Do you think 3.5 is challenging?

[Aemoh87]

There have been lots of threads about how awful power gamers are, but one DM at my college has a unique approach to this problem. Go for it! Enjoy! Literally he doesn't care about party balance because he doesn't care about combat since a decent character should walk through most encounters easily anyways. Slight optimization makes you damn near unkillable by mid level.

But seriously, has anyone else noticed combat in DnD is incredibly easy if playing semi-optimized+

Our games tend to focus more on the hero's journey, discovery, and "moral" choice.

This led us to do power ramping experiments through premade adventures and we found that in a semi-op group the number of adventures didn't change encounter difficulty as long as there were more than 2! Literally 3 people was the same risk of player death as 300!

We found chance death was very rare and rocket tag ("save or die" or massive damage like the monst crab) was the only real risk of death. As characters leveled and gained battlefield control chance death was almost eliminated.

[NeoSeraphi]

It depends. If you are fighting the creatures straight out of the Monster Manual, and you are semi-optimized, yes, it's a cakewalk.

If you're fighting intelligently designed enemies, and your DM gives them some kind of strategy, terrain advantage, traps, superior numbers, perhaps weather conditions that weaken the party, decent gear, and etc, it can be more difficult.

If your DM skips the Monster Manual entirely and starts making PCs for you to fight, like minotaur barbarians or goblin clerics or rakasha sorcerers, that's when it starts getting more challenging.

And when your DM semi-optimizes as well, like giving his human cleric access to the miracle spell, it can be downright heart-racing.

Combat may not be difficult sometimes, but it's always fun. At least for me.

[Aemoh87]

It depends. If you are fighting the creatures straight out of the Monster Manual, and you are semi-optimized, yes, it's a cakewalk.

If you're fighting intelligently designed enemies, and your DM gives them some kind of strategy, terrain advantage, traps, superior numbers, perhaps weather conditions that weaken the party, decent gear, and etc, it can be more difficult.

If your DM skips the Monster Manual entirely and starts making PCs for you to fight, like minotaur barbarians or goblin clerics or rakasha sorcerers, that's when it starts getting more challenging.

And when your DM semi-optimizes as well, like giving his human cleric access to the miracle spell, it can be downright heart-racing.

Combat may not be difficult sometimes, but it's always fun. At least for me.

We ran premades that were not title tomb of horrors. So traps were a plenty (which either one shot killed or had no effect in the long run) and monsters were dismal :(

We also discovered at a certain point your character does not get any stronger... Like once a wizard can cast a 9th level spell it's pretty much peaked. While fighter actually declines (doing what it is good at is inherently a huge risk). None of that is new info, but it reineforces this fact.

Also minotaur barbs represent that massive damage, if they can't kill a PC in 2 standard attacks they are pretty much useless as foes. This party followed wealth very closely and had enough heals out of combat where only death was a hinderance. The Rakasha sorc is interesting though, as we didn't face any truely stacked arcane casters, but battlefield control was effective to a point... Usually it ment some of the party would be rendered useless but the rest of the party still had no problem.

Really what we found is that combat quickly turns into rocket tag. The enemy either has rockets or it doesn't. The trap is either a rocket launcher or it's not. Oh, and more not so new info, SR is really really scary in a monster. Another thing we found is that spells like grease, darkness, and so on were often instant wins, this is not new info either.

[Eldan]

It doesn't just depend on what enemies you face, but also on how the DM plays them.

Many monsters are as intelligent or even a lot smarter than your average PC. They should have better tactics. Monsters also have treasure they can use to buy themselves magical items. They have lairs, traps and years to prepare themselves, in some cases. Every strategy the PCs can think of, the monsters can too. Problems with darkness? Devils can see in magical darkness, but PCs can't. Have fun. Grease? How many ranks in balance do the players hvae?

Look up Tucker's Kobolds for the possibly lowest-level example. Kobolds are, I think, CR 1/3. But give them some alchemical items, some variable weapons, a handful of low-level spellcasters, their mastery of trapsmithing and a specially prepared lair and they will absolutely slaughter a group.

So, in the end, it comes down to how much of a challenge you want, really. Challenge rating is a bad guideline for monster power, and very much dependent on each group and character. But a DM can challenge a group. It's just a lot of work and requires a lot of experience to do right.

Also, Enemies don't have to kill you. There are a thousand ways you can challenge someone without an explicit threat of death. Frame them for a crime. Kill their associates. Steal their equipment. Curse them. Strand them on a different plane. The DM has a thousand mean, but non-lethal ways at his disposal to make the characters miserable.

[Aemoh87]

It doesn't just depend on what enemies you face, but also on how the DM plays them.

Many monsters are as intelligent or even a lot smarter than your average PC. They should have better tactics. Monsters also have treasure they can use to buy themselves magical items. They have lairs, traps and years to prepare themselves, in some cases.

Look up Tucker's Kobolds for the possibly lowest-level example. Kobolds are, I think, CR 1/3. But give them some alchemical items, some variable weapons, a handful of low-level spellcasters, their mastery of trapsmithing and a specially prepared lair and they will absolutely slaughter a group.

We played the monsters very well, giving them the benefit of the doubt often (Example: they just knew who the melee and non melee characters were). I am aware of Tucker's Kobolds, but that is low level. The reality is that as characters level chance death goes away and only rocket tag exists. Rocket tag isn't really challenging, and on a run with a CoDzilla semi-op he just became impervious to "save or die" and damage. Wizards of the Coast didn't have a monster printed in their premades that could kill him. We even played some third party premades and they didn't either. Parties with high tier characters tended to reach rocket tag status sooner than those without. Tier weak parties tended to get rocketed easier, but still fair well against chance deaths. You could make the monsters optimized as well but then they same ideas will apply to them as the do to the players.

