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Thurbane
2010-02-09, 08:18 PM
Hey all...just looking for some advice on my upcoming stint at DMing. Players have rolled their characters for the next adventure (EtCR), and I have a small concern.

The group will be six players (largest 3.5 group we've had so far), and nearly all rolled VERY well for their PCs (no fudging, all rolls were witnessed). Each player has the effective equivalent of a 32-point buy (or much higher in a couple of cases).

The module is written with the assumption of a 4 player party starting at 6th level. Is a group of six 6th level PCs (effective party level 7.2) going to blitz through the encounters too easily? Is it likely to be compounded by the PCs having quite good stats? Will the larger party be "self correcting" with allocation of XP and treasure? The party is generated at 6th level, with standard WBL for equipment.

Now, I'm quite happy to play the module as written, and modify encounters on the fly if the party is having far too easy of a time...but I guess I'm looking for general advice on larger parties, and if good PC stats make much of a difference. I certainly don't want to feel like I'm penalizing people for getting lucky at char gen!

Tehnar
2010-02-09, 08:42 PM
I would suggest you change nothing to the first few encounters, to see how it works out.

If you think you will need to modify encounters, I think the safest way would be to add more monsters, instead of making monsters stronger.

A quick and easy way to modify monsters on the fly is to give them a "positive level". +1 to hit, +5 hp, +1 to all saves and +1 caster level(if applicable). By rough calculation 2 "positive levels" equal a +1 increase in CR. Its very useful if you want to beef up the rank and file monsters.

As for the tactics, break down your monster roles. Some will be flankers, some tanks, some artillery, and some controlers. That will give everyone something to do in the party, and provide room for more tactics.

Focus fire works wonders to curb a PCs sense of immortality (due to good rolls), and its a good way for even weak monsters to contribute. A kobold firing a crossbow might not seem like much, but 10 of them firing a crossbow will be trouble, even if they need 15+ to hit.

KurtKatze
2010-02-09, 09:03 PM
I encountered a similar Problem as a dm. In my opinion, one of the most important factors is the AC of the PC's my guys range from 18 to 23, so in my standard encounters for part one of the adventure they were vastly outnumbered 4:1, but the npc's had a real bad chance to hit. And even with a neat net trap which caused entangling (unfortunately most of em rolled very well so i didn't get all of em) they had no problem with my npc's

I have jumpoed to the conclusion that i just modify the monsters "to hit" that i get a 50/50 for standard encounters a 75% chance for difficult ones (against a 21 AC) and on BBEG fights i want ot have something about 85% for their best AC. I can always fudge the dmg if necessary but i think when they never get hit, it is quite boring for my guys and makes them feel a bit too superior.

the 18 ac applies to the barbarian in his rage. And he has the hp to take some serious dmg. Besides the other guy is quite a good cleric (using sanctuary a lot and really provides essential support) on his way to combat medic so i figuered they should get hit and take some dmg so he can fulfill his role.

Kylarra
2010-02-09, 09:10 PM
I'd start off by not adjusting things and see how things go from there. I second the idea of just adding a few more to a given mob if necessary, rather than beefing up their stats, the exception of course, being named characters and other such "minibosses", if any, I haven't played etcr before.

Ashiel
2010-02-09, 09:22 PM
I prefer not to "cheat" against the players. If your players have great ability scores and are many in number; may I suggest the following?


