the AMF. If you decide to have him use a scroll of widened antimagic field, it will even affect anything within 20 feet of him. As for his abilities, since he made a twisted wish to become extremely powerful, I suppose you could just switch them to Extraordinary Abilities and call it part of the Wish's special effects.
As for his allies, you may want to have them make reposition and disarm combat maneuvers to make the combat messier for the party, perhaps even include an Underground Chemist with Quick Draw to full attack with thrown alchemical weapons, like tanglefoot bags, flash powder, shadowcloy flasks, itching powder, and sneezing powder. The alchemical debuffs might be a bit too crippling depending on the party though, but many of them have very low saving throw DCs and it's another way to mess with the party inside an antimagic field.
IIRC it is Aroden's Spellbane that works as AMF but only for select spells? If the party opens with the same ones, that could get you a round or two before they adapt.
Pair it with something to disguise Spellbane as AMF and you will have their wizard scratching their heads for the whole of combat.
Aroden's Spellbane is mostly handy as an answer to Antimagic Field, Echean's Excellent Enclosure, and Source Severance. If you cast Aroden's Spellbane it will only negate 3 spells (4 if you are caster level 20), which is not worthwhile against most spellcasters since they will certainly have far more spells than that with which to pose a major threat to you, but it is worthwhile as a way of removing the threat of antimagic fields (or Greater Dispel Magic) from the game, at least until someone wishes away your spellbane and drops you in an antimagic field anyway.
Really, no one will mistake a spellbane for an antimagic field because it is extremely easy to notice that supernatural abilities and magic items are still working in a spellbane. I doubt a spellbane will do an adequate job of challenging the party, and it certainly won't counteract things like smite evil or the synthesist summoner either.
Tom Sampson wrote: His stat block is miscalculated. He should actually have a speed of 15 feet as the template reduces his base speed to 20 feet and the heavy armor reduces it further. Just a quick correction: Rathos is Fighter 11, so has armor training 3 and can move at normal speed in heavy armor. Note that he also gets his Dex +2 modifier in AC because of this.
Ah, good point. I'd overlooked that.
Incidentally, Rathos can switch his second weapon training into the advanced weapon training Armed Bravery for a +2 bonus to will saving throws at no cost, since Rathos does not actually use heavy blades.
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rooty wrote: The monk has super high perception and makes sure to thoroughly examine every room and hallway and door before the party approaches. With this AP being an ancient egypt-themed campaign and there being a lot of ancient tombs and such to explore, the party encountered a handful of traps already and is careful to not run into them unnecessarily. Take into account, that that takes a lot of time. In a Dungeon, that can cost the player a few of their 1/min per lvl spells, if they take to long.
And magical traps can only disarmed by a rouge (some can also only be found by a rouge like spike growth), so even if they are found (like a magic missle that triggers if a doot is opened), they either take DMG, take some time to think of anohter method (which if the discussion is longer, should be tracked if they have some buffs on them), or use magic to solve the problem, like dispel magic, but that also chops away at their ressources.
Some Traps can be placed in a room with enemies (so no time to search for them).A pit trap 5 feet behind the door, in a room with some archers forces the monk/paladin to make the refelex save.
Or a small path without a trap, but pit trap left and right.
So that the monk/paladin can charge, but the wizard who wants to step into the room (and maybe make a side stap) triggers the trap.
rooty wrote: The last tip likely won't be as useful. The bard and sorcerer have high knowledge skills and in our game group it's common to roll to identify the enemies and their abilities.
And with a single skeleton, I doubt a Cacophonous Call would be the first move. That would be the monk rushing in and knocking it to pieces.
Knowledge doenst help against class levels.
The best knowledge check doesnt help you to see if a creature in plate armor is a fighter, a barbarian or a paladin.
So they see a skelton in a robe, with a staff and a book on his belt.
Their knowledge check tells them, that it is most likely a wizard.
They know that its a skeleton/skeletal champion and his immunity to cold, his DR/bludgeoning and his spell resistance, but not more.
It doenst tell them which his specialized school is or which spells he has prepared, it also doenst tell them if he is a wizard, an arcanist or a which which disguises hemself as a wizard to protect his familiar.
Also knowledge checks are a lot harder than most people think.
10 + CR + 5 per additional information.
A normal skeletal champion has a 12 to know its a skeletal champion and an undead.
