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Are you keeping a PC or an NPC in jail? I'm of the opinion that when a PC is escaping a prison, you should have the restraints make escape interesting, not impossible.
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Mar 9, 2011 20:20
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I hardly think that removing teleportation makes escape impossible. Now, if they were anti-magic bracers, the there might be issues.
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Mar 9, 2011 20:32
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For Eladrin PCs removing or restricting teleportation options really is what makes the escape interesting. Without it the entire situation boils down to "you're imprisoned" "no I'm not."
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Mar 9, 2011 20:38
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And really, as a DM I loving hate teleportation powers. makes so many plot hooks impossible when your party can say "oh poo poo, we leave" and putting "magical interference" or the like in a place gets old after use #1.
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Mar 9, 2011 20:41
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I imagine a world where, eventually, the guards get so sick of Eladrin teleporting out of prison that they just beat them unconscious as standard procedure. Probably wouldn't want to do that to the PCs though.
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Mar 9, 2011 20:51
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Thanks guys, blindfolds and bags seems like a good mundane option, leaving space for a rogue and an Eladrin to team up for a prison break. I just want capture to be an option for PCs, in case they screw up royally. Honestly, if any intelligent jailer had to deal with a creature that could Bamf itself outside every 5 minutes, they'd probably just kill it and save themselves some trouble.
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Mar 9, 2011 21:37
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Yawgmoth posted:And really, as a DM I loving hate teleportation powers. makes so many plot hooks impossible when your party can say "oh poo poo, we leave" and putting "magical interference" or the like in a place gets old after use #1. i'm gonna need a few examples of how it makes plot hooks impossible because if the pcs are trying to "accomplish goals" and "perform deeds" then being able to teleport isn't going to ruin many quests. i think.
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Mar 9, 2011 21:37
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Riidi WW posted:i'm gonna need a few examples of how it makes plot hooks impossible because if the pcs are trying to "accomplish goals" and "perform deeds" then being able to teleport isn't going to ruin many quests. If your players are trying to do something other than grab the macguffin and slay the Jabberwock, then it becomes less of an issue.
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Mar 9, 2011 22:15
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Yawgmoth posted:I didn't say it makes plot hooks impossible, I said that it makes a lot of potential plot hooks impossible. Like, anything starting with "PCs are trapped in..." or "PCs need to break into..." or "PCs are cornered by..." is immediately quashed because they can't be trapped, they can teleport in and out, and it's hard to corner a group when they can make themselves instantly not there. Short range occasional line of sight teleports on one or two PC's don't make any of those impossible.
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Mar 9, 2011 22:27
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As long as it's short ranged and line of sight, it'd just bypass a few bars, unless they got it at will somehow. Ever seen a realistic prison where the other side of the bars isn't just outside the cell, but still inside multiple sets of bars?
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Mar 10, 2011 02:30
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Throw me some ideas please, guys and girls! I'm the DM of a Uni roleplay society game of D&D. I thought the last (weekly) session was going to be next week, but in fact all my players have said that despite being away over the Easter break they'll be up for playing for another three or four weeks afterwards. I assumed not because in the past people have moaned about coursework deadlines and exam revision, but it seems they're rather keen! They are currently a few rooms of a dungeon away from fighting the "final boss" of the campaign. The overall story has seen them kidnapped and brought to an island where a group of mages has been experimenting on humans. One of their most dangerous test subjects escaped, and needs to be stopped before escaping the island via the port in the one small town. They've got the big bad cornered and are almost ready for the "final" fight. Any general ideas as to how I can stretch things out for three or four sessions more past the expected final battle without being too cheap with "the big bad escapes, track him down all over again"?
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Mar 29, 2011 23:44
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If they're itching for killing the big bad have a discussion with your players. Tell them that on one hand you're willing to stretch the game out for a while in order to get the fun going. And do it in game. Make the big bad harder by a level or two. It'll be tough, but they can do it with what they have but it may be costly to do so. If they can wreck certain magical sites/items/minions they'll drive his power away. In essence, by giving the players a choice like this they'll most likely choose to prolong it a bit if they can make their chances better. If not, you won't have to string them along with them getting bored.
