Dungeon Design (again) [3.5]

[Jsuelieta]

Ok, I'm at it again, designing another short dungeon for my group. This is more fun than I give this kind of thing credit for, but I'm still a newbie designer in a few areas, so I have some questions I'd love answered.

First question is this: Using only bears, wolves, lions, leopards, eagles and owls, what mix of them would be an effective challenge for an 8th level six man party, assuming at least one brown bear for grappling and dragging purposes? Effective challenge meaning 'how the spoony do I get those CR 1/4-5s to equal out into a CR 8?'

Second question: I'm having issues designing the BBEG of the dungeon, but I need him to be some mix of wizard/sorcerer and druid (11th level total, I think), what's a good mix of those so he possesses the ability to cast all the stat buffs without being a buff-bot while providing a challenge to the same 8th-level party? Bonus points if you can figure a way to include animals from the previous encounter -and- a single dire wolf. Thing to think about here is I'm giving him two abilities to essentially attempt to polymorph and dominate animals as standard actions, so that might be a factor.

Many thanks to those with constructive advice.

[Bakkan]

One thing I've found when throwing mobs of low-CR creatures, especially nonintelligent creatures, at higher-level parties is that they often are no threat at all because they will only hit or save on a 20, and even if they hit they deal negigible damage. So I suggest that you advance some of the standard animals by HD, as explained in the back of the Monster Manual. This will give them higher attacks and saves as well as higher damage if they increase a size category. I don't have the time right now to work out the details, but three or four HD-advanced tigers to grapple and rake the party members could probably be made into enough of a challenge, for example.

[Darwin]

The 3.0 sourcebook Book of Challenges might contain a bit of interesting stuff for you to read. It has an encounter featuring different common animals who has to be dealt with in non-combat situations. The encounter in question is CR1, but the principles could be adapted for other creatures of higher CR. If anything it's a good little piece of Inspiration.

As for your BBEG, you definitely want at least 4 levels of Druid, I recommend 6, so he'll able to use his wildshape twice over the encounter, giving him substantial healing and versatility while still getting the oh so effective 3rd level spells from the wizard.

That's my two cents.

[Nohwl]

what does the party consist of?

straight druid should be fine for the bbeg. you could have him use summon natures ally to get a bunch of animals. if you really need to mix wizard and druid, look into arcane heirophant.

[calar]

I might also suggest adding the dire template to some or all of your animlas, thoguh I doubt that will be quite sufficient.

[Odin the Ignoble]

More information on the party would be nice. How many players? 4? 13? Classes?


Since it's a dungeon, do something dungeony. Make sure that the lay of the land benefits the animals/defenders.

Make everything cramped. Have lots of 5ft tunnels to annoy anybody with a long weapon. Lots of turns to limit line of sight too, so that ranged attacks are hard to get off.

Once the party is stuck in fighting, a few bears for example, have another group of animals come from behind and chew on whatever squishy types are in the back of the party.

Make sure that the ceilings of the "dundgeon" are high enough that flying animals can swoop down and annoy casters.

[Mabmoro]

what does the party consist of?

DM of the game here. The party includes a Swordsage, a pyromaniac wizard, a fighter (who upon reflection hasn't actually done much FIGHTING recently...), a rogue, and a warlock. People who come and go at random times include a cleric, another rogue, and a factotum. Possibly there'll be an Incarnate coming as well. There'd be a druid normally, but she wont be involved with this particular dungeon... mainly cause she's making it. *chuckles*

[Nohwl]

3 dire bears could work. if you don't want dire animals, polar bears would probably be the best bet because they're slightly better than brown bears and still cr 4, but they would die to a couple fireballs from the wizard, so you might have to spread them out a bit. about 8 of those would be another option.

this is assuming they don't have flight. that would kind of ruin it.

