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Adamaro
2010-03-27, 02:00 PM
We all know a single CR 20 monter is no match against a singe lvl 20 wizard, let alone an entire party, so I would like some estimates on how to shape a proper enemies for such character(s)? How much is overkill? Say for an arena-style fight?

Oslecamo
2010-03-27, 02:09 PM
The black ethergaunt would like a word with you. Altough it kinda cheats, since he casts as a wizard 17 at CR17, so adding 3 wizard levels would make him cast as a wizard 20 at CR20, plus several other goodies.

First, my guide to pimping out monsters against optimized players (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7423546)

Now as for your original question, there's just no good answer, because there's a lot of diferent monsters out there, and a lot of diferent parties.

Two-three monsters of the same CR of the party backed up by 4-8 minions of CR-4 should provide a good fight, but you still need to make sure to pick monsters whose powers sinergise togheter and still pimp them out, as there's few out of the book monsters out there that will actually challenge a optimized player.

Did I mention tactics? Because a monster charging straight on is a much easier target than a monster lurking in the shaddows, using all of it's abilities to it's full potential, don't overextending itself, and picking up an advantageous place to fight.

But advance a few HD here, non associated levels there (stone giant with 14 sorceror levels is CR 15, hurrah!), swap the feats, give it custom equipment, and the party will learn the meaning of fear challenge again!

Volkov
2010-03-27, 02:40 PM
We all know a single CR 20 monter is no match against a singe lvl 20 wizard, let alone an entire party, so I would like some estimates on how to shape a proper enemies for such character(s)? How much is overkill? Say for an arena-style fight?

The Monster AK (ass kicking)-Team:
One Level 3 black ethergaunt wizard.
One level one sorcerer great wyrm red dragon.
One level 20 cleric human lich.
One level 13 Mind flayer psion (psionic power variant)

Adamaro
2010-03-27, 03:36 PM
He he Volkov. Brutal and efficient as always :-D

Flickerdart
2010-03-27, 04:02 PM
He he Volkov. Brutal and efficient as always :-D
Stupidly so, because the CR of those things is much, much higher than 20. The Great Wyrm Sorcerer alone is CR27, the Cleric is 22, and the others are 20 by themselves. Together, that's EL28, an obviously unbalanced encounter. On the other hand, four Juvenile Silver Dragon 18th level Wizards or Clerics are a similarly harrowing encounter, and 4 points of CR lower. It will take 14 of these dragons to reach CR28.

Volkov
2010-03-27, 04:34 PM
Stupidly so, because the CR of those things is much, much higher than 20. The Great Wyrm Sorcerer alone is CR27, the Cleric is 22, and the others are 20 by themselves. Together, that's EL28, an obviously unbalanced encounter. On the other hand, four Juvenile Silver Dragon 18th level Wizards or Clerics are a similarly harrowing encounter, and 4 points of CR lower. It will take 14 of these dragons to reach CR28.

Yeah, but silver dragons suck.

Flickerdart
2010-03-27, 04:44 PM
You can use Reds instead of Silvers, it doesn't matter to the point being made. Hell, you can use Awakened Construct Warforged Phrenic Wizard 20s, and the point would still be the same. Human Wizard 20s, even, but that's awfully boring. I'm not even going to mention Prestige Classes to get more than one set of nines, or Beholder Mages/Illithid Savants.

Togo
2010-03-27, 05:31 PM
If you want to kill the players, it's fairly easy to cheese an encounter that will kill them. CR is not an exact science, it's not designed to be, and it's fairly straightforward to bend it to produce encounters that they won't survive.

erikun
2010-03-27, 05:41 PM
As others have pointed out, this isn't exactly a clear question. A level 20 character is a CR 20 opponent, but just as all lv.20 characters are not equal, not all CR 20 monsters are an equal challange. A lv.20 Wizard will dominate a CR 20 melee monster, but will have a lot of trouble against a CR 20 Ethergaunt.

In general, a lv.20 character is supposed to be roughly equal to a CR 20 monster, and a lv.20 adventuring party is supposed to be roughly equal to a CR 24 monster party (that is, four CR 20 monsters). As before, this can change greatly depending on party composition. Single monsters are easier than multiple monsters, and spellcasters are better than melee. A single Tarrasque (CR 20) will be a lot easier to deal with than a pair of unclasses Ethergaunts (CR 19) in most cases.

Runestar
2010-03-27, 07:20 PM
As a general rule of thumb, single monsters tend to go down fast because the party can just debuff the heck of out it and focus fire away. The foes also lack action economy (1 action to the party's combined 5-6), so any effect which takes away their actions hits them that many times as hard.

However, 3.5 does not seem suited to running battles with too many monsters, because it not only slows down the fight immensely, but chances are the foes will be too weak to be of any real threat. So I think the golden number is 2-4 foes max. And you will have to put some effort into optimizing them and metagame by making them more resilient to your party's favoured tactics.

So to challenge a lv20 party, I might recommend 4 elder elementals, each with 5 lvs of warblade, swordsage or crusader. Each is cr16, for a EL20 encounter. They should be easier to run than spellcasters, but still have an impressive array of options available to them. Make sure you rule that racial HD counts towards IL, allowing them to access 9th lv maneuvers.

24 elemental HD gives them fairly good bab, saves, hp and feats. Maneuvers do the rest for their damage output and defense. Watch your player crap in his pants as your elemental initiates diamond nightmare blade for 160 damage!