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Mar 30, 2011 06:33
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You probably don't want to put off the payout of killing this particular enemy. It'll seem like you're blue-balling them. I'd suggest going back over the previous sessions, searching for unresolved plots and unintended consequences. Think Saruman going back to torch the Shire. I ended my first real campaign with a similar situation and adventure, and the players still fondly remember beating down their old rivals in the last week of final exams.
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Mar 30, 2011 08:14
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thatdarnedbob posted:You probably don't want to put off the payout of killing this particular enemy. It'll seem like you're blue-balling them. I'd suggest going back over the previous sessions, searching for unresolved plots and unintended consequences. Think Saruman going back to torch the Shire. I ended my first real campaign with a similar situation and adventure, and the players still fondly remember beating down their old rivals in the last week of final exams. Aha, yes, inspired by this I've come up with a decent enough idea involving the Big Bad not being the final threat, the boss mages who created him need to be stopped before they... something or other. Cheers!
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Mar 31, 2011 01:51
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So I wanted to adapt the Gamma World vehicle chase rules to a D&D4e high speed mounted combat chase across the countryside. I figured I might as well, since my players went to great ends to obtain horses and a Rage Drake mount. In terms of movement, I'm going to stick with the the "scrolling encounter" format, and full speed side to side/quarter speed forward and back movement. I don't know about stunts, I might include most of them, tone them down, or just ignore them and roll with whatever the players suggest. Checks for handling will be nature or intimidate. Intimidate is largely a bone for one of my players who really loves his Rage Drake but has no Nature Skill. I think I'll forgo the Catastrophe table, and I'll tone down the variable damage things to appropriate for D&D/level. For crashes, I think I'll avoid stopping the movement right then, but maintain the damage as the rider and mount barrel through whatever is in their way. I'm thinking of the following obstacles to throw at my PCs: Hidden mires of Difficult Terrain Bramble Patches: Entering a square of bramble makes the creature grant Combat Advantage until the next "Terrain Movement" phase. A town with a main road and a tangle of side roads. Ending a turn in the side roads requires a check, if failed the mount and rider take 1d6+5 damage and the mount gets pushed back half the encounter speed. Various trees as blocking terrain. My one question is this, what should I do about slow and immobilize? I really don't want to have an awesome chase sequence get neutered when the enemy mount gets stopped in its tracks. At the moment, I'm thinking of doing it like this: Slowed mounts can not move forward or backwards, and lateral movement is limited to 2. Immobilized mounts can not make any movement, and get pushed back by half the encounter speed at the start of every turn it is immobilized. This way slowed and immobilized guys still have the lack of movement options, and are extra vulnerable to incoming terrain. Thoughts?
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Mar 31, 2011 23:01
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My family has informed me that they want to play that D&D game with Daddy. They haven't had much interest in it until recently when I bought some dungeon tiles and the Monster Vault. Now the kids are enchanted with all the little cardboard pieces and little monster cut-outs. My Wife even wants to try. They are 6, 7, and 8. All girls except for the 6 yer old. I hammered them together some Essentials characters. My son got the Slayer, Wife got a Wapriest, my oldest girl was insistent that she get an Elf Wizard. My other daughter insisted that she wants to be a catgirl who shoots rainbows. So I made her a Wildling Sorcerer. I am just going to have them walking through a forest to a haunted house. They can fight some skeletons and goblins, I guess. I think for now I am going to ignore AOO's, flanking, and shifting. Has anyone ever run for complete noobs who have never opened a rulebook, or children? Some advice would be appreciated
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Apr 1, 2011 16:03
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The Dregs posted:Has anyone ever run for complete noobs who have never opened a rulebook, or children? Some advice would be appreciated Just make sure you do all the math for them so that they can just throw a die and add a number. I've seen the math kill peoples interest first hand. I guess I'm thinking the stuff that's fun or exciting for us, like a balanced combat system, is going to be boring to someone just getting started. So you're not going to wow them with how dynamic their characters are or whatever. Think back to what was originally fun about these games to you. Let them improvise and do the crazy stuff they come up with. Say "Yes!" I feel like it might be easy to try to train them in the "right" way to play but let them figure out what they like.