A 17 tells them that it has DR, a 22 tells them it has immunity cold, a 27 tells them that he has channel resistance +4, and a 32 tells them that he gets improved initiative as a bonus feat.
Thats a really high DC for a CR 2 Monster.
Its a valid tactic to disguise a cannon fudder as something special.
Wont work that good the second time in a row, but it will give them additional thinks to thing about. And if the paladin just rushes in an kills the skeleton in a single round, well who will ever know if it was a mage with low HP or a skeleton with normal HP?
rooty wrote: Don't even need the drug, I planned to give him a spellcaster or two by his side anyway. Would make them useless too of course, but frankly, they're not doing much against the party anyway. You can always make them wizard 5 and give them dispel magic and the feat dispel focus (bonus of +2 for dispel) and then let them target the equipment of the players.
Like their cloak of resistance, only takes the bonus away for 1W4 rounds, but thats still a minimum of 1 round. Same with belts and headbands.
And normally magic items have a rly low caster level.
Take the +3 away from the paladin, and than let him make a reflex save against a pit.
Much better chance that he fails it.
Same with armor/bracers of armor if you want them to get hit.
If they are bards you can give them Cacophonous Call, so that they can counterspell it if the SC bard wants to casts it.
No roll, if its the same spell you just counterspell it.
And a BBEG normally knows the typical tactic/spells of the party, so its totally reasonable that he wants to counters it the most simple way possible.
Shouldnt be used by every enemy, but most later BBEG have to means and ressources to pull that off.
The most reliable way to increase the difficulty for a large party is to increase the number of enemies too. But unfortunately, that also makes combats last a lot longer.
Ultimately, my advice would be to just let the PCs steamroll the encounters against regular enemies, but boost any “boss fights” with additional enemies. Basically, if they have a name, they have friends.
Another thing to consider is if the party is expending limited resources to steamroll the encounter the encounter did what it is supposed to do. That is often the real purpose of the encounter. So, another option to increasing the difficulty of encounters is to increase the number of encounters. When the monk uses up his stunning fist and the paladin does not have any lay on hands left, they will not steamroll encounters.
One last thing Rooty, I gotta ask: how immersed are the players in the game world, story and their own characters? Do you feel like the players feel an emotional connection to the action, or are they mechanically playing a tactical combat simulator to "win?"
I ask b/c as I've been re-reading this thread your players sound EXACTLY like my own in the megadungeon game I'm running right now. They're veteran players, both of TTRPGs in general and PF1 specifically; they've learned to exploit a lot of combat mechanics and understand resource management well; the way they explore the dungeon involves methodical Perception checks, Stealth or Invisibility, they don't separate themselves too far, etc.
The individual characters are OP. They started off rolling their stats and the lowest stat array, the paladin's, would've been a 28 point buy. Then you add in that the PCs took magic item creation feats, have had periods in the plot where they've had days, even weeks to craft, and while they didn't build for full optimization they do use the feats, items and abilities they have to the utmost.
All of that being said Rooty, these players all came to me from other campaigns that were basically combat simulators with silly voices. What I mean is, the players are all very separate from their characters and the game world. The fun they get from this hobby is when their numbers and dice rolls are better than their enemies.
So think about your players. Are they interested in the AP's plotlines and story beats? Are they engaged with the foes their fighting? Do they act out a personal stake their characters have in seeing this through? It might be that the issue you're feeling is that the players just want a combat simulation and you want something else? IDK, just throwing that out there.
For the regular metrics in the game; since you have 5 well built & experienced players rather than 4 iconic builds you can up the CR by 2 (1 for number of PCs, +1 for superior build{Hard Mode}) on average. Look at their wealth, if greater than 125% PC WBL then that's +1 CR. You don't want to target them but keep the encounter within its purpose and theme.
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Mummy's Mask c2014 (not too old)
2-4 pages of background info not conveyed to players.
Most encounters CR 8-10 and a few at 12, all of one type. Girtablilus, maftet, humans, etc... lots of low CR traps. There's a real lack of skill challenges, puzzles, etc. NO poisons, curses, skeletons... no arcane casters... lol
Exterior walls of any fortress need to be 5-10ft thick.
The cult personnel are minimal as we have leaders and fighters but that's it. No alchemists, mid-level priests(support role), low-level skilled cultists who do the day-to-day (remember Shadout Mapes!).
