Lord.Sorasen
2011-04-13, 06:44 PM
First off, I don't think any of my players go on this forum board. However, if you have stumbled here, my fellow adventurers, don't spoil things for yourself by reading further :P
So, my players have been leveling up. Faster than I intended, really, but it's all good. The benefit of them leaving this island is I can literally place them in any setting I want for the sake of awesome battles. Since they're literally fugitives (though good aligned characters, rightly accused but for the wrong reasons) they will probably move constantly, giving me the opportunity to change the environment more frequently.
The reason I refer to you guys is that I'm getting really bad at making fun and interesting encounters. It wasn't this hard before... Low levels are easy to work with since low level monsters are ultra basic. But now we have a party consisting of (don't laugh at our hilariously terrible optimization)...
A half-ogre (base neanderthal) psychic Warrior 6, mostly ignores his powers and uses his high strength score (low for you guys but high for a group that thought half-orc barbarians were ultra strong, 23 I believe), his large size, and his reach weapon (sugliin) to deal high amounts of damage. took improved unarmed strike and has the power for bite of the wolf so that his threat range is all over the place, and inevitably plans to go into war hulk.
A hadozee druid 5/scout 2. I know he's a druid, but he took the druid alternate class feature in order to lose wild shape in exchange for monk armor, monk speed, ranger track, and favored enemy (he know's how good wild shape is but it didn't fit his character) and has the elemental companion alternate class feature for a medium wind elemental. He's considering exchanging his elemental for the druidic avenger bit (we decided he could do it retroactively if he loses his elemental and makes losing it an in character action)... Mostly he's a scout. With improved skirmisher he usually shoots arrows from his short bow for 5d6 damage or so. Uses his magic for lesser restoration and also flying around. Lots of tumble and balance.
A Warforged Dragonfire Adept 6. Entangling exhalation. Doesn't use her invocations, but instead has adamantine armor feat as well as a tower shield and Law devotion for something like 26 AC. I allowed her to take meta-breath feats, and so far she's chosen extend breath.
A human paladin 5. Just got a special mount; a lesser nightmare to be exact. I'm going to treat it the way they treat it for blackguards.. paladin level -2. Meaning she has it but with no paladin bonuses. She has a sunblade and theoretically should be strong, but she's scared of stuff as a player and mostly shoots with a longbow. She has the first two mystic fire knight alternate class features as well as a +1d6 on her smite evils but she never smites for whatever reason, and she prepares lantern light as her spells for also who knows what reason. Her hands of the healer means she may become a Saint some day.
A half-elf cleric 4. This one is intentionally messing with me, I think. She has no idea how to optimize, and even though she's now trying a bit harder, she has no real desire to be a cleric, I don't think. She chose to wield negative energy, and picked the domains elf and pride. However, she usually just shoots a crossbow every round, with no dexterity modifier (she has no strength modifier either). She recently took up summoning but tends to summon elementals. I think she'll probably stop doing that, though. She picked her feat to be run, but she wears heavy armor so I have no idea why she did that, and her other feat was originally toughness but I had her change it to improved toughness at least. Chosen as party healer, has healed maybe twice.
A vanara beguiler 2. On a side note, should I level this one up a bit one on one before placing her back in the campaign? She joined the campaign near the very beginning with no idea how the rules worked. Lower con than she should have, like +0 even so she has 9 health, but excellent int and charisma and has made every encounter she was in for those 2 sessions trivial. However, then the school play came up and she had to leave for quite a while. There's not much to say about her abilities... I mean, she's a beguiler. But she might go into exalted arcanist to get access to all the exalted type feats. I'm not sure how she'll perform now, but from the looks of things she still fits a unique roll by having the best int of the group by far. I'm mostly worried she'll get targeted by anything ever before she has time to level up a bit.
So, that was a lot to read, sorry. I'll get into the brunt now.
I'm having trouble making fun encounters. At first I just grabbed monsters of appropriate (or of too high, often enough) CR and had the party fight that. It worked mostly... But that's getting to be a bore. Right now I'm facing a problem in that it feels like the more people are involved in a fight, the more tedious it becomes to go through the turns. The battles where only 3 PCs can show up have been awesome and memorable. The battles where all 6 have tend to be clunky and dull.
What's more, I want my monsters to have better abilities. The battles my party remembers best are the battle against the storm elemental above the whirlpool (they won this one because I didn't understand what entangle did) and the one where the wizard through the fireball point blank.
But it seems that when I look for stronger monsters, around CR 6-7, what I tend to find are monsters with more health, which deal more damage per attack. And that's, well... not awesome. Getting almost killed every attack was cool at first but it gets old fast. It becomes more a "hope I roll higher on my dice roll before it does" rather than a test of actual cunning.
I really want to see monsters with spellcasting or psionic powers, or monsters that change the game somewhat.
Remember, as I said above, the PCs are going over seas. So I was thinking of making them fight some fish and then sending them to a new land. So there's no limit in terms of location. Since I established the world as having level 5 characters being incredible and level 10 characters as something mythical (and had them assume they were gaining power a la Avatar, all way more rapidly than anyone else in the world because they are protagonists, they get that they are legendary already) I am thinking going into another plane (something homebrewed, since we aren't using any established campaign setting) might be worth thinking about.
On another note, I keep thinking I should write a campaign journal, to give you guys a tale of extreme amateurism. Should I? Are there any worth looking at to give me an idea of how they tend to be written?