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Apr 1, 2011 17:02
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The Dregs posted:Has anyone ever run for complete noobs who have never opened a rulebook, or children? Some advice would be appreciated Keep the story and mechanics as simple as possible. I have no doubt that with kids, you have a lot of experience watching kid's movies, use those as a kind of benchmark for how you run a game for them. you may even want to straight up steal and modify a plot to a favorite movie of theirs. Mostly, I'd advise emphasis on roleplay and creative problem solving, like Joudas said. It's like playing house, but with magic and swords. seriously. 
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Apr 1, 2011 17:40
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quote:Has anyone ever run for complete noobs who have never opened a rulebook, or children? Yes, for the most childish children of all. Grognards.
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Apr 1, 2011 18:19
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I decided to just ask them. I was told they want to go on and adventure in a spooky forest to find a treasure of gold and jewels and kittens with wings. This is going to be fun. Thanks for the advice guys.
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Apr 1, 2011 21:00
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Not sure if this is the right thread for it, but here goes: I've recently started DMing for the first time ever. I'm runnning a D&D 4e campaign with 5 other players (ranging from ages 22-28). I used to play back in the mid- to late-90s, but it was only as a player and I was much much younger. Everything started up well, but we're four or five sessions in now and I'm running into some problems between my players and the game philosophy: Mark wants it to be about him, all the time. When we're in town, he's speaking over everyone and saying the first thing that comes to mind. I made the mistake of letting him play as a changeling and now he wants to shapeshift every three seconds, which has forced me to come up with a poo poo-ton of reasons why he can't (someone might see, people might see through his disguise, etc.). I don't want to just tell this guy to grow up and shut up because somewhere, buried deep down, he has a talent for the RPG aspects of the game. But it's killing all the other players. If that wasn't bad enough, he came up with a really strange backstory for his character, and has explicitly stated that his character is a confused, transexual 20-something genderbending changeling. I worry that he plans on using the campaign as his personal therapy sessions, which I'm not prepared to conduct. Adam is a rules lawyer. Not so much in the sense that he's trying to gently caress me over, but more in the sense that he wants to maximize every single action he takes to consider whether he has cover or concealment or combat advantage or whether he can bull rush or hover or whatever. I don't mind, as he's more than happy to look up the rules himself, but it slows down the game considerably especially during combat. The problem is that this is what Adam loves about the game--the tactics and the strategy and considering every possible angle. I don't want to simplify combat or skill challenges because it's the complexity that draws him in. The real problem I'm encountering with Adam is that he's overthinking everything. I wanted the PCs to walk into a tiny tavern in Winterhaven (yes, we started with the Keep on the Shadowfell so I could figure out the new mechanics and I'm already regretting it) and all I wanted them to do was get the loving quest to kill the goddamn goblins but it turned into this elaborate, 45-minute debacle about "Maybe we should check to see if there's a chartered Adventurer's Guild outpost in town" or "Maybe we should try to find the Lord's personal executive assistant to schedule a meeting first" or "Let's ask every single NPC in town for the opinion of the Lord before we get within 10 feet of him." Most, but not all of that, was a result of Adam and Mark feeding off of each other. So I don't want to railroad them into just talking to quest-relevant NPCs, but not every player enjoys these parts of the game. Like John. John may not actually enjoy playing D&D. He'd never played before and I can see him mentally disengaging during combat. He sits there dejectedly while Adam pores over obscure rules and Mark takes forever to decide what he wants do. When it's John's turn, he just plays whatever his strongest power is without any attempt at describing a scene (I don't care if the PCs do this or not, but so far it's been a good indicator of when the players are tired of combat). When we're NOT in combat, it's a little better as he's a natural at roleplaying, but he still gets visibly frustrated when the other players shift into strategizing mode for skill checks. I can tell he just wants to ask the NPC if they have any quests or magic items for sale and then move on. I don't want to lose John, because he's really handy on the meta side (he cuts through the other PCs' bullshit with questions like "Look, will you pay us some money to go kill those goblins?") and from an in-game sense, he has one of the most well-roleplayed characters at the table. But the enjoyment he gets from the game is wildly at odds with everyone else's. The other two players are totally solid. One is really quiet, but he plays a rogue and he's literally content to just sit back until the group needs a Stealth/Thievery check. The other strikes a good balance between being detail-oriented and goal-oriented, and he's very easy-natured when it comes to the attitudes of the other group-members. So I'm just wondering if the other DMs in the thread have any advice? I don't want to make any of the players feel like I'm singling them out or chastising, but I also don't want the group to fall apart because of it. (And yes, I've spoken to all of them but with the exception of Mark, the other two weren't really willing to budge in their expectations from the game).
