[DM] Initiatives, combat, CR rating, challenge woes for my sessions.

[killem2]

A fairly detailed make up of our group:

Home Rules: I allow a few things and admittadley as a new dm, when I started in December this is probably one of the major reason I am having issues balancing combat. When they made characters, what ever class they picked, the core stat is auto 18. So Wizard is 18 int, sorcerer is 18 cha, fighter is 18 str and so on.

The next thing is every 5th level, they don't roll for hp, they get max possible hp, and on every other level that they do roll for HP, they reroll on 1's.

The Party
Thorin:
This is the most expierence player of everyone, he's played since he was teenager, (he's in his early 40s now).

Level 5 Cleric, Moradin is the god, I wish I could remember his domains but I knowhe did take that variant that allows him to dip into some arcane spells (it was from complete mage) he's some what stout in defense, pretty poor in melee, can toss some heals around but are characters are so stout all he usually does lately is cast spectral hand/ghost hand whatever it is called and moves it around some.

Dar:
(ran by same player as thorin)
Level 4 Rogue Fighter 1

Pretty standard rogue, roleplays an obsessed gambler, and religion freak. worships multiple gods, and OCD with daggers. carries a bandolier with 24 daggers. Has a vanisher cloak, has a +1 dagger and +2 dagger and a silver dagger, and a masterwork dagger, and 20 normal ones. he does alright for himself, decent damage when sneak attacking.




Tordek:
(RL son of Thorin/Dar)

A level 5 dwarf Fighter. Pretty standard make up, cleave, powerattack, wields an axe, cuts through enemies fairly well. He has with him your typical riding dog, and has a semi-home brew bear cub.

The bear cub was reared by a wizard when they were all level 2 and they beat down a brown bear (max hp too), and it was defending a young cub. Since WOTC had no method of aging a bear, we advance it on it's own, basically here are it's stats:


Medium creature, +2 int, 30 speed, 15 ac, +2 base attack.

attack claw +6 1d6+4

full attack, claw +6, claw +6, bite +6 (1d6+6)
feats endurance and multiattack.

So it's a decently stout creature.

Also controlled by this same player is a ranger:

Aust:
Also controlled by this same player is a ranger:
A level 5 Elf ranger, who has a composite greatbow + 5, and recently bought some quiver that makes his arrows automaticaly magical +1 arrows. has some decent stats, and currently has a [/u]swindlespitter[/u]. No precise shot yet though, but will have it soon. Not a bad ranged character. Pretty plain jane though.


Termod:
This is my 7 year old son's chracter

Barbarian 2/Fighter 2/Beastmaster 1

(I know this isn't possible, but dude to him being 7, a bit antsy, I wanted to get him into beastmaster and I told him, 7 ranks of handle animal is required but from then on as long as he is a beast master he must always max out handle animal. For the good of the group, it'll keep him a bit more involved during combat.)

Anyway, he uses a masterwork greatsword, a comp long bow masterwork, and has a wolf wild cohort and a flesh raker now. He has a breastplate +1 that has a 3 charges a day that refreshed each 3 days at dawn of Enlarge Person. Other than all of that, he has not other variants. Pretty much plain jane barbarian.

Isaiah:
(RL Step Son of Thorin/dar)

Basic barbarian Level 5, uses merc greatsword, and has the variant of rage that only kicks in when he gets down to a certain level of HP.



Ok that's the party. I have gotten rid of My wizard DMPC, just too much going on for me to really enjoy my own character as much, and I have to be focused alot more now that I have real direction with this campaign.



My problems are the following:

1. Balacing Encounters. Currently, this group, steam rolls almost everything I throw at them. Granted since this group was together they beat 15x wolves with 24 hp each, they beat 15 seawolves with 30 hp each. I think it is clear they have advanced from the hack n' slash club.

2. How to handle Initative, I currently have been merging the animals/familiars/companions with the owners to save time, should I let them roll individually?

3. CR ratings for EXP, should I start including the animals and companions to offset the exp gain, or just leave it to the base pc?

4. I seriously need a challenge for these guys: Nothing that is going to exhaust 99% of their health and resources but is there a general ability found on enemies, or type of enemy that would be decent at making them work a bit more. I don't want longer fighter, I want interactive fights.

As it stands they can outlast the fights I throw at them.

thanks for the replies!

[Namfuak]

That ranger should not have that bow, assuming you mean an elven greatbow, that should cost him 2,900,000 gp to buy and is intended for much higher level players.

Anyway, enemies that have been buffed beforehand and are supported by a sorcerer could work (I say sorcerer because it makes it a lot easier on you since you just have to write down some spells and use them as you see fit). Have the sorcerer focus on save-or-suck and battlefield control spells (glitterdust, grease, etc) and let the soldiers go after the health of the PCs. You can give the soldiers more HP without increasing CR by using warrior levels instead of fighter levels (makes them easier to stat too).