So mix up the creatures in an encounter, add gnolls, hyena, jackals, desert druid maftet, janni arcane spellcaster & monks, energized brass golem, spellstiched zombies, dust/earth/magma/salt/smoke mephits, lava/magma elemental or electric elementals, razormouth solifugid, ubashki hungry swarm, clockwork creature whirlmaw.
I'd check out the Mummy's Mask forum...
The most simpel solution is to let the players be 1 level behind the AP’s recommended party level.
*Khan* wrote: The most simpel solution is to let the players be 1 level behind the AP’s recommended party level. They're two levels behind and still wipe the floor with everything.
Ju-Mo. wrote: A 17 tells them that it has DR, a 22 tells them it has immunity cold, a 27 tells them that he has channel resistance +4, and a 32 tells them that he gets improved initiative as a bonus feat. Both the bard and the Arcanist regularly hit Knowledge checks of 30. Checks above 20 are almost guaranteed. Sure, they may not identify all the ins and outs of a creature, especially a rarer one, but they're bound to recognize a shambling skeleton.
That said, thank you for the tips!
Counterspelling is definitely an option... That said, you need to prepare an action to do that, right? That's just one person always ready to counterspell that one or two annoying spells.
Azothath wrote: I'd check out the Mummy's Mask forum... Been a while since I peeked in there. Thank you for the reminder that this exists. But I did mostly want some more general tips for handling a party like this, even if I deeply appreciate all the AP-specific advice I've gotten here.
Mark Hoover 330 wrote: One last thing Rooty, I gotta ask: how immersed are the players in the game world, story and their own characters? Do you feel like the players feel an emotional connection to the action, or are they mechanically playing a tactical combat simulator to "win?"
[...]
So think about your players. Are they interested in the AP's plotlines and story beats? Are they engaged with the foes their fighting? Do they act out a personal stake their characters have in seeing this through? It might be that the issue you're feeling is that the players just want a combat simulation and you want something else? IDK, just throwing that out there.
It's a mix of both, both between different players and within a few of the players. There is definitely some of the players that don't engage as much in the roleplay as I'd like - which is a pity because they have some of the most setting-relevant or plothook-potential character builds, one being a follower of Wadjet and the other being a Paladin of Sarenrae, who sadly has to miss out on 2 of 3 sessions and can't really be the guy that builds up a connection with the handful of enemies that the party captures rather than kills.
Some of the other players definitely engage in some more roleplay, particularly among themselves or in relation to their own character (relationships, discoveries about their backstory or heritage, processing of near-death experiences, etc.) While they're not as deeply and emotionally invested in roleplay as I enjoy with another group I'm playing in, they do engage with some of the NPCs in roleplay ways. E.g. they decided and managed to convince the mercenaries hired by the enemy to lay down their weapons and retreat without a fight. They're also trying to not murder the maftets tempted by a demon, as they have been asked by their relatives a while back to try and save some of their tribe people. However, the party rarely engages and builds in-depth relationships with NPCs beyond what is relevant for the current quest.
Mysterious Stranger wrote: Another thing to consider is if the party is expending limited resources to steamroll the encounter the encounter did what it is supposed to do. That is often the real purpose of the encounter. So, another option to increasing the difficulty of encounters is to increase the number of encounters. When the monk uses up his stunning fist and the paladin does not have any lay on hands left, they will not steamroll encounters. Ideally, that would be the case, yes. But since we only have like 2-3 hours a week to play, I don't want to spend 3 weeks with seemingly meaningless encounters for the party to expend all their resources, only for them to do a long rest and be fully rested again before the next meaningful encounter.
rooty wrote: Ideally, that would be the case, yes. But since we only have like 2-3 hours a week to play, I don't want to spend 3 weeks with seemingly meaningless encounters for the party to expend all their resources, only for them to do a long rest and be fully rested again before the next meaningful encounter. We're in the exact same boat. and we've tried everything under the sun. the only solution we found that consistently works, is like I have said before, Use combat manager, run the encounter as written except as follows, give every bad guy full or double hit points, give them all the advanced template, at least once, if not twice. Add an extra 50% - 100% mooks. Rebuild the BBG in herolab as written, then add levels to make him APL +2 or more.
this is what it takes to challenge the party, without metagaming, and without adding tons of extra encounters, and having to rebuild encounters from scratch.
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Limiting the time that the party can rest between encounters is crucial. If the party always starts every encounter with full resources they are going to steamroll almost every encounter. The 15 minute adventuring day is the fastest way to ruin a game. The best time for those meaningless encounters is when the party tries to rest. I am not saying never let the party rest, but resting in during a dungeon crawl should be difficult.