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Apr 4, 2011 16:38
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1) Set up a hard timer for combat turns, like 60-90 seconds; there's actually a bunch of suggestions for how to properly increase combat round speed that someone else can help you with more (I pretty much run PbP games so it doesn't matter as much for me). Don't be afraid to make a ruling and say "This is how it is, if that's not right we can look it up later and I'll fix it for future games." Looking up rules mid-combat just makes it drag way too much. 2) The normal skill system is retarded because it encourages people to do nothing/assist checks rather than actually trying to help if they don't have a great skill for that challenge. Use the Obsidian modified system instead, it's massively better and encourages everyone to participate. As for Mark... there's really not much you can do other than tell him to knock it off because it's bothering you. You are both (presumably) grownups, this isn't his personal therapy session and shouldn't be treated as such.
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Apr 4, 2011 17:18
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Astfgl posted:
My advice is to just say this to your players. Be honest with them and actually talk it out so you are all on the same page about what kind of game you want to play. It will help a lot.
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Apr 4, 2011 20:15
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In a lot of cases you can simply say yes. You hadn't planned for a thing but it is possible that it might exist so why not make some poo poo up on the fly? If it makes sense for the area that you're in, do a dice roll. Is X thing there? Roll dice, think about probability. "Is there a map within X place?" Roll dice again. Or do whatever. Saying yes more often makes players happy. Just don't do it all of the time. But if they come up with a legitimate thing which could exist, why the gently caress not? Have a ball. As for your players: 1. Therapy Man - Stomp on this poo poo right away. If he's moping and using you and your friends as emotional toerags and you're not okay with it, tell him now. You're not his therapist. You could be a good friend to him and talk about it, but hashing out sexual identity, daddy issues, any other weird or hosed up poo poo, etc, normally isn't appropriate when you're doing adventure time. Adventure time is fun time. Not everyone pay attention to my self esteem issues time. It probably isn't appropriate. 2. I used to be a rules lawyer. This is an annoying way of people getting their fun out of things. My suggestion is to recruit him as a co-dm, have him keep score of hit points during battle and otherwise keeping him busy. I got over it after realizing that I was ruining everyone else's fun. Unless there's an absolutely glaring error which could effect everything, see if you can get him to confine doing that to the beginning or end of the game when it isn't chewing up time. Although my personal cure for rules lawyering was weird. I started playing sub optimized dump stat characters. It was like playing on super hard mode for me. Pimping out your character with super stats and broken powers. My old 3.5 psionic character would sometimes win encounters by himself. It was optimized and horribly broken. So I started playing charismatic bards/clerics and haven't looked back since. And the reason is because I now get to be the party mouthpiece -and- charisma based characters need a lot of care to make them effective in combat. I'm weird. 