Oh... just a heads up, we didn't prestige any of our characters either. They also used PHB races only.



So, in the end, it comes down to how much of a challenge you want, really. Challenge rating is a bad guideline for monster power, and very much dependent on each group and character. But a DM can challenge a group. It's just a lot of work and requires a lot of experience to do right.

Also, Enemies don't have to kill you. There are a thousand ways you can challenge someone without an explicit threat of death. Frame them for a crime. Kill their associates. Steal their equipment. Curse them. Strand them on a different plane. The DM has a thousand mean, but non-lethal ways at his disposal to make the characters miserable.

Alot of those challenges listed are non-combat... really the only place challenges can come from. But most parties will defend against these tactics if they can. Get framed who cares, your nearly invincible. Stolen equipment, how? I sleep in an extra dimensional space and I am paranoid like all adventurers. Stuck on a plane, you wizard/cleric should save you! Most basic builds can handle these problems mechanically.

I find most of the challenge of DnD is finding who to aim your rockets at and why...

[Eldan]

That's why I said it's a lot of work to challenge the party:
You have to personalize it to the characters. Which, clearly, a premade can't do. The ugly truth about 3.5 is that the rules are, very often, a wonky mess if you look at them too closely. Challenge rating doesn't work even with well-written monsters (i.e. those who don't get shapechange at level 4).

[Person_Man]

There is a huge distribution in power levels of the various classes/builds/equipment at various ECL. A single Wizard 15 using nothing but core spells and equipment could probably walk through a standard pre-made module made for 15th level characters, whereas a dozen CW Samurai might struggle.

More specifically, people who write D&D modules tend to assume that some or all of the players (and/or the DM) are inexperienced at D&D, because experienced players tend to buy fewer modules. Thus they are geared toward easier more scripted combat, and assume a party of 3-5 players filling the iconic roles of meat shield, healer, blaster, and skill monkey.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I am aware of Tucker's Kobolds, but that is low level.

A party of ninth level characters wanted to avoid them. Your argument is invalid.

Also, the tunnels are kobold sized and they've trapped the ceiling, no flying for you.

[Aemoh87]

There is a huge distribution in power levels of the various classes/builds/equipment at various ECL. A single Wizard 15 using nothing but core spells and equipment could probably walk through a standard pre-made module made for 15th level characters, whereas a dozen CW Samurai might struggle.

More specifically, people who write D&D modules tend to assume that some or all of the players (and/or the DM) are inexperienced at D&D, because experienced players tend to buy fewer modules. Thus they are geared toward easier more scripted combat, and assume a party of 3-5 players filling the iconic roles of meat shield, healer, blaster, and skill monkey.

We were semi-random building our groups. We assigned roles to various builds and classes, good and bad, then randomly selected a class for each roll. Meat shield is useless and heals are very limited. So you just need blasts, skills, and the all important battlefield control.

But we do want to ramp the difficulty. One example is to give every monster at least 1 class level if it doesn't have any as this would not change CR. Another is make vanilla CR monsters and see what each group can do against them (this was done in 4th ed testing) scaling them up in difficulty.

[Aemoh87]

A party of ninth level characters wanted to avoid them. Your argument is invalid.

Also, the tunnels are kobold sized and they've trapped the ceiling, no flying for you.

There is still TONS of simple solutions to beating tuckers kobolds if you optimize your group at the level they were optimized.

[Diefje]

If it's not challenging, you're doing it wrong. The game is designed to be infinitely adjustable. In fact, you are encouraged time and again to adjust it.

[NeoSeraphi]

There is still TONS of simple solutions to beating tuckers kobolds if you optimize your group at the level they were optimized.

But that's not "semi-optimized". And finding those simple solutions is what makes the game challenging, which is your question. Thinking, analyzing, making decisions, that's all part of a challenge.

[Eldan]

But that's not "semi-optimized". And finding those simple solutions is what makes the game challenging, which is your question. Thinking, analyzing, making decisions, that's all part of a challenge.

Or you go on brilliant gameologists and download a build.

It's annoying, but people do it.

[NeoSeraphi]

Or you go on brilliant gameologists and download a build.

It's annoying, but people do it.

Ugh, yes, well...that's a fair point. I don't play with people like that, if I can help it. What about, Eldan?

[Aemoh87]

Ugh, yes, well...that's a fair point. I don't play with people like that, if I can help it. What about, Eldan?

The easiest solution to tucker's kobold is to just not go in. What makes the game challenging to me is my character justifying why he has to go inside. Also I am going to test the adjust ability because i don't believe the game is as adjustable as some think. Like I said before most adjustments to play with highly optimized characters means building a rocket and hoping it goes/hits first.

Also I feel that combat can't be gradually increased... It makes huge jumps like the difference between pounce and a pounce-less charge. One is often just meh, and one is potential character death.

To complicate this even more, how does the belief you can adjust difficulty help you deal with powergaming? My power ramp proves that it doesn't. Runs with one tier one in the party tended to plow right through everything with nothing to worry about. What I really wanted to show with this experiment was that power gaming was fruitless. You were most likely going to win anyways.

[Eldan]

As I said: the opposition can have a tier 1 too. And they usually have the home advantage which, with a properly paranoid enemy, can be huge.

Would you like to fight a wizard who had five years to cast all his Guards and Wards, Walls of Force and Explosive Runes everywhere?