What it really comes down to is pacing the adventure. I usually like to have a series of fairly easy encounters before anything important. Not only does it drain away resources it builds gives the players a chance to shine and show off. It can also help build a false sense of security so that when the really tough encounter starts the players are not expecting it.
rooty wrote: Both the bard and the Arcanist regularly hit Knowledge checks of 30. Checks above 20 are almost guaranteed. Sure, they may not identify all the ins and outs of a creature, especially a rarer one, but they're bound to recognize a shambling skeleton.
They know its not only a skeleton, they know its a skeletal champion.
But they dont know its class.
They dont know (doesnt matter WHAT they role, even if its a 50) if it is a Fighter 2, a Rouge 7, a wizard 15 or a warrior (NPC Class) 4.
Same with every human PC and NPC.
If you encouter a human, you know all the points that make a human a human.
30 feet of movement, no special vision, extreamly talented (bonus feat) and so on.
However you cant role a knowledge check to see if a human with a normal set of cloths on is a fighter, a monk or a wizard.
There are no checks for class levels.
So yeah they see a sekeltal champion (they will know if its a normal brain dead skeleton, or a skeletal champion who has class levels), but they can role a knowledge check for his class level.
They can asume his class level by his equipment (wizard robe and spell book) and by his actions (but if he just acts last, they likely wont wait for him to get his turn).
So you describe a skeleton in a wizard robe, they role for knowledge, you tell them its a skeletal champion and that they know that skeletal champion have levels in a class. They will most likely assume his class is a caster class and rush him.
You could even give him a Mock Armor .
Ofc they will see right through the Mock Armor and than they will know that a mock armor is normally only worn by arcane spellcasters.
It solely depens on your description of the enemy, since they cant role knowledge for class levels.
And if your counterspelling bards have the some outfit (which they then know its a ruse, thanks to the skeletal champion 2 rooms prior) they will likely assume that there are more "false" spellcasters and let them be.
And since the bards only ready an action, they dont cast until the PC bard tries to use his signiture spell.
You could even put 10 skeletal champions in mock armor in the room, only 3 are bards, but all prepare the same thing (maybe with a blank/scroll in their hands). If the bard tries to cast and gets counterspelled, they know which one is a bard, but they dont konw how many there are.
Was it the only one?
Are there 10 low level bards?
Which one are the bards, if there are more than the one?
If all 10 are positioned in a way that they are hard to reach with AoE spells and that the melee fighters have to move every round at least a move action to get to them, they waste a lot of actions/turns just to kill 3 low level bards.
rooty wrote: Counterspelling is definitely an option... That said, you need to prepare an action to do that, right? That's just one person always ready to counterspell that one or two annoying spells. And thats exactly what every BBEG with a normal INT and WIS would do.
Especially if he can just kill a few low lvl bards, animate them and give them a scroll or let them learn the spell.
Thats on of the most logical things you can do as an BBEG.
Normally a wizard and even a sorcerer have too many spells that can harm you to blindly guess which one they will use. So its a waste of actions and ressources to try and counterspell like that.
Dispel magic works only rly well if the caster level isnt that far apart, so it doenst rly work with low level minions.
However if a wizard or sorcerer (or bard in your case) has one spell that can one shot me (the BBEG), I know of that spell and its within my possibilities to stop it in its tracks, I would use it.
In this case with counterspell from a scroll, a wand or from an undead bard who knows the spell.
The BBEG wont use this tactic in other encounters. He doesnt have enough ressources to do that (and the player should have his fun in smaller encounters), but he will protect himseld with it.
Same thing with other signiture moves.
Enemy uses only fire spells? I will cast protection of fire and energy resistance fire on myself and my most important minions (have it cast, if i cant cast it or need my spells for other stuff)
Players use this tactic the whole time.
Just let the BBEG use it too.
rooty wrote: Ideally, that would be the case, yes. But since we only have like 2-3 hours a week to play, I don't want to spend 3 weeks with seemingly meaningless encounters for the party to expend all their resources, only for them to do a long rest and be fully rested again before the next meaningful encounter. If you make small encounter to drain ressources they should be over relativly fast. Enemies dont need the best tactics or a lot of complicated terrain or spells the let the players use/waste some ressources.
And the long rest. I sadly dont know the dungeon or the setting.
But in nearly all APs i know, you can deny them a long rest.