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Apr 4, 2011 20:35
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RPZip posted:1) Set up a hard timer for combat turns, like 60-90 seconds; there's actually a bunch of suggestions for how to properly increase combat round speed that someone else can help you with more (I pretty much run PbP games so it doesn't matter as much for me). Don't be afraid to make a ruling and say "This is how it is, if that's not right we can look it up later and I'll fix it for future games." Looking up rules mid-combat just makes it drag way too much. This is a good idea. Is 60-90 seconds generally an adequate amount of time? I don't want players to feel like they're being punished for trying to be creative. After all, there's only so many times a player can attack with their at-wills before it gets repetitive. RPZip posted:2) The normal skill system is retarded because it encourages people to do nothing/assist checks rather than actually trying to help if they don't have a great skill for that challenge. Use the Obsidian modified system instead, it's massively better and encourages everyone to participate. Another good idea. I went through that document and there's a lot I can use to streamline the non-combat encounters. RPZip posted:As for Mark... there's really not much you can do other than tell him to knock it off because it's bothering you. You are both (presumably) grownups, this isn't his personal therapy session and shouldn't be treated as such. I have, I just dislike having to be in an authority role when I just want to mess around with my friends, you know? They'll all sit there and seethe silently while he showboats until I step in and tell him to knock it off. It's just less than ideal for group morale. Liesmith posted:My advice is to just say this to your players. Be honest with them and actually talk it out so you are all on the same page about what kind of game you want to play. It will help a lot. Fair enough, but I don't want to always step in and say "There's just the one quest in this town--don't worry about overthinking it." Like, we started in a bigger city with lots of social and mental challenges, which is why the group was overanalyzing everything. When we got to Winterhaven, I thought I was being clear by continually stating "This is a SMALL farming village in the HINTERLANDS without much in the way of social or local infrastructure." I just want to know how else I can go about stressing that the PCs are engaged in fruitless activities without saying to them "Holy gently caress, are you people all blind!?" Is this something that will smooth over with time? Ice Phisherman posted:In a lot of cases you can simply say yes. You hadn't planned for a thing but it is possible that it might exist so why not make some poo poo up on the fly? If it makes sense for the area that you're in, do a dice roll. Is X thing there? Roll dice, think about probability. "Is there a map within X place?" Roll dice again. Or do whatever. Saying yes more often makes players happy. Just don't do it all of the time. But if they come up with a legitimate thing which could exist, why the gently caress not? Have a ball. Oh, I do. The town we started in ballooned from a modest settlement to a bustling metropolis because of me saying yes. Winterhaven went from having mostly uneducated farmers to having courtesans and street performers. I'm not complaining, it's just that I can't always accomodate it. Sometimes we need to be in a small town without any nearby resources and no magically helpful NPCs. I just don't want to SAY "You are in a small town with no useful resources and no helpful NPCs. Just do your quests and leave, please!" Ice Phisherman posted:1. Therapy Man - Stomp on this poo poo right away. If he's moping and using you and your friends as emotional toerags and you're not okay with it, tell him now. You're not his therapist. You could be a good friend to him and talk about it, but hashing out sexual identity, daddy issues, any other weird or hosed up poo poo, etc, normally isn't appropriate when you're doing adventure time. Adventure time is fun time. Not everyone pay attention to my self esteem issues time. It probably isn't appropriate. Yeah, I figured this would be the answer. I was hoping there was an in-game solution like "Your god is annoyed by your capricious nature and chooses to block your changeling abilities until you grow the gently caress up." Ice Phisherman posted:2. I used to be a rules lawyer. This is an annoying way of people getting their fun out of things. My suggestion is to recruit him as a co-dm, have him keep score of hit points during battle and otherwise keeping him busy. I got over it after realizing that I was ruining everyone else's fun. Unless there's an absolutely glaring error which could effect everything, see if you can get him to confine doing that to the beginning or end of the game when it isn't chewing up time. A lot of it comes from the fact that we're all new to 4e, and it was a huge help at the start to have someone who could look up important things like how to use certain skills or what the difference was between blast and burst effects. But now that people are picking up the rhythms of their own abilities, the rule-checking is only getting used for more esoteric things. Most people are fine to play simply, but this guy's turns can take forever as he constantly researches every action he wants to take. The co-DMing isn't a bad idea, but I think I'll lean more towards just getting him to rulecheck primarily on his own time out of consideration to the other players. And the reason I asked this here is because I firmly believe that this game should be fun and I shouldn't have to have a half-dozen closed-door performance reports with my players to tell them where they need to shape up. It sucks the fun out of it for me, and it makes them feel like I'm their boss. But thank you for all the advice, guys!