[Aemoh87]

As I said: the opposition can have a tier 1 too. And they usually have the home advantage which, with a properly paranoid enemy, can be huge.

Would you like to fight a wizard who had five years to cast all his Guards and Wards, Walls of Force and Explosive Runes everywhere?

Usually that means rockets loaded full of win. Rocket tag has never been considered "engaging" or "challenging".

[Toliudar]

Aemoh87, it seems that there are several posters offering specific examples of things - none of which involve 'blam, you're dead' - and you're consistently coming back with 'I just kill it'.

Tucker's kobolds, for instance, is just a set of possible situations in which PC's are unable to deal with things in their normal manner, often through a mix of terrain, traps and decentralized opposition. Yes, you can just not go in - unless the scenario has time/space/situational pressures that force you to do otherwise.

Having a scenario underwater, with a 1-hour time limit, on the astral plane, in a demi-plane in which teleportation magic does not function - all of these are other examples of ways to mix up a situation in ways that, hopefully, encourage players to shift away from "I hit it, I kill it, I retreat to my extradimensional fortress of solitude."

You're right: tier 1 play tends towards fast combats. If you want longer combats - and that seems to be what you're equating with 'challenging' - build a party that's tier 3-4, and adjust the encounters accordingly.

Or am I missing something more complicated?

[Zeful]

No. It's a poorly designed system with numerous traps, poor definitions, and numerous clerical errors. High-op play turns into the same 4 adventures run ad infinitum and is essentially rocket-tag combined with, "I hit you," "no you didn't" mechanisms.

[Dr.Orpheus]

That Tucker's Kobalds thing is scary and all, but I had a DM who used is own rules for CR. He thought when you are about 5 levels higher then your foes you could fight them almost infidelity and you may never run out of resources and so he gave us armies of goblins at 4th level, then at 5th level gave them all a few levels in a NPC class, then at 6th level gave them all a few levels in a PC class, then at 7th level gave them all firearms, then at 8th level gave some of them tanks and some of them blimps, then at 9th level they had mech suits (basically iron golems reduced to medium size able to use firearms a size larger then themselves and are not immune to magic or rusting and do not have poison). They were not as smart as Tucker's Kobalds at the beginning, but after "the goblin industrial revolution" they had better tactics then us. The firearms were not based off the ones given in the DMG they are deal on average an extra die of damage, the gatling guns on mech suits and blimps did 2d10 damage and attacked 8 times a round, and the canons on tanks did 12d10. We could blow up a big tank or battle blimp with a fireball because it would explode all the ammunition, but vehicles and the ground troop's riot shields gave SR. They had the power of a modern day army with the enhancement bonuses. Our powergaming and higher level helped, but only slightly players died every meet, but this became the norm and we began to like the excitement. My favorite character one of my friend made "Alex Gearhart" he lived through the first 8 level through shear luck he was not optimized in the least proving that it was not the individual power that let us survive each battle, but our die rolls meaning that the party and the opponents were almost exactly even. The best part is they acted just as pathetic as they use to be.

[jiriku]

I've had this same experience with pre-made modules. My group has relatively high op-fu (my fault really, for bringing them to the dark side), and I can't use most encounters from canned scenarios.

In fact, I'll go you one further and say that most encounters in modules are just trash. I'm running Expedition to the Demonweb Pits right now, and while fixing the encounters to make them usable, I found monsters whose CRs were 2-5 levels lower than the module claimed they were, monsters with illegal feat and skill choices, monsters with high-level spell slots whose combat scripts called for them to cast only their low-level spells (and in an ineffective manner, to boot), monsters with class levels who completely ignore half their class features, and combat scripts that call for a monster to waste its first 2-3 rounds of combat on near-worthless actions like self-buffing with potions and scrolls of weak 1st-level spells. These encounters are just junk, and sometimes I just have to take the NPC's name and race, throw out its stat block entirely, and rebuild the whole monster from scratch.

There's a HUGE WORLD of difference between the optimization level that most modules are written for and the optimization level of a group of experienced, skillful players. The shoddy editing piles insult on top of injury.

[Aemoh87]

Aemoh87, it seems that there are several posters offering specific examples of things - none of which involve 'blam, you're dead' - and you're consistently coming back with 'I just kill it'.

Tucker's kobolds, for instance, is just a set of possible situations in which PC's are unable to deal with things in their normal manner, often through a mix of terrain, traps and decentralized opposition. Yes, you can just not go in - unless the scenario has time/space/situational pressures that force you to do otherwise.

Having a scenario underwater, with a 1-hour time limit, on the astral plane, in a demi-plane in which teleportation magic does not function - all of these are other examples of ways to mix up a situation in ways that, hopefully, encourage players to shift away from "I hit it, I kill it, I retreat to my extradimensional fortress of solitude."

You're right: tier 1 play tends towards fast combats. If you want longer combats - and that seems to be what you're equating with 'challenging' - build a party that's tier 3-4, and adjust the encounters accordingly.

Or am I missing something more complicated?

Alot of them are just binary yes or no situations though. Either they can or can't. Dead or not dead. Lose or win. Also mixing it up is nice and can add difficulty but it is not like you can do this with every fight or people will just get passed your limitations somehow. Your underwater no tele demiplane is pretty specific. I don't think you could effectively run that as a whole campaign without the party just adapting and completely nullifying it.

Also I am not equating long combat with challenging combat... play a samurai. In our samurai runs, the sam usually killed things very quickly or had no success!

[JadePhoenix]

We were semi-random building our groups. We assigned roles to various builds and classes, good and bad, then randomly selected a class for each roll. Meat shield is useless and heals are very limited. So you just need blasts, skills, and the all important battlefield control.