Find out how much XP you want to give your players. The easiest way I find to do this is figure out how much an enemy is worth vs your group, and throw in more of the same enemies as needed.
Against characters of exceptional ability, have enemies use sound tactics. Aid another adds a +2 stacking bonus to hit, so while ten archers might not have a good chance to hit, 5 archers and five aids will be much better.
Use tactics such as tripping, disarming, poisons, nets, and importantly flanking. Focus fire enemies down. Also, notice nets are touch attacks.
Use alchemical goods. Five commoners armed with a vial of acid each can injure even a heavily armored warrior.
Make use of cover and similar terrain. Have NPCs knock tables over to fire behind, or let them fire crossbows from under desks and chairs (giving them prone + cover from people firing at them). This is a great way to improve them and make them tougher through tactics.
If you really need to give them a boost; check their WBL for their NPC classes and toss on a few potions of magic weapon or similar. An oil of magic weapon is 50gp, so that's pretty cheap even for 1st level NPCs, and makes their attacks (including bows or crossbows) magical and adds +1 to hit/damage.
A low-level adept can enhance groups of enemies beautifully. Even if you have to add a single adept level to an NPC before an encounter, it'll add +1d6 (plus con) Hp, +2 will, simple weapon proficiency, and it shouldn't increase their CR by more than +1/2. You can have the adept cast bless on the bad-guys at the start of the encounter, which grants all of them a +1 to attacks and saves versus fear. For higher level encounters, spend some of the NPC's WBL on some wands with 1-2 charges each. This can give your adept access to spells like lightning bolt and wall of stone; or lots of nice buffs and healing spells too.


Hopefully these ideas will help you challenge your party while remaining fair and letting them enjoy their high rolls without arbitrarily making encounters harder.

Kylarra
2010-02-09, 09:31 PM
I must say that I can't see adjusting the mobs of a module designed for 4 people being played by 6 people as "cheating" against the players. It's simply making the encounters be the difficulty they are "supposed" to be at.

Dyllan
2010-02-09, 09:31 PM
I'd leave things as is. It will self correct... both in that they will level more slowly with six players, and that they will have to share their treasure six ways instead of 4. If it's a long module, you'll difficulty will naturally ramp up faster than they level. If it's a short one, by the end of it you should know what level of module they can handle (or what to throw at them if they go into something that's not a module).

Thurbane
2010-02-09, 09:39 PM
Sorry, just to clarify by what I meant by "modify encounters on the fly": I didn't mean artificially toughening monsters on the spot, I meant by boosting encounters ahead of time with extra mooks and/or toughening up the bosses and minibosses.

Ashiel
2010-02-09, 09:59 PM
I must say that I can't see adjusting the mobs of a module designed for 4 people being played by 6 people as "cheating" against the players. It's simply making the encounters be the difficulty they are "supposed" to be at.

No no. I didn't mean that improving monsters, or adding hit dice, or anything like that was cheating. But, and I mean no offense to the one who posted such advice, arbitrarily raising the stats of enemies so they have a certain % chance to hit the party regardless of how prepared or powerful they are seems like cheating me. There are better, legitimate, ways to go about improving encounters or making them tougher.

Really, if you want to beef up bosses, sometimes it's just a matter of adding more racial HD or NPC levels, which can improve them greatly. NPC levels add little in class features and raw power, but it can grant them more HP, higher saves, moderately higher attack bonuses, and so forth.

I was just offering some ideas that the player could use rather than "Just assume X hits Y often", depending on how hard you want the encounter to be.

For example, I'm running a tabletop right now where the party has been wandering through a forest (for in game reasons) filled with spiders. They're a party of about 5 players plus pets (bison war mount, and pack animals), and they've been encountering a lot of low-CR giant spiders and a fair number of ettercaps. They've also been terrified in half the encounters. Poison sucks. Webs suck. Thrown web nets suck even more. Trees / Cover may suck, unless they use it.

It's fun. :smallsmile:

EDIT: Also, with adding the extra HD/NPC levels, you'll also give the boss a small XP value boost, which will make up for the larger party size.

Lin Bayaseda
2010-02-09, 10:14 PM
I would suggest you change nothing to the first few encounters, to see how it works out.
The problem with this strategy is that the first few encounters of a module are most likely supposed to be easy. You know, the whole ease-up-the-players-into-the-adventure thing. So they may give the wrong impression regarding the overall difficulty of the module. You may end up overcorrecting.

aboyd
2010-02-09, 10:19 PM
There is something to be said for leaving the module as-is, because the combat encounters will be easier, and thus will finish more quickly. This will give the players (and the DM) the satisfaction of getting through a lot of stuff each session!