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Apr 4, 2011 21:05
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quote:This is a good idea. Is 60-90 seconds generally an adequate amount of time? I don't want players to feel like they're being punished for trying to be creative. After all, there's only so many times a player can attack with their at-wills before it gets repetitive. I don't see why not, although you should give extensions if they pop an Action Point or come up with something creative and want to run it by you. Otherwise, if it takes someone longer than 60 seconds to start rolling dice something is probably wrong - either they're way, way overthinking it or they're trying to do Tactics Chat instead of playing, which makes combat drag. A lot. There's nothing wrong with Tactics Chat, but they should be figuring out what the hell they're going to do for their turn when other people are going. quote:I have, I just dislike having to be in an authority role when I just want to mess around with my friends, you know? They'll all sit there and seethe silently while he showboats until I step in and tell him to knock it off. It's just less than ideal for group morale. Stage an intervention. You don't have to per se be the bad guy, but if you get the other players together and ask them to all support you when you sit down and tell him to knock it off it may go better. Or your friends may be spineless and not want to go through with it, at which point you may have to fly solo, but telling him that the other people aren't enjoying it when he does this shouldn't be that difficult of a concept to get across. Just be calm but definite, and don't back down.
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Apr 4, 2011 21:44
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The timer is a really good idea - we use it in our games. If things are getting out of hand, we just end peoples' turns if they haven't acted by the 60 second mark. If the players are discussing tactics amongst themselves (ie, if player X goes here and player Y goes here then we can do Z) or they are RPing an action, I (or my partner, the other GM) stop the timer, but otherwise we keep it going. You only really need to cut someone's turn short once before they get the picture and plan ahead. Also, if they're at the point where they're rolling to attack we let it keep going - basically there's no reason to be shuffling through your power cards during your turn. Also, man up. I had to tell my partner the other day not to steal the leader role from the charisma-primary leader just because she could use her arcana to do diplomacy checks sometimes.  I did it after the game, but generally just talking very frankly with people fixes problems.
IntelligibleChoir fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Apr 5, 2011 |
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Apr 5, 2011 00:18
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Astfgl posted:Yeah, I figured this would be the answer. I was hoping there was an in-game solution like "Your god is annoyed by your capricious nature and chooses to block your changeling abilities until you grow the gently caress up." When you're dealing with nerds you have to be up front with them. Passive aggressiveness doesn't work because he's already doing it to you. And since you're asking for help it means that he's better at it than you are. If he freaks out and blows up then it is better that it is with you that one time than making a huge scene of it for everyone to see. Just tell him that it is making you uncomfortable and ask him to either tone it down to a reasonable level or stop it all together. Be diplomatic about it, but you never let one player hijack an entire game.
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Apr 5, 2011 00:19
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Astfgl posted:Yeah, I figured this would be the answer. I was hoping there was an in-game solution like "Your god is annoyed by your capricious nature and chooses to block your changeling abilities until you grow the gently caress up." There is no such thing as an in game solution to a real life problem. Talk to him, privately, about the issue like adults.
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Apr 5, 2011 05:18
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And if you don't believe that, you can go through the Grognards.txt and Worst Experience threads and see just how many are examples of the players and DMs disassociating themselves from even very simple real-world problems and trying to address them by punishing Elfstar or whoever instead of manning up and talking things out irl.
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Apr 5, 2011 13:04
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My players in Masks of Nyarlathotep have managed to misidentify Edward Gavigan the high priest of the London cell of the Cult of the Black Pharaoh as a mostly innocent victim terrified of speaking out about the cult. Help me exploit this critical misjudgement of a character to the most amusing end. Really what i'd like is something that will help my players to stop expecting cultists to leap out and shout "MWUHAHAHAHA! I'm evil!" when mildly questioned by investigators. Calico Noose fucked around with this message at 14:16 on Apr 5, 2011 |
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Apr 5, 2011 14:07
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Calico Noose posted:My players in Masks of Nyarlathotep have managed to misidentify Edward Gavigan the high priest of the London cell of the Cult of the Black Pharaoh as a mostly innocent victim terrified of speaking out about the cult. I have no experience of Masks of Nyarlathotep other than knowing it is huge and intriguing, but you can fall back on an ambush in any circumstance where the players trust someone evil. Have him call (are there phones in that era?) the investigators, worried because he hears someone breaking into his house and the police are not responding, only of course for it to be a cult ambush if they do show up. Then, of course, Edward Gavigan would not be there, leading them to potentially wonder if it was an ambush or if they just kidnapped him before the party arrived. Now, the right type of paranoid player would instantly assume the former, but then again, the paranoid player would probably not be convinced anyone was a mostly innocent victim in Call of Cthulhu. A riskier endeavor would be something targeting a single character; if any of them are prone to going off on their own to pick up supplies or something, that character could run into Gavigan on the street, and you could do all kinds of sinister things!