Sorry, I'm confused.
You said before you really cared about the hero's journey, morals and backstory. And... you use random generation? I'm lost.

[Aemoh87]

Sorry, I'm confused.
You said before you really cared about the hero's journey, morals and backstory. And... you use random generation? I'm lost.

I used random generation for my experiment... Not my campaigns.

[Toliudar]

But binary is different than easy. Many adventures devolve in the final encounters into kill or be killed. Similarly, most sports devolve into win or lose. Totally different than challenging/not challenging.

Maybe it would help if you articulated what experience you would like to have in combat - since you've already identified non-combat situations as being different and more nuanced.

[JadePhoenix]

I used random generation for my experiment... Not my campaigns.

OK, so that hardly matters.
In an actual campaign, D&D can become very challenging. A story is not just about killing stuff, after all. See good Superman stories for an example.
Say you have to rescue someone. And that someone is poisoned. And you have to go through a maze to get to them. Sure, you might teleport in, but do you have another slot to teleport out? Also, teleport is dangerous - you might end up simply end up somewhere else. Also, Antecipate Teleport. And you have to get there fast, because they're poisoned.
Have you tried to save everyone from a burning building? Burning buildings are hell to move through, and even though you can resist some of the problems somewhat, the people you are trying to save can't.
What about a city where spellcasting is banned? Or a higher-level, paranoid caster? Heck, simply swapping a few feats around makes most monsters a lot more dangerous.

[Eldan]

As I said before, give them consequences other than death.

They can lose their equipment.
They can lose limbs.
They can use friends.
They can lose powers.
They can contract a disease or curse. (And not the boring ability loss diseases from the DMG. Be a little creative. Or just send them to the Astral Plane and see how fun casters are when they get magic addiction :smalltongue:).
They can make powerful enemies.
They can ruin their reputation.
They can have an embarrassing but very catchy song written about them.
They can be trapped in a dream, in a time loop, in a demiplane.
They can accidentally destroy their reward if they use overwhelming force.
They can face enemies they are not legally allowed to kill, or do not want to kill (just send them against, say, mind-controlled children).

If you say your game is about stories and Hero's Journey, make story problems. Death is by far the only delay you can suffer on a quest.

[JaronK]

I actually prefer in world consequences... failing might not mean death, but rather the destruction of a city or nation that they've been in for a while. I find that vengeance REALLY makes players happy.

JaronK

[sonofzeal]

I think the problem is that you're relying on pre-generated adventures. My group's never done that, and we haven't had that problem.

Case in point - I ran a campaign for about a year, starting at 7th and getting as high as 10th, where I used absolutely nothing but even-CR encounters, and still managed to push the party regularly.

If your idea of "enemies played intelligently" means "they know who does what", then you've got a long way to go. Again, the whole point of the Tucker's Kobolds article was about how to challenge lvl 15+ parties.

Use cover bonuses, they apply on Ref saves too. Distance penalties on Spot/Listen make stealth pretty easy to pull off if you're clever. Enemies that are smaller, faster, or have unusual methods of transportation can hit-and-run to wear the party down; a standard action ranged attack and a move that breaks line of sight can do wonders. Whatever the party's doing, there are some things it won't work on, so scatter those in. Draw from later MMs and obscure sources, because those often have monsters that are substantially better designed than MM1's rather vanilla ideas, and the party will have to /think/ about how to overcome it.

Finally, use NPCs. If the DM's as good an optimizer as the party, he should be able to come up with NPCs that will threaten but not obliterate the party... often making use of some of the above. Note that NPC classes are always non-associated, so a Fighter4/Warrior18 is only CR 13, even though he has an epic feat and way more hp/BAB than a Fighter13. He's still susceptable to the same weaknesses of course, but may prove a better stand-in especially in a mixed encounter with more flexible allies.

[kulosle]

While I usually prefer the role playing aspect to combat, but combat is as difficult as the DM makes it. I'm about to participate in a killy campaign. Its a one shot where we make 5 gestalt characters that can break several rules using lots of cheese and the DM does his best to kill them. The record for the single longest lasting character in this kind of campaign is a little under three hours. We've done this 4 times and only during the last one did any character ever survive the campaign. Combat can be very scary. Most DM's are too lazy or poor at optimizing.

[elvengunner69]

Just a suggestion don't power optimize. I think every other thread (I know I am exaggerating quite a bit) is how to do it you said they were only 'slightly' optimized...limit what books the players can use make it difficult!

One of the games I'm playing we are doing that just sticking things to pretty much core plus a couple and it's been probably the best and most challenging game we've had in quite awhile.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

One of the things I generally do with my party that brings in a challenge is resource attribution.

First off, I absolutely ban Rope Trick/MMM/Genesis/anything else that acts as a 'reset button'.

Then they get a LOT of encounters per day. One or two? Maybe if you're in a relatively 'safe' or 'already cleared out' place. But going down into a dungeon? Pretty much every room you encounter will have an encounter in it. Plus wandering monsters, and whatever else might be in the area.

Also, the PC's may not be the center of the world. Things happen around them which might impact them later on. For example, if they had rescued the merchant's daughter back at level 4, then he'd be willing to help be their MagicMart around level 12. But if they go do something else? Going to get real hard to find a MagicMart.

THEN, we get to the other problem... BBEG's like to stay top dog. They're fairly intelligent, which is how they get there in the first place. So by mid-levels, he should easily have access to Legend Lore (and because the party is over 11th level, they qualify as targets), and can start tailoring encounters to match the band of adventurers who keep foiling his plans.