[Jsuelieta]

I playtested a single brown bear against the swordsage already. One on one the bear nearly killed the swordsage due to the improved grab and grappling. These beasts are already more intelligent than your average ones due to being under the control of the BBEG. It was a CR 4 against a level 8 and the CR 4 nearly won if not for insane dice luck (swordsage was 2 hp off of dying by the end)

[Deathslayer7]

that's not really a fair challenge because you're playing against the weakness of a single character. If there were two or three other characters there, they would have beat the sense out of the bear. Only a good str based class fighter would have a chance of pushing back that bear's grapple.

Besides that look at Geomancer. Druid 3/Wizard 3/Geomancer 5. Gets the benefit of dual casting with the best of both worlds.

Casts as Druid 8/Wizard 8 which is 4th level spellcasting, and you're spell versatility goes up to level 5, which means you can cast up to 5th level spells without suffering ASF.

So you can put him in a dragonhide armor (remember no metal for Druids still applies) without the normal 50% ASF for wizards.

As to your animal problem. If you are tossing more then 10 creatures at your PCs, the challenge rating table is blown to hell. Upgrade the creatures as noted earlier using the Monster Manual.

[Jsuelieta]

The bear vs swordsage might not be a fair match, but if you look at the party composition a few posts up from Mabmoro, you'll see there's only one person who's likely to throw one off. The encounter I was planning on going with there was a brown bear, two black bears, a couple lions and a couple wolves. I can't use any dire animals except for the last one because the concept is the BBEG has been stealing important people from the city nearby and turning them -into- these beasts. The party can't even kill them without it being A) an evil act and B) potentially crippling the city due to killing off the blacksmiths, crafters, scrollmakers, whathave you, basicly the guys that supply the stores. Makes things a LOT harder.

Also, the BBEG is going to be accompanied by a Dire Wolf (the druid formerly known as me after being dominated) and whatever kind of animal group I can figure would make for an interesting fight, so I'm trying to keep the cheese factor as low as possible.

[Shademan]

http://images.wikia.com/spiderman/images/8/88/KravenChapter.gif

this is your villain!

[Nohwl]

you have a pyromaniac wizard, right? so the wizard casts fireball. fireball should deal 28 damage on average, brown bears have 51 hp. anything that doesn't save is probably dead that round because of the other party members. anything that does might live until the next round.

fireball is a 20 foot radius spread. so, about 3 bears in its radius each time the wizard casts it. those 3 bears would die in the first round, and then another 2 or 3 in the second, with the rest of the bears dying in round 3.

[Jsuelieta]

you have a pyromaniac wizard, right? so the wizard casts fireball. fireball should deal 28 damage on average, brown bears have 51 hp. anything that doesn't save is probably dead that round because of the other party members. anything that does might live until the next round.

fireball is a 20 foot radius spread. so, about 3 bears in its radius each time the wizard casts it. those 3 bears would die in the first round, and then another 2 or 3 in the second, with the rest of the bears dying in round 3.

Wizard becomes evil if it actually kills them and becomes ostracized by the party for destroying the only friendly city in the area's crafters. Killing almost anything in the place is evil because they're polymorphed/dominated people and the party will know this from an introductory encounter. That's where half the challenge comes from, lethal damage is -bad-, so unless you can make some non-lethal fireballs, the pyromaniac wizard is gonna have to dig through the ol' spellbook for other spells.

It's of note that killing these people will pretty much ruin what the city has to offer in shops, no armor, no weapons, no food, no adventuring supplies.

[Nohwl]

unless i've been reading nonlethal damage wrong, only the last hit has to be nonlethal,so i'f i'm right, it shouldn't be much of a problem. all the damage before that doesn't matter. there's always the feat nonlethal substitution, but i don't think the wizard would have it.

[Deathslayer7]

Indeed. one point of nonlethal is enough to knock someone out.

[Bakkan]

It doesn't even have to be the last hit that is nonlethal. All you need is for (lethal damage) + (nonlethal damage) > HP and (lethal damage) < HP. So just make sure the enemy has taken a good amount of nonlethal damage, then take him down without worry.