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Apr 5, 2011 15:31
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One of my players would like to take part in a heist style session in our 4e game. Has anyone ran anything like that before? I'm thinking patrolling guards, magical alarm systems (traps, environment changing things, animated statues) and a skill check race against the clock to open the last safe or whatever. Any other suggestions?
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Apr 7, 2011 01:48
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Karandras posted:One of my players would like to take part in a heist style session in our 4e game. Has anyone ran anything like that before? Use a stakes system for dealing with skill checks: http://erdtman.com/story-games/setting-stakes-that-rock/
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Apr 7, 2011 02:20
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I could use some insight from folks more used to handling D&D these days, Pathfinder in particular (I've played 4th edition as well but I'm running for a gang in the Pathfinder setting on a Pathfinder adventure path and so on and so forth). I am running the Pathfinder adventure path Rise of the Runelords on Thursdays and I am starting to have a real bear of a time dealing with the party composition in a way that keeps encounters at level challenge now--it tends to swing pretty wide in either direction and I've detailed some of the woes with a less-than-four party previously, though that is now looking to be back to a decent level. After several deaths among the PCs the only original character still standing is a 10th level sorcerer with harrower prestige levels; the rest of the party now consists of a 9th level fighter, monk and oracle. The oracle is a new addition as of tonight, so not sure how that's going to skew the party dynamic--but the fighter is two-hander focused with the alternate ability set from the advanced players guide and now has several feats around dealing heavy damage to large enemies. The monk has built his entire character around having as high of an AC, CMB and CMD as possible; he does the whole immovable mountain set and is a dwarf--which adds a pretty big bonus to much of what he does against large enemies, much like the fighter. You'll see where this is going. For those unfamiliar with the adventure path, a significant portion of the adventure now has them fighting what amounts to an army of stone giants and other big-britches enemies; what this has translated to is the warrior dumping several d12 swings of an axe and then totaling 60+ damage off of it if two swings hit. In and of himself, not too terrible to handle as most of the typical warrior restraints apply (though pathfinder shits feats all over them nevertheless). He has fairly good gear and totes about a 26 AC most of the time, so the giants are hitting him pretty hard back. The monk is pushing a 40+ AC once he stacks his various dodge, insight, deflection, ki, giant and other bonuses into himself; his entire character is built around being a grapple monster and he just hit the improved grapple feat that lets him do grapples as move actions as well. Last session he was able to lock down and pin a stone giant very easily and, once pinned, it was impossible for said giant to break free even with a 20 roll while barbarian raging. Yikes. The trade off is the monk doesn't really do anything once he is tangled up with a target--his grapple-for-damage checks afterward were plinking the fairly meaty giant for 16 - 19 damage or so each round. As with so many D&D games, the real headaches come from the spellcaster; since it's a sorcerer and not a wizard the arsenal is not quite so nose-bleeding as most but the trade off is that it's a long-time veteran player well versed in being a tricky bastard with magic who has taken a spell list of high-utility magic mixed with a bevy of spells that avoid spell resistance, don't give saves and so on--you probably know the type. With this utility, the sorcerer is suddenly turning the fighter and monk much more nightmarish--dropping flight, greater invisibility and other perks which is suddenly effectively nullifying quite a few of the encounters-as-written. How in the world are a bunch of degenerate ogre-kin or straight-fighting-class giants going to have the means to contend with flying, mobile invisible enemies dropping significant damage before ducking back to total concealment? In the meantime, ray of enfeeblement and the like are doled out aplenty along with, of course, pinpoint accuracy fireballs laid out so their blast templates always miss party members. Yeah, Magic. On the tail-end of long drag out brawls with giants and their ilk the campaign path leads to going at it with dragons and ultimately an extremely high-level wizard; they've also got running adversaries in the form of lamia matriachs who are kitted out to wisdom drain on pretty much everything they do which makes them muchly hated by the monk. I anticipate the wizard giving the party a hellacious time unless the monk manages to get past all his tricks to death grab him but short of starting to preemptively kit out the groups they're fighting in the meantime with means to counteract invisibility they're on the doorstep of cake-walking a lot of encounters. Because it's a sorcerer it is very difficult to exhaust their spell reserves; the times the sorcerer has gone down have coincided with times the party almost immediately risked a TPK when it has occurred--as neither the fighter nor the monk were particularly careful. I'm curious for a better solution to challenging these guys in the frame of the adventure path without it swinging between steamroll and cakewalk--we are getting to a point where the battles are simply not fun to run.