Say you have a FB in the party... well, when he drops Divination with the question 'what is their Achilles Heel', the answer is probably going to be 'that big guy has a tendency to go flying off the handle, uncontrolled'. Okay, cue attempts to turn him into a TPK. A few more questions finds out that his vulnerability is Marbles. Guess what most of his minions are going to start carrying around?

Liches are not stupid. They're smarter than geniuses most of the time. They will employ smart tactics. They will equip their weak minions with pathetically cheap things since it will completely shut down a major threat. Illithid Hive Minds are not stupid either, and will do likewise. Go down the list... just about anything that can be a BBEG for a moderately powerful group is NOT going to be stupid, and IS going to be worried, and WILL try to find a way to protect himself.

[NichG]

If you throw out CR you can always make something that is mechanically a challenge barring absolute invulnerability builds. The trick is to recognize what you should be throwing at the party, rather than just blindly saying 'these are Lv 13 characters so we'll do CR 8 to 18 range!'

I ran an optional arena-style fight thing for characters in my previous campaign called the Fustiarium. Basically, it was one character versus an infinite army. Some segments had to just be survived or avoided (you are attacked by as many swordsmen can reach you for 3 rounds before they move past, etc), while others had to be defeated to continue (the commander calls you out and ...). We got a basic feeling for how powerful people were by how far they could get in the Fustiarium. The game was highly homebrewed and much higher power-level than D&D normally is, even fairly optimized D&D.

I think the sequence was something like:

- 2 rounds of archer volleys: 20 attacks consisting one one archer and five aid-anothers (BAB +5) targetted at the character
- 2 rounds of low level spear-wielders attacking
- Cavalry charge with lances
- 2 rounds of spells from 20 1st level mages (with more filling in the gaps if any are killed). Usual sequence was 10 magic missiles and 10 Kelgore's Grave Mists a round
- 1 round of spells from 10 5th level mages (fireballs and lightning bolts)
- Fight against an undead knight, win to continue
- Fight against an 11th level cleric who uses Greater Consumptive Field to benefit from any prior deaths that have occurred and uses Blasphemy at a boosted CL of up to 18.
- Fight against 'Master Wizard', a 20th level wizard played strictly by the book using Team Solar level hijinks to pre-buff like crazy (this was a hard fight for everyone, but surprisingly I think everyone who got past the cleric made it past Master Wizard, though so weak that they died to the next thing)
- Adamantine golems fired from a cannon at character. Exposure to 4 golems a round for 2 rounds.
- 4 round strafing run from an Adult Prismatic Dragon with all the metabreath and so on feats to focus on energy drain.
- An Atropal
- The Dicefreaks Lords of Hell show up at a rate of one per round

Thats as far as anyone got. Earlier in the campaign, the cleric was the stopping point for most people. Once they got past that, surviving the Adamantine Golems after having been depleted from Master Wizard was the tricky bit (though the Master Wizard fights were all quite difficult). The one guy who actually got past the Atropal was, of all things, the party's strictly non-spellcasting Fighter equivalent.

[Curmudgeon]

We played the monsters very well, giving them the benefit of the doubt often (Example: they just knew who the melee and non melee characters were). I am aware of Tucker's Kobolds, but that is low level. The reality is that as characters level chance death goes away and only rocket tag exists.
It's not "playing the monsters very well" that makes the game challenging. It's having challenging enemies (which more often than not aren't simply monsters). Weak enemies in large numbers, but with excellent Hide skills, can only be targets for rocket tag if the spellcaster has a good enough Spot skill. Enough arrows incoming in the surprise round to burn through 150 points of Stoneskin plus most of the Wizard's hit points, and no visible targets, is going to give the Wizard's player pause. Sure, the Wizard can throw up Wind Wall to deflect arrows, but with no visible archers it's a blind guess which way to put up the Wall. Smart enemies are what make the game challenging.

[Aemoh87]

As I said before, give them consequences other than death.

They can lose their equipment.
They can lose limbs.
They can use friends.
They can lose powers.
They can contract a disease or curse. (And not the boring ability loss diseases from the DMG. Be a little creative. Or just send them to the Astral Plane and see how fun casters are when they get magic addiction :smalltongue:).
They can make powerful enemies.
They can ruin their reputation.
They can have an embarrassing but very catchy song written about them.
They can be trapped in a dream, in a time loop, in a demiplane.
They can accidentally destroy their reward if they use overwhelming force.
They can face enemies they are not legally allowed to kill, or do not want to kill (just send them against, say, mind-controlled children).

If you say your game is about stories and Hero's Journey, make story problems. Death is by far the only delay you can suffer on a quest.

Alot of this isn't mechanical punishments that is why it is good. Maybe people just aren't understanding me. I am talking about the mechanical game DND... Not the role playing aspect. I am doing this to show role playing is truely all that matters in the game since the mechanics merely a sideshow.

[olthar]

Alot of this isn't mechanical punishments that is why it is good. Maybe people just aren't understanding me. I am talking about the mechanical game DND... Not the role playing aspect. I am doing this to show role playing is truely all that matters in the game since the mechanics merely a sideshow.

I don't remember seeing anywhere that mechanically you must give players access to any spell or magical item they may hypothetically want in the game. The moment you start putting reasonable restrictions on this the game becomes much more difficult and much less rocket taggy.

The contrast, giving the enemies equal access, also makes sense, but then it is definitely rocket tag.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I am doing this to show role playing is truely all that matters in the game since the mechanics merely a sideshow.