Thanks, and sorry for the ranting message ^^
So, my players have been leveling up. Faster than I intended, really, but it's all good. The benefit of them leaving this island is I can literally place them in any setting I want for the sake of awesome battles. Since they're literally fugitives (though good aligned characters, rightly accused but for the wrong reasons) they will probably move constantly, giving me the opportunity to change the environment more frequently.
The reason I refer to you guys is that I'm getting really bad at making fun and interesting encounters. It wasn't this hard before... Low levels are easy to work with since low level monsters are ultra basic. But now we have a party consisting of (don't laugh at our hilariously terrible optimization)...
A half-ogre (base neanderthal) psychic Warrior 6, mostly ignores his powers and uses his high strength score (low for you guys but high for a group that thought half-orc barbarians were ultra strong, 23 I believe), his large size, and his reach weapon (sugliin) to deal high amounts of damage. took improved unarmed strike and has the power for bite of the wolf so that his threat range is all over the place, and inevitably plans to go into war hulk.
A hadozee druid 5/scout 2. I know he's a druid, but he took the druid alternate class feature in order to lose wild shape in exchange for monk armor, monk speed, ranger track, and favored enemy (he know's how good wild shape is but it didn't fit his character) and has the elemental companion alternate class feature for a medium wind elemental. He's considering exchanging his elemental for the druidic avenger bit (we decided he could do it retroactively if he loses his elemental and makes losing it an in character action)... Mostly he's a scout. With improved skirmisher he usually shoots arrows from his short bow for 5d6 damage or so. Uses his magic for lesser restoration and also flying around. Lots of tumble and balance.
A Warforged Dragonfire Adept 6. Entangling exhalation. Doesn't use her invocations, but instead has adamantine armor feat as well as a tower shield and Law devotion for something like 26 AC. I allowed her to take meta-breath feats, and so far she's chosen extend breath.
A human paladin 5. Just got a special mount; a lesser nightmare to be exact. I'm going to treat it the way they treat it for blackguards.. paladin level -2. Meaning she has it but with no paladin bonuses. She has a sunblade and theoretically should be strong, but she's scared of stuff as a player and mostly shoots with a longbow. She has the first two mystic fire knight alternate class features as well as a +1d6 on her smite evils but she never smites for whatever reason, and she prepares lantern light as her spells for also who knows what reason. Her hands of the healer means she may become a Saint some day.
A half-elf cleric 4. This one is intentionally messing with me, I think. She has no idea how to optimize, and even though she's now trying a bit harder, she has no real desire to be a cleric, I don't think. She chose to wield negative energy, and picked the domains elf and pride. However, she usually just shoots a crossbow every round, with no dexterity modifier (she has no strength modifier either). She recently took up summoning but tends to summon elementals. I think she'll probably stop doing that, though. She picked her feat to be run, but she wears heavy armor so I have no idea why she did that, and her other feat was originally toughness but I had her change it to improved toughness at least. Chosen as party healer, has healed maybe twice.
A vanara beguiler 2. On a side note, should I level this one up a bit one on one before placing her back in the campaign? She joined the campaign near the very beginning with no idea how the rules worked. Lower con than she should have, like +0 even so she has 9 health, but excellent int and charisma and has made every encounter she was in for those 2 sessions trivial. However, then the school play came up and she had to leave for quite a while. There's not much to say about her abilities... I mean, she's a beguiler. But she might go into exalted arcanist to get access to all the exalted type feats. I'm not sure how she'll perform now, but from the looks of things she still fits a unique roll by having the best int of the group by far. I'm mostly worried she'll get targeted by anything ever before she has time to level up a bit.
So, that was a lot to read, sorry. I'll get into the brunt now.
I'm having trouble making fun encounters. At first I just grabbed monsters of appropriate (or of too high, often enough) CR and had the party fight that. It worked mostly... But that's getting to be a bore. Right now I'm facing a problem in that it feels like the more people are involved in a fight, the more tedious it becomes to go through the turns. The battles where only 3 PCs can show up have been awesome and memorable. The battles where all 6 have tend to be clunky and dull.
What's more, I want my monsters to have better abilities. The battles my party remembers best are the battle against the storm elemental above the whirlpool (they won this one because I didn't understand what entangle did) and the one where the wizard through the fireball point blank.
But it seems that when I look for stronger monsters, around CR 6-7, what I tend to find are monsters with more health, which deal more damage per attack. And that's, well... not awesome. Getting almost killed every attack was cool at first but it gets old fast. It becomes more a "hope I roll higher on my dice roll before it does" rather than a test of actual cunning.
I really want to see monsters with spellcasting or psionic powers, or monsters that change the game somewhat.
Remember, as I said above, the PCs are going over seas. So I was thinking of making them fight some fish and then sending them to a new land. So there's no limit in terms of location. Since I established the world as having level 5 characters being incredible and level 10 characters as something mythical (and had them assume they were gaining power a la Avatar, all way more rapidly than anyone else in the world because they are protagonists, they get that they are legendary already) I am thinking going into another plane (something homebrewed, since we aren't using any established campaign setting) might be worth thinking about.
On another note, I keep thinking I should write a campaign journal, to give you guys a tale of extreme amateurism. Should I? Are there any worth looking at to give me an idea of how they tend to be written?
Thanks, and sorry for the ranting message ^^