In any case, I would say that at least until level 8 you should assume that your players will be able to handle encounters of at least CR (Average Party Level+4), so far as I can tell.

[Andorax]

Ok, so it's you (the DM)
Your son (playing a beastmaster) + wolf + fleshraker
Another adult (playing 2 PCs...a cleric and a rogue)
His son (playing a fighter and a ranger) + bear cub + Swindlespitter?
His stepson (playing a barbarian)

Ok. First piece of advice right up front...you have four players, cut it back to four characters. There is no compelling need that I can see why you need to have a fifth and sixth character in the group, let alone two other characters AND 4 additional companion animals in the group.

Best bet is to talk to the other adult in the group about this aside/ahead of time and both of you present it to them as some other important goal that Dar and Aust are needed for....they're going off to accomplish goal A while the rest of you press on to goal B, both of which are important and have to happen at the same time.


That'll make a huge difference off the start, since you won't be trying to manage 10 opponents at the same time (not to mention having a youngster trying to handle two characters and their companion animals all at once).



To specific issues:

1) Cutting down on their manpower means less steamrolling will go on. That, alone, will allow you to present more managable encounters while still keeping it a threat.

2) Personally, I find it much easier to keep companions (familiars, animal companions, etc.) on the same initiative as their owners. No need to change it.

3) An animal companion or familiar would not count against XP gain, it's one of the character's class features. A "friend" or a trained animal is basically the same as a hired NPC, and should be considered another participant in the combat. Typically (not sure if this is actually in the rules) NPC allies earn 1/2 shares of XP...it sounds like the bear cub would fit into this...unless of course Tordek took the Wild Cohort feat for it (and if he hasn't...perhaps he should at 6th?)

4) From describing the fight with the 15 wolves, and the fight with 15 seawolves, it sounds like variety is your biggest failing. With the group trimmed to a more managable size, you can keep your head wrapped around what you're doing...so now you need to divide up what you're hitting them with.

Instead of 6 Orcs, give them an Orc Shaman (Cleric 3), an Orc Warlord (Barbarian 4), two Orc Archers (Fighter 2) and an Ogre.

It's a lot more work to come up with mixed-group encounters, but the encounters themselves are a lot different. Choices need to be made, plans formed, and the tactics they choose will change the results they get.

[killem2]

That ranger should not have that bow, assuming you mean an elven greatbow, that should cost him 2,900,000 gp to buy and is intended for much higher level players.

I don't think that is what he has. He has a composite greatbow (the one from complete warrior I think) then recently bought a separate magic item that is a quiver, let me check on it though.


Ok found it, Quiver of Elvenkind.


I have put in a new rule since the session before. No longer will I allow more than 1 char per person. I will allow them to keep what they have, if anyone dies they won't be able to reroll until they have no characters left.

Also, on the sharing xp thing, I was wondering how an animal that is control purely from the handle animal skill.

[killem2]

An update is well deserved I think.

So we had our 6th session. (once a month).

We just entered into the Whispering Cairn, the first of many many modules to come in the Age of Worms series. I made the mistake of finding this module a few levels too late as my group is now all a solid level 5/6 when they started. 6 Players, 4 animals/companions/cohorts.

I ended up going through every single encounter up to the last Chamber with the wind warriors and maxed out all HDs on all monsters possible.

I think the most devastating monsters were the swarms, which they had two separate encounters in which there were 3 swarms. The combat when a lot smoother though using advanced monsters rather than bigger numbers, though, sadly the last fight was extremely lackluster for me as the DM.

For laughs, I had the FF7 boss music playing at a very low tone lol, and we started.

We had two 18hd wind warriors bearing down, at at first, it was looking good, Combined after the first round they almost killed one of the core fighters in the group. Then I noticed they were starting to try and surround the wind warriors. So I split them up, and it was working well enough, until my son's character who has a Flesh Raker took his turn. The raker had a direct line of sight, and began his pounce. He hit every attack, the claws, the bite, the tail, the rake, the trip, the grapple/pin, and each round that went by that the warrior tried to escape rolled catastrophic grapple checks.

My son activated an enlarge person item/raged up, and damn near maxed out a possible power attack swing with his greatsword.

Whole dungeon took almost 13hours. lol:smallsigh:

But it was great and I've learned a lot from this thread. Once they start alstor lands ghost back, I am going to put them up against a strong fight with Kullens gang, and the undead necromancer Filde.

I discovered that the party is extremely weak on the Will side of things, so trying to throw anything at them with a fortitude save unless grossly over their level is going to be futile. I think I am going to have fun leveling up that Enchanter that is in Kullen Gang :).

Anyway, thanks for the advice.