As others have already said repeatedly, if the DM optimizes challenges on a par with the PCs and plays them smart and tactically, you can have a fight that's plenty challenging, and it doesn't have to devolve to rocket tag. I once almost TPK'd a party of 6 12th-level PCs (including 1 focused specialist conjurer, 1 wizard/MotAO, and 1 mage-killer-spec spellthief) and their red dragon cohort with a 10th-level illusion-spec archivist and a 10th-level truenamer, of all things. The combat went on for a good 8 rounds, and that was after the party spent 4 in-game minutes trying to actually get into the well-guarded and -trapped shrine where the two baddies were and after one of the PCs died in the surprise round. It was the first fight of the day, the PCs were all buffed and ready, and they only gave the baddies about 2-3 turns of warning, yet they barely escaped with their lives.

[Tvtyrant]

My favorite example has to be the ooze tunnel. Have the dungeon's corridors get narrower over time, so that they are eventually a single square in size. The party is wandering along and in front of them there is a larger round room from which Kobolds/whatever are firing arrows/Magic Missiles/provoking but not over-powered attacks. Because they are in a dungeon the party will usually not have fly casted.

When the party advances forward they have to go over a covered pit trap with an ooze in it. This usually temporarily takes care of the charger (who gets to wrassle with the ooze), and keeps the party at bay. The party caster cannot help the beefy character who is being grappled without exposing themselves, and when they start blasting/controlling/debuffing the cave dwellers move out of line of sight. The party now has to deal with minor injuries and the knowledge that the foremost man out of the narrow cavern is going to take it on both flanks by volleys of ready-actioned arrows.

[Killer Angel]

3.5 is not balanced, but certainly can be challenging.
Now, if you play pre-made modules (often designed by peoples and for peoples that plays with cleric healbot, fireball wizard and front line straight fighter) against a group of semi-optimized characters, played by expert players, yes, of course it will be a cakewalk. It's DM's duty to make interesting and challenging adventures.
What's your point?

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

My take: Either rewrite the modules or play ones intended for higher level characters. Bam, challenging with little effort... just pay attention to the higher level enemy casters/permanent status inflicters and maybe tweak 'em down a little.

[Baldin]

An easy way to make things more challenging and balanced is to use the Furyondy Gezzeteer. It bans a lot of broken things (polmorph for one is closed).

Ofc you can still be very optimized but it balances things out a bit.

cheers
baldin

[Ernir]

I've played in low-op games that were a complete cakewalk.
I've played in low-op games that threatened a TPK at every turn.
I've played in (relatively) high-op games that were a complete cakewalk.
I've played in (relatively) high-op games that threatened a TPK at every turn.


I am doing this to show role playing is truely all that matters in the game since the mechanics merely a sideshow.

I don't understand what you're talking about, here. :smallconfused:

[Doug Lampert]

I don't remember seeing anywhere that mechanically you must give players access to any spell or magical item they may hypothetically want in the game. The moment you start putting reasonable restrictions on this the game becomes much more difficult and much less rocket taggy.

The contrast, giving the enemies equal access, also makes sense, but then it is definitely rocket tag.

If you haven't seen the rule that they can get access to any spell and almost any magic item then I suggest reading the DMG. They tell you QUITE CLEARLY what's supposed to be available:
"Every community has a gold piece limit based on its size and population. The gold piece limit is an indicator of the most expensive item available in that community. Nothing that costs more than a community’s gp limit is available for purchase in that community. Anything having a price under that limit is mostly likely available, whether it be mundane or magical. While exceptions are certainly possible (a boomtown near a newly discovered mine, a farming community impoverished after a prolonged drought), these exceptions are temporary; all communities will conform to the norm over time.”

A town with 900 adults has a limit of 800 GP, which includes scrolls of ALL spells without expensive components up to level 4.

It goes further: "To determine the amount of ready cash in a community, or the total value of any given item, multiply half the gp limit by 1/10 of the community’s population.”

This means that small town of 900 adults has available 1440 copies of that level 1 scroll I want!

Mind you, I always assume that's NOT a magic shop, that's simply the limit of what you could commission for purchase and the local wizards could produce.

But the houserule is that there's no magic shop with 1440 scrolls of sleep and 1440 scrolls of magic missile and 1440 scrolls of (insert obscure splat book spell here) sitting on the shelves in EVERY small town in D&D land!

The RAW is that you can walk in and buy all that stuff.

At level 9 you get your first level 5 spell, and that town of 800 is no longer adequate, but since one of the two spells you picked up for free for leveling to 9 was teleport.... We now just need a larger town SOMEWHERE on the entire continent and I can keep right on buying stuff.

Magic items are even easier, because min/maxers take craft feats and make their own. WBL is just that important.

[Tyndmyr]

Just a suggestion don't power optimize. I think every other thread (I know I am exaggerating quite a bit) is how to do it you said they were only 'slightly' optimized...limit what books the players can use make it difficult!

One of the games I'm playing we are doing that just sticking things to pretty much core plus a couple and it's been probably the best and most challenging game we've had in quite awhile.

Seriously, book limitations do almost nothing for optimizers as long as core is still in there.

I've found that a "everything BUT core" contains about as much broken stuff, and will result in a roughly equally powered game as a core only game. You'd really be amazed at how many utterly broken combos require core stuff to work.


On the original topic...the games played can be challenging, yes. A great deal of this depends on the desired challenge level of the gaming group. Probably more than on any other factor.

[Endarire]

For me, fights in 3.5 were challenging after level ~3 when I as GM helped optimize the party and optimized the opposition.

I didn't try to adjust CRs to party level. I picked thematic things and had the party deal with them. Only once did I pull an "Oops" with 5 gargoyles each tossing fireball beads every round. That was 25d6 damage around level 6.