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Apr 7, 2011 17:38
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Sounds like your players have built characters for whom the only options are slow inevitable victory and precipitous unstoppable defeat. If they're not having fun, offer them a free unconditional rebuild to make more generalist choices, and see how combat runs from there. Paizo is a bit notorious for pitching their difficulty in favor of the high-test builds, though, so I don't know how that's going to run.
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Apr 7, 2011 18:17
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In my experience, 3.X combat with experienced players (ie players who are good at spellcasting tactics) just stops being fun around 9th-10th level, and as you've described it gets very difficult to tune challenges. I guess PF hasn't fixed that. I'd see if you can get the rebuild to work like Glazius says, but if not, I'd say pump up the XP you're giving out, remove as many combats from the campaign as you can while keeping the plot, and motor through to the end of the story.
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Apr 7, 2011 18:45
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The players are having a good time and I make a point of soliciting a lot of feedback, which is really the point of it all in the first place--I'm just finding it getting less enjoyable to run when the particularly interesting baddies they end up against immediately drop 8 strength, get inescapably grappled and then whaled on for huge damage. Yeah, I can start slipping in freedom of movement, true-sight, anti-magic fields and so forth but I abhor turning it into an arms race of who-can-bend-the-rules-the-furthest; it reminds me of playing with a GM back in the day who sent 100 low-level gnoll sorcerers out as an encounter and all they did was focus-fire magic missiles at one PC at a time.
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Apr 7, 2011 19:20
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I want to have a swarm of really low level minions fighting the PCs (In 3.5), to give a feel of really cutting through a bunch of enemies. What's a good way of doing this?
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Apr 7, 2011 19:23
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CCKeane posted:I want to have a swarm of really low level minions fighting the PCs (In 3.5), to give a feel of really cutting through a bunch of enemies. What's a good way of doing this? I've done this before, twice in fact. One time an evil mage who was messing about with cloning attacked the party by portalling in a hundred or so clones. Another time the players were part of the defence of a town against an undead army. First time I had them all roll to attack (if they chose to attack that turn), and as long as they beat something like 15 (not too difficult for their level) they'd roll damage, I'd halve or third it, whatever seemed reasonable, then I'd describe how they did some sweet moves and killed that number of mooks. If they rolled badly, failed reflex saves, whatever seemed appropriate then they'd either take a combo attack from two or three guys, or perhaps get grappled down by a handful of them. It worked well, they enjoyed feeling like badasses cutting down waves of guys, and as a comedy twist the big bad evil mage cleared away the corpses Katamari style before fighting the party himself. As for the town defence battle, I let them organise defences with resources they could round up in a set time. After that the ranger joined the archers on the walls, the cleric got to Turning Undead and Consecrating, the rogue ambushed ones going for the gates and such. If they ignored one area of enemy attack too long they'd risk breaches into the town, but they planned really well and held the walls. After that they stopped some last-ditch attempts to blow up the walls and fought the undead "generals" in standard combat to finish the job. Went down well.
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Apr 7, 2011 19:54
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