Having said that, it can also be anti-climactic. I ran a free 1st-level pirate module for my players when their characters had hit 3rd level. They single-shot killed most enemies, and had a couple of area-of-effect spells that just toasted a dozen bad guys. Basically, they cleared the camp just by sneezing at the enemies.

In this thread about the Goodman Games collection (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?p=9886662#post9886662), I was having a very difficult time seeing how my group of 6 3rd level PCs would not destroy a 4th level module just by batting their eyelashes at the enemy.

Now, my party was not only 6 players, but also all were 32 point buy, which is higher than most modules assume (it seems that 25 or 29 point buy is the expected norm). So that explains a bit why they would destroy everything I threw at them. But that's also good reason to stay a module above them, if you can.

The only problem with higher-level modules (as opposed to same level module but with extra bad guys) is that sometimes such modules expect the PCs to have hit a certain tier -- the module expects they can fly but they don't have any fly spells yet, it expects they can overcome damage resistance but the PCs don't have a hard enough hitter yet, etc.

My solution over time came in 2 ways. First, the group whittled down -- at the start it was 9 PCs. Now it's 5. That helps immensely. Second, I began pre-reading and even pre-playing the modules. I know, one would expect you'd have to pre-read the module, but I would get the Goodman Games dungeon crawls with the read-aloud text boxes and it was so simple I could wing it. At this point though, I test the module thoroughly and by the time the players arrive at my table, I know quite well the optimal way to play each bad guy. If they can pre-buff, I've usually made a 4x6 card with the new revised buffed stats, etc.

Knowing how to play the module gives it a +1 in level difficulty.

Thurbane
2010-02-10, 08:25 PM
OK, thanks for the advice everyone.

I'm going to play the module as written for the first few sessions, and if the PCs aren't being challenged, I'll beef up some of the encounters with increased numbers of mooks and tack a couple of levels or HD onto the major baddies in advance.

On a related note: some of the enemy NPCs in the module aren't particularly optimized (in fact, some are just plain weak). I'm tempted to re-write a couple of them to be more effective (wihtout delving into Pun-pun level of cheese).

fryplink
2010-02-10, 08:41 PM
when my party becomes too powerful for an adventure, i usually just increase the monster count by one, and give the backliners wands of (attack spell) to make AC less of a big deal (plus my pcs get wands, which makes them happy)

the best way (i have found) to challenge them when they are too powerful is to add casters to the enemy ranks, while magic missle doesnt do damage, it always hits, maybe things that call for unusal saves? give enemies save or sucks
this is good until really high levels

but, unless you hate DMing dont use sunder to weaken the party, its like stealing candy from small children ( i actaully tryed that during my second adventure which my party blew through, i was banned from dming for 2 months)

Jack_Simth
2010-02-10, 09:25 PM
The group will be six players (largest 3.5 group we've had so far), and nearly all rolled VERY well for their PCs (no fudging, all rolls were witnessed). Each player has the effective equivalent of a 32-point buy (or much higher in a couple of cases).

The module is written with the assumption of a 4 player party starting at 6th level. Is a group of six 6th level PCs (effective party level 7.2) going to blitz through the encounters too easily? Is it likely to be compounded by the PCs having quite good stats? Will the larger party be "self correcting" with allocation of XP and treasure? The party is generated at 6th level, with standard WBL for equipment.
Generally, when the party is +50% over the expected count, add +50% to the monster count (add a "pet" monster, 1 CR lower than the others, when there's an odd number of monsters in the base encounter - so a solo Big Bad becomes Big Bad + Lieutenant, the mated pair of trolls now has their brother over for tea when the party encounters them, the trio of ogres has a diplomat with his hunting "dog" on location, and so on). HOWEVER: This also means you'll need to roll up the additional treasure - so that WBL has at least some chance to work.