Smart tactics account for a lot! I specced a core only level 8 Wizard (technically a Diviner5/Red Wizard3) and would have soloed the game's current dungeon had the GM not hung up on me. I made a core-only Wizard (again with Red Wizard) to solo the module Bastion of Broken Souls. At level 18 (technically 17 after item creation) I had enough caster level and options to turn everything into, "I go first with my staff of moment of prescience then holy word/blasphemy you to death with my UMDed staff and caster level of 47ish."

I too am disappointed by the general notion that mobs are meant to be played as "dumb." As dumb as in a typical computer game. As dumb as in "too dumb to live." As dumb as in "I'm only a speed bump! Ten more fights until a fight that matters!"

I played in a game with three level 1 characters against a stock troll (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/troll.htm). Our party was a LA0 Tiefling with a guisarme, a Warforged Crusader with a guisarme, and a Human Bard with a whip.

The first fight, we all died because we were poorly coordinated. The second time, the Bard tripped the troll with his whip and the troll never got a hit in. The troll instead remained on the ground until we beat it into unconsciousness. The dice were on our side, and crowd control was again proven super effective. Had we other opponents in this fight, we probably would have lost due to action economy.

Also, I agree that limiting sources usually doesn't help. (The most powerful casters and caster resources are in core. Some of the weakest non-caster stuff is in core.) Instead, allowing every source (not necessarily every item/feat/class/spell/etc.) usually makes the game more balanced.

[olthar]

If you haven't seen the rule that they can get access to any spell and almost any magic item then I suggest reading the DMG. They tell you QUITE CLEARLY what's supposed to be available:
"Every community has a gold piece limit based on its size and population. The gold piece limit is an indicator of the most expensive item available in that community. Nothing that costs more than a community’s gp limit is available for purchase in that community. Anything having a price under that limit is mostly likely available, whether it be mundane or magical. While exceptions are certainly possible (a boomtown near a newly discovered mine, a farming community impoverished after a prolonged drought), these exceptions are temporary; all communities will conform to the norm over time.”

If you play strictly by RAW then you have so many other problems that this isn't the biggest by any stretch of the imagination. It's obvious that the people who wrote the DMG have absolutely no knowledge of economics and comparative value. For example, given what you can do with magic and how much the magic costs, there should be no such things as impoverished farming towns after a drought. It only costs 910 gold to get control weather cast for you. Therefore, no droughts. Ever. If magic like this is so common that every town has it in spades, then the world is either an idyllic utopia or a barren wasteland after a world destroying war. Either way, the system as written is untenable.

This doesn't take into account that 1400 lv 1 scrolls would require hundreds of low level wizards doing nothing but writing scrolls all the time and would in turn drop the value of the level 1 scrolls. And if large cities have 9th level scrolls at the same level then it implies that some lv18+ mage is just farming out his xps for essentially no money since the wbl at that point and the cost of a scroll are so vastly different that the mage would practically have to drop an entire level to get a noticeable wealth increase.

So, assuming you do play with a low level of common sense, no you do not have to give players access to everything. That being said, I do stand corrected, apparently WotC did say something about giving players access to everything.

[Victoria]

Combat in D&D is as hard or as easy as the DM makes it.

Now if you're talking about a party of four characters designed to work reasonably well with each other and at least semi-optimized fighting against a single monster with an EL equal to their average party level in a total vacuum with no situational advantages on either side, then yes the party will bowl right over the monster much more often than not, without much risk.

[Emmerask]

At earlier levels yes definitely, at the later levels though not really.

The main difference is that you have to do some tactical thinking the first ~10 levels, use or create the terrain to your advantage, flank the enemy to increase your chances etc etc, at later levels however d&d is a game of rocket tag with immunities to certain rockets.
In video games rocket tag might be challenging in a tabletop it is not ^^

Of course this is from a medium to high opt standpoint in low opt games it might be challenging even at higher levels.

[Olo Demonsbane]

When you add in optimization, it gets insanely difficult for your DM to balance things out without actually building monsters with appropriate class levels, playing them with exceptional skills, and/or vastly increasing the CRs of the encounters.

Experiments like that do not return valid results. Somewhat recently, I made a party of four gestalt sixth level characters to try out the Expedition to the Demonweb Pits. This was partially a self test of optimization skill, partially a desire to try out some Savage Species progressions with gestalt, and partially a trial run for DMing it for my actual group. Oh, and I doubled the number of monsters in each encounter, added a random equivalent CR monster, and added demons whose CRs added up to the level of the encounter. Man, did I get good at running Vrocks in combat :smalltongue:

The party:
Sasha: Ghaele Eladrin 6//Wizard 1/Incantatrix 3/Hathran 1
Eisen: Trumpet Archon 6//Cloistered Cleric 1/Saint LA 2/Hospitalitar 1/Lion-Wolf Barbarian 2
Kirrith: Avoral 6//Rouge 1/Fighter 1/Spellthief 1/Psychic Rogue 1/Spellthief +1/Swordsage 1
Sara/Tara: Divine Minion Dvati LA 2/Master of Many Forms 4//Monk 1/Psychic Warrior 5

Heh, those characters were a blast. Anyway, I figured I'd level them up through the adventure whenever any one of them died, which I thought would happen at least a few times, considering that they were going up against encounters that started at 7 CR higher than them and only got worse from there on what was considered a moderately difficult campaign.

They didn't die at all, despite getting to face near epic encounters by the end of the adventure. The only times they were ever really close to a death were:
2 cranium rat swarms, and a couple other things in hiding: the players wisely did not attack them; cranium rat swarms are serious business, and Sasha having insane Knowledge scores prevented me from having to play the characters excessively stupidly.