Especially in the higher levels the BBEG should have enough knowledge of the players and adventures in general to know to NOT give them the oppertunity for a long rest.
The only way to take a full rest would be to teleport out of the place, sleep and teleport back into it. And teleporting back in can be dangerous.
Depending on where they wanna teleport back to, the BBEG can arrange his dungeon (the rooms he knows the heros have been to) in the few hours they need to sleep in a way that its a "false destination".
Stone shape, stone wall, bringing in trees, chopping some trees, getting some rocks out of the way or bringing some in etc.
Undead dont need time to sleep or break from work.
well, there are the usual tricks of the trade when using egyptian-esque arcane casters. A spellcaster in a magic jarred monster is hard to spot (check for spell component pouches and foci). Some undead possession isn't out of the question. Some disguise like a consruct wrapped in funery wrappings and beneath the wrappings wearing a plaque with a symbol (which the fireball uncovers...). It's also possible the construct is possessed by a caster or houses a minion or swarm. Adding spellstiching to low level undead and giving them themed animal heads to make the thematic and add in some outre outer god looks. Grtr Shadow minions or spectres. Creating themed but less than the seemed creatures using simulacrum spell. Taxidery beasts are hilarious distraction at higher level.
In this theme Curses are a thing and come in many guises. Same for traps!
Ju-Mo. wrote: If you make small encounter to drain ressources they should be over relativly fast. Enemies dont need the best tactics or a lot of complicated terrain or spells the let the players use/waste some resources. The monk charges in, flurry of blows full attack and stun or trip the enemy. An enemy is out before they can even react.
The tanky summoner grapples an enemy with nearly unescapable grip.
The paladin has high enough armor as well to get in close and just be a meatshield, even without wasting a smite.
The sorcerer stands behind and tosses magic missiles.
The bard has lingering performance.
The cleric can raise one person's AC by 2 for free each turn if there's nothing better to do.
An encounter with 5 minions costs maybe 5 charges of their three Cure Light Wounds wands, one charge of Bardic Performance and a ki point.
The resources that a 'small encounter' drains is barely worth the time it took to play out.
That said, the Rathos encounter with Antimagic Field has been a banger. Even with the two tanky friendly NPCs the party has been dragging along, Rathos has been kicking their ass and is a genuine challenge they had to work around.
Certainly not a method that I can just repeat for every second encounter, but it was exactly the challenge I hoped for. Thank you everyone for the many suggestions and tips.
I need to start thinking of how to set up the boss encounter for this dungeon now to follow this up with. Definitely need to not let them have enough time to rest.
Against charges you can always ready an action with the brace ability (like a simple speer). Charging gives a -2 to AC, and if the minion hit its double DMG, thanks to brace.
You can also interrupt charges (and letting the Monk wast his turn) by reading an action to side step, move out of charge range.
Or by simple placing some objects in a room (tables, pit traps, etc)
Against grappele there is razored, which isnt the best, but it helps tp deal DMG. And its relatively cheap to give it to your middle level minions.
Some low level bards (which can buff your Melee Hitter too) can use liberating command. Some minions can be trained in escape artist, and the +10 (by a level 5 bard) can rly help (i dont know his CMD for grapple, but there are things that can lower that too)
Paladin being a Meatshild without wasting smite is normal, his touch AC shouldnt be that good, same with his DMG. So scorching ray can hit him without a problem.
Magic Missle doenst deal that much DMG (5W4+5), if thats all he does its fine. Some low level mages (instead of bards) could just cast shild on themself so his magic missle just vanishes.
Lingering performance is without a doubt on of the best feats you can get as a bard if you are having a war of attrition.
Nothing can be rly done against that, but he uses spells, and they are much more limited than his performance rounds.
The free +2 ist just a free +2. Its nice for low level encoutners to prevent wasting spell slots, but in the end its just +2 to one person.
The whole thing can be much more challanging if the enemies doenst only come from the front.
You have a 6 player party, with 3 frontliners.
And 3 backliner for support and magic tricks.
Ofc most frontline Monster without a lot of support will die rly fast.
Against 3 frontliner you could use small corridors so that the number of frontliner who can fight is reduced and the number of backliner who can see the enemy (and cast spells) is alos reduced.
For the rest, there are a lot of good tips in the post before me and in my own. They rly work.
I too have/had 2 powergamers and 2 rly well build melee fighter in my 6 player party (although a lesser level).