As for the good stats? Eh, they were rolled. Don't sweat it too much. If it becomes a problem, just increase the monster count a bit more.

aboyd
2010-02-11, 12:02 AM
On a related note: some of the enemy NPCs in the module aren't particularly optimized (in fact, some are just plain weak). I'm tempted to re-write a couple of them to be more effective (wihtout delving into Pun-pun level of cheese).
Even if I don't do anything else, I almost always revise spell lists. At the very least, none of the modules I own use any spells other than core, and I often enjoy using PHB2 & Spell Compendium spells. So that's a must-change for me.

I say go for it.

Jarveiyan
2010-02-11, 01:30 PM
when my party becomes too powerful for an adventure, i usually just increase the monster count by one, and give the backliners wands of (attack spell) to make AC less of a big deal (plus my pcs get wands, which makes them happy)

the best way (i have found) to challenge them when they are too powerful is to add casters to the enemy ranks, while magic missle doesnt do damage, it always hits, maybe things that call for unusal saves? give enemies save or sucks
this is good until really high levels

but, unless you hate DMing dont use sunder to weaken the party, its like stealing candy from small children ( i actaully tryed that during my second adventure which my party blew through, i was banned from dming for 2 months)

Why?! If the pc's can use sunder as a tactic so can enemies(inother words what is an advantage for pc's can also be used by your enemies against you, the gm isn't out to get you but sometimes the evil npc's he/she has to play are.).

drengnikrafe
2010-02-11, 02:03 PM
Why?! If the pc's can use sunder as a tactic so can enemies(inother words what is an advantage for pc's can also be used by your enemies against you, the gm isn't out to get you but sometimes the evil npc's he/she has to play are.).

Let me get this strait... you're suggesting sunder, as a PC action, is... favorable? Campaigns last for more than one battle, you know.

Take, for instance, Joe McFighter, a foe of your PCs, who has a +4 flaming sword. Your PCs sunder it. They are now out 50302 gp in treasure they would've gotten. Net loss. It's much easier to do something like... disarm, or grease (to disarm), since that, too, takes away a weapon, but it also doesn't massively undercut your wealth in the process.

If you take a tactic that is bad news for the PCs when the PCs use it because it makes them too weak... and use it on them... The conclusion draws itself.

Saph
2010-02-11, 02:25 PM
FYI, you should bear in mind that the core 3.5 monsters were all playtested against parties using Elite Array. As in, 15 14 13 12 10 8. Here you have PCs with much higher stats numbering 6 instead of 4 (which makes a huge difference to action advantage).

I'd expect the PCs to mow through the module effortlessly. Unless they go out of their way to be silly, don't expect them to be challenged.

AslanCross
2010-02-11, 05:37 PM
I always bump the encounter levels up. Either I give monsters class levels (if they can have them) or bump them by a few hit dice.

A 6-person party has a LOT of resources at their disposal, so it's much harder to tire them out in terms of daily encounters. My groups are always larger than 4, so I'm rather familiar with how this turns out.

WOTC's published adventures, even the notoriously deadly Red Hand of Doom, are built with the assumption that the party is an average group of four. This is an exceptional group of six. I'm with Saph on this one. They are going to plow through this adventure if you leave it as is.

It's a horror adventure, for crying out loud. It had better be at least tactically challenging.

Thurbane
2010-02-11, 07:55 PM
Cool. I guess it's just a matter of balance then - to make the encounters challenging, without going too far and making them unwinnable.

I should also point out that most of the players aren't min/maxers, and only basic level optimizers. Of our group, I am by far the biggest "rules geek", so I should be able play monsters to their full effectiveness (i.e. having intelligent foes use intelligent tactics, and make full use of their abilities and resources). This is likely to help with balancing things.