4 chaos giants, an aboleth mage, and a glabrezu. 4 exploding chaos-boulders could have put the PCs on their last legs in the first round of combat. Fortunately, a high knowledge check and a timely invisible Wall of Force SLA from Sasha caused the giants' boulders to blow up in their faces; Sara and Tara were to them before they could get around the wall for more throws.

The battle against the ambassadors of Pazuzu, which included something like 12 vrocks, two of which with 3 levels in blackguard. Spamming spores against the wizard for automatic damage was pretty tricky to deal with, though Eisen managed to counteract the DoT with his bless SLA. Then they had to wear down the mass of mirror images (all of my Vrocks have Quicken SLA (mirror image) in their arsenal, making them significantly harder to kill).


Overall, what I was trying to say through my long, rambling, and reminiscent based post, is that at high optimization levels, DMs need to significantly ramp up all measures of difficulty in order to challenge parties. This does not make the encounters less rewarding; on the contrary, some of these encounters were extremely entertaining.

In order to prevent rocket tag at high level play, both DMs and players need to learn how to at least moderately optimize defenses. When the wizard has (this is 7th level, mind you, after finishing the adventure I advanced them each a level) +13 Initiative (with Nerveskitter), 32 AC, 104 hp (including temporary hp), DR 10/adamantine, resistences to 3 energy types, SR, saves of +17/+13/+15, abrupt jaunt 6/day, displacement, greater invisibility, and a 2/day reroll; and the monsters spam quickened mirror images for 1d4+3 images each time and teleport away if challenged to use magical consumables, in addition to outnumbering the players 3-4 to one...encounters get interesting quickly. :smalltongue:

[jiriku]

Maybe people just aren't understanding me... I am doing this to show role playing is truely all that matters in the game since the mechanics merely a sideshow.

While this is true at your gaming table, it is not true for most of us. In many groups, mechanics are not merely a sideshow.

[Curmudgeon]

I am doing this to show role playing is truely all that matters in the game since the mechanics merely a sideshow.
If you want a game that's all about roleplay, D&D isn't a good choice. The mechanics are designed to show how your character choices fare when faced with in-game challenges that aren't just a matter of conversation.

In a roleplay-only game, everything is dependent on the player's conversational skills. If you ignore the mechanics, you're ignoring those gamers who aren't great at creating on-the-fly character dialog, but are good at analysis of capabilities, situations, and tactical responses. Also, there are many challenges which can't be solved via conversation alone. Being locked in a guillotine may be great in terms of role-playing if you want to make a dying declaration, but that's the last role-playing your character is going to get to do. On the other hand, if the player built the character to have mad Escape Artist and Hide skills, they may get a chance to play quite a bit more.

[PlzBreakMyCmpAn]

One of the things I generally do with my party that brings in a challenge is resource attribution.

First off, I absolutely ban Rope Trick/MMM/Genesis/anything else that acts as a 'reset button'.

Then they get a LOT of encounters per day. One or two? Maybe if you're in a relatively 'safe' or 'already cleared out' place. But going down into a dungeon? Pretty much every room you encounter will have an encounter in it. Plus wandering monsters, and whatever else might be in the area.Now put each of the encounters in the 'nearly impossible' CR range and this starts to look famili

[NichG]

If you want a game that's all about roleplay, D&D isn't a good choice. The mechanics are designed to show how your character choices fare when faced with in-game challenges that aren't just a matter of conversation.

In a roleplay-only game, everything is dependent on the player's conversational skills. If you ignore the mechanics, you're ignoring those gamers who aren't great at creating on-the-fly character dialog, but are good at analysis of capabilities, situations, and tactical responses. Also, there are many challenges which can't be solved via conversation alone. Being locked in a guillotine may be great in terms of role-playing if you want to make a dying declaration, but that's the last role-playing your character is going to get to do. On the other hand, if the player built the character to have mad Escape Artist and Hide skills, they may get a chance to play quite a bit more.

Roleplay-only doesn't mean 'conversation-only'. Good analysis of situations and capabilities can still apply when there isn't a quantitative backing, but instead of being an analysis of a known ruleset they become scenario analysis. Of course, things aren't as solid in this case and you could come to a reasonable conclusion that ends up being wrong because the GM overlooked something, made a mistake, or is just plain worse than the player at analysis. Even then, there's a certain class of things you can still do that work even if the GM makes such mistakes, namely if you can pin down things that logically guarantee progression regardless of the underlying logic of the scenario, which is a whole sub-game in its own right (for example, if you state your logic before asking the GM 'do I observe this?' or 'I try this', then it allows the GM to fill in blanks in things he himself didn't realize, assuming your logic actually holds).

[Zeta Kai]

Is the game challenging? Yeah, it can be. Or it can be a cakewalk. The mechanics can go either way, because the DM has so much leeway. Even without Rule #0, the DM has an enormous amount of room to make the game as easy or as difficult as he/she wants to.

The important thing to remember is this:


The game operates under the assumption that you win most of your fights.

A CR-appropriate encounter is one that uses ~25% of the party's resources. By some metrics, that's pretty easy. It won't take the party to their limit. It may not even make them sweat. If it were any easier, they might just walk right through it without notice, swatting at their foes like gnats.

If you want a challenge, then you have two choices: harder fights or more fights. Give 'em a big, epic, lopsided, CR+4 encounter. Or give 'em 5 or more fights in a day. Or have the DM run the encounters like the enemies were tactical geniuses. Do it up however you want, but those are your options. Play wisely.