Rough terrain, fog, enemies from all sides, are all aspects that can be used rly well against powergamers.
Knowing their weaknesses and strengths and using that knowledge to make combat either challinging or easy.
Readied actions for example.
Monk is charing? Move a few feet to the right or left, so its not a straight line anymore and his charge is wasted.
Palading has an astronomical high AC?
Touch spells, magic missle, combat maneuvers, like disarm (his shild), sunder (his armor), trip (for the -4 to AC), pit traps and bullrush can all work rly well.
6 low level Minion can trip/grapple/disarm the Paladin, the first just moves past him to provok an AoO. The other 5 make a bull rush. 1 main and 4 supporting, that means +8 to his CMB.
There are 6 players in the group?
So every AoO the enemy uses deals more overall DMG.
Fireball trap, fireball wizard for example
Level 5 its only 5d6, and at least 5 should make the save.
So the monk doesnt take any DMG, but the rest takes 5d6 halfed DMG, and one player gets 5W6 DMG. Thats 18 or 9 points of DMG. Thats not much, but it hits 5 people, so thats 54 points of DMG. One cure light wounds is only 9 points (wand or potion) or 14 (cleric) so one fireball needs at least 4 cure light wounds spells from the cleric or 6 charges of a wand to get the party full life.
And just for to be precise, they are 6 players all level 10.
Thats a CR 16 encoutner for the end BBEG, CR 15 for the chapter BBEG.
A CR 12 entounter is a normal encoutner for them.
2x level 5 wizard + 2 level 5 bards = CR 8.
Thats two fireballs for about 100 DMG (and they can be invisible when they hear the party opening the locked door).
And 2x level 9 fighther (or other CR 8 melee monster to tank a few hits)
like a greater shadow and a level 9 tank fighter.
The shadow could pass through the wall and attack the bard directly.
It doesnt deal HP DMG, but it deals Strength DMG, a nice hit can make you bard rly weak. And with weak i mean, can he still stand with all his equipment?
Same tactic could work against the cleric or the paladin.
The shadow standing right next to the bard in the corridor, while monk and palading are just entering the room through a just unlocked door, while 2 wizards are casting fireball (or other spells), the fighter wating for the monk to charge and the bards using their performance, and reading an action to some nice spells to disrupted the party.
And behind all that is sitting on a throne a skelton with a robe and a golden chalice and laughing (just a weak 1/2 CR skelton in a fancy robe)
I bet your players need to use much more then 5 charges of cure wounds in that fight.
And thats an easy on for their level and their number.
I would say focus on the first part, and don't overstress about the second. Min maxing into op builds is a choice people make deliberately, its an outright statement that they want the mechanical aspects of the game to come easy to them. So let it happen and try to keep the excitement up in other areas. IF you try too hard to make the combat difficult you're just going to fall into a weird one upsmanship game with your players.
Ryan Freire wrote: I would say focus on the first part, and don't overstress about the second. Min maxing into op builds is a choice people make deliberately, its an outright statement that they want the mechanical aspects of the game to come easy to them. So let it happen and try to keep the excitement up in other areas. IF you try too hard to make the combat difficult you're just going to fall into a weird one upsmanship game with your players. Fair enough, that's some good advice.
In that regard, I guess I want combat to have the gravitas that is appropriate for the plot. I don't necessarily want to make every combat a challenge, just make a few of them feel meaningful.
rooty wrote: Ryan Freire wrote: I would say focus on the first part, and don't overstress about the second. Min maxing into op builds is a choice people make deliberately, its an outright statement that they want the mechanical aspects of the game to come easy to them. So let it happen and try to keep the excitement up in other areas. IF you try too hard to make the combat difficult you're just going to fall into a weird one upsmanship game with your players. Fair enough, that's some good advice.
In that regard, I guess I want combat to have the gravitas that is appropriate for the plot. I don't necessarily want to make every combat a challenge, just make a few of them feel meaningful. see my post above
basically you can go three ways -
1) to key dramatic encounters add henchmen at CR-3 from the big bad. You are doing two things; affecting action economy as more attackers diffuses the number of attacks on BBEG giving him more time & lifespan, not appreciably affecting CR. Incorporeals, hungry oozes, wizards, bards and gunslingers or zen archers are the EvilGM way to go but you should stick to the theme. You can give the mooks some moderate($400) to cheap poison(like woundweal, gnt wasp, gray justice, red tears) pre-applied to their weapons or up the DC by +2.
2) balance the challenges by sticking to a 33-45% non-combat percentage. You'll need to count then add is the missing challenges. Many tough doors with puzzles, traps, haunts, etc...this also involves more background, setups, changing maps to be more defensive (think Fort Ticonderoga). Don't forget some cursed items as traps as their cost is quite low...
3) get a shovel and stick to the AP as is. It's easy and lets the PCs win without a struggle and lets you finish early so you an watch a film and have a beer.
Poor tactics: counterspelling and usually casting abjurations during combat, Ready an action (as it is the hope of triggering an effective action as any tactical combatant will change up the actions if they see a foe is readying), set to receive charge - so obvious, casting spells when a foe has a ranged attack without concealment/cover or prepared defense(see arrow target and fortifying stone).
Next time you should stick to PFS Rules. That will help with the MinMaxing and overpowered gear.
[/quote=Azothath]Poor tactics: counterspelling and usually casting abjurations during combat, Ready an action (as it is the hope of triggering an effective action as any tactical combatant will change up the actions if they see a foe is readying), set to receive charge - so obvious, casting spells when a foe has a ranged attack without concealment/cover or prepared defense(see arrow target and fortifying stone). Depends on the exact scenario.
If an enemy has ONE SoS spell that can ruin my party/allies and that he uses 90% of the time, i can asume he will use this spell again. So using a low level minion to get a near fool-proofed counter is a valuable and important tactic.
You are right overall that counterspelling is hard and mostly wasted and nearly all mages can use their action to do something much more useful.
However if a lvl 5 wizard can stop a lvl 13 wizards fireball or haste (if thats the to go spell in the first round of combat), thats a very well used action.
Much more useful than nearly anything else he could to.
And if for what ever reason the lvl 13 wizard casts magic missle as his first spell, well at least it wasnt haste on the monk/paladin and summoner.
Same with charge and brace weapons.
If a cavalier has spirited charge and a lance and he decides that he wont charge, because one of my minions has a brace weapon and he makes his sense motion check to know that the minion readied an action with it. Well he doenst charge, maybe the attack of my minion is wasted, but he survives to live another day.
Ofc the minion has to stand in the way, if the calvalier just charges to mage its wasted.
Readying actions, like counterspell, moving out of a charge etc are rly good tactics against one trick ponys. If a party does a lot of random stuff or the BBEG/enemies dont know them its wasted/mostly useless.
In the OPs party is a bard who uses the same spell to trivialise encoutners over and over again. No BBEG of mine who has heard of this method will let this spell be used against him, if possible.
Spell Immunity (from a lvl 7 cleric) against this specific spell or a low level minion whos only job is to counterspell this exact spell, whatever is better available.
Ju-Mo. wrote: Azothath wrote: Poor tactics: counterspelling and usually casting abjurations during combat, Ready an action (as it is the hope of triggering an effective action as any tactical combatant will change up the actions if they see a foe is readying), set to receive charge - so obvious, casting spells when a foe has a ranged attack without concealment/cover or prepared defense(see arrow target and fortifying stone). Depends on the exact scenario.
... nope
you make a lot of assumptions and lay out poor & simplistic strategies for party foes (GM & writer issue) in a thread that seeks better & more challenging strategies and tactics. Tactical responses are just that, a response that tries to use a winning strategy.
Sure, a majority of published encounters are simple as writers are bound by word count, a due date, goals of emotional impact and memorable characters, and are writers rather than strategists. Simple martial challenges are easier to write and execute/implement. A few use settings and the propensity of players to follow an implied script to challenge players.
One glaring issue of PF1 BBEG/monster assumptions is the lack of gear (even if it would be appropriate or reasonable). This showed up in many early Paizo products as prepared casters were never given spellbooks and only had a list of simple basic spells or a few scrolls that were expected to be used before combat. It was clearly dunderheaded & resource denial.
Azothath wrote: nope
you make a lot of assumptions and lay out poor & simplistic strategies for party foes (GM & writer issue) in a thread that seeks better & more challenging strategies and tactics. Tactical responses are just that, a response that tries to use a winning strategy.
You have to differ between encounters.
.) Combat encounters
.) Puzzles encounters
.) social encounters
etc.
Pathfinder is mostly a rly combat focused game, and even the OP in his first post addressed mostly the combat aspect in form of "not challenging enough, what can i do"
So ofc most of the tips are combat related.
And sometimes the most simple solution works the best.
Sometimes it doesnt. If it works it works.
In that sense:
How is that wrong or a poor strategie?
If one spell can destroy an encounter/destroyed a lot of encounters and my BBEG knows of this spell and which party member uses it, why not counter it?
Thats from the BBEGs point of few the most logical thing he can do.
Not personally, because of action economy, but let a low level minions to it.
A mage who plays as a one trick pony should know the risk that comes with this tactic. At least in my opinion.
I would never punish player for their action or choices, but i wont play my Int 20/Wis 20 caster with Int 5/ Wis 3.
I would never metagame knowledge of things he never experienced or hasnt heard of. That said in the sense of strategie and tactic, to counter the strong popints of your enemy is commen knowledge.
Doesnt matter if its warfare, a boardgame, chess, card games or simple fist fighting. Even boxer analyse their opponents to get an advantage.
Why should magic or Pen&Paper in generel be an exception?
A more challenging encounter can be achieved in a lot of ways, and a lot of suggestion are already written and explained in this thread.
From "drain their ressources" and "give the BBEG more minions" to "give them more puzzles"
One way to let your BBEG live a little longer is to give him a better tactic, like employing/summoning monster that can counter players "one trick tactics/spells".
It doesnt work infinitely, a level 5 wizard can only counterspell a fireball so often (2-3 times), and using another spell or the monk reaching and killing him in one round puts an end to it really fast.
However it gives the BBEG a little longer to live, maybe one round, maybe two rounds.
And a BBEG that lives a little bit longer makes the fight more challenging.
Same with doubling his HP. Monk deals 300 DMG in a round? If you double the HP of the BBEG (from 250 to 500) he will likely live another round to cast a spell/to attack/to flee. Thats kinda the definition in making a combat encounter more challenging.
And i dont rly make any assumptions.
In the first post, it was clearly written, that the bard uses Cacophonous Call a lot.
rooty wrote: One Cacophonous Call and that combat is over. So if a BBEG knows this (not metagaming) why shouldnt he try to find a way to protect himself? If he findes a low level bard who is willing to help him (thats GM choice if its possible that the BBEG finds someone like that), why not?
Its just a tip, if the OP finds it helpful he can use it, if the doesnt find it helpful he doesnt have to. But its not a bad tip, a poor tactic or an assumption.
Same with brace weapons and charge, doubling monster HP, giving more minions, fog, traps, more cheotic battlefields and so on.
I know that you can use all or just one of these to make an encounter more challenging, how it is used is totally up to the GM.
I have used these things and a lot more to keep the encounters for my partys challenging. Sometimes it worked better sometimes not.
rooty wrote: Mysterious Stranger wrote: Adjusting an encounter for a party is often a difficult task. One thing that can help is to do some analysis on the encounter. Figure out the average damage the party will do and use that to determine how many creatures should be in the encounter. Use a DPR spreadsheet or something similar to figure out how long the combat will run. This is also helpful for figuring out if you need to boost the power levels of the creatures. Factor in the boost the party is likely to have up in your calculations.
I prefer to create my own adventures and do this all the time. I generally have a good idea on how any particular combat is likely to go especially a boss fight. For the most part my boss fights end up being fairly close and often the players are not sure they are going to survive, but so far, I have had very few deaths. Occasionally a character may be knocked out, but death is fairly rare. But the players never realize that the odds favored them.
I think my next campaign will certainly be a homebrew one. Maybe in a different system. We'll see. But for now, I enjoy both this AP and PF 1e, despite the little hurdles.
This is certainly how I want my combats to feel. Not necessarily all of them. On occasion the party is free to steamroll some goons. But definitely not as much as they do right now.
My current rule of thumb for adjusting HP is that I want the enemy to be able to survive at least one full round of attacks from the monk. Maybe even two. But as I mentioned, I don't want to just pad the encounter with countless more minions and end up doubling the duration of the combat.
I think some of my recent enemies certainly could have needed a bit higher adjustments to their attacks and damage - but that one is also tricky to balance, when the Summoner has almost four times as many hp as the Sorcerer.
Any enemy that can be a reasonable threat to the front line would surely be able to one-shot the squishies, and I don't want that either.
But... have you asked your players, maybe individually or as a group how they feel? as veteran players maybe ask them if they like the current challenges and or how would their characters be challenged.
What about something that splits the party (wall of stone, or pit traps?) or use of silence or anti-magic field?
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