Dovahkiin62
2013-03-10, 01:25 AM
Hello fellow gamers, dungeon masters and forum posters. I am currently running an Eberron campaign with a group of five players, and things have been progressing exceptionally well through the campaign: Both my players and I are enjoying the game itself as well as the story unfolding from it. However, I am beginning to notice that the party as a whole is making short work of encounters that I had thought would be challenging.
Allow me to give an example:
During the last few sessions the player characters have been preparing and defending a frontier town on the coast of Xen'Drik from a small pirate fleet led by a disgraced admiral. Two of the forces that had been gathered by this renegade was a hill giant chieftan and his retinue and an ogre mage with a few levels in duskblade. The party's resident warblade opted to meet this hill giant and his oncoming horde outside the front gate, while the party's warlock took to the air to confront the ogre mage. The chieftan, being a barbarian, charges our warblade and lands a solid blow against him. On the warblade's turn, he unleashes hell: Boosted by haste and an enlarge person spell, and wielding a sword of giant-bane, he makes a full attack against the chieftan, and carves up the giant effortlessly. Meanwhile, up in the air, the warlock spies the ogre-mage flying into range. Using a combination of feats and invocations, the warlock unleashes an acidic blast of eldritch energy, frying the lesser giant in mid-air and sending him plummeting to his doom. The minions following them took the only logical course of action and immediately turned tail: And thus, the player characters turned back the besieging forces. Did I mention that this is a 6th level party?
Obviously, the players are enjoying these moments, and frankly, so am I: The players feel badass and it makes for some good story-telling all around. What I am worried about is that this will eventually result in the players becoming dismissive and detached, which is what I want to avoid: I definitely don't want to nerf any of the players, but I am finding it difficult to keep up the challenge difficulty. My first goal here being to provide something fun.
Any thoughts and suggestions?
Allow me to give an example:
During the last few sessions the player characters have been preparing and defending a frontier town on the coast of Xen'Drik from a small pirate fleet led by a disgraced admiral. Two of the forces that had been gathered by this renegade was a hill giant chieftan and his retinue and an ogre mage with a few levels in duskblade. The party's resident warblade opted to meet this hill giant and his oncoming horde outside the front gate, while the party's warlock took to the air to confront the ogre mage. The chieftan, being a barbarian, charges our warblade and lands a solid blow against him. On the warblade's turn, he unleashes hell: Boosted by haste and an enlarge person spell, and wielding a sword of giant-bane, he makes a full attack against the chieftan, and carves up the giant effortlessly. Meanwhile, up in the air, the warlock spies the ogre-mage flying into range. Using a combination of feats and invocations, the warlock unleashes an acidic blast of eldritch energy, frying the lesser giant in mid-air and sending him plummeting to his doom. The minions following them took the only logical course of action and immediately turned tail: And thus, the player characters turned back the besieging forces. Did I mention that this is a 6th level party?
Obviously, the players are enjoying these moments, and frankly, so am I: The players feel badass and it makes for some good story-telling all around. What I am worried about is that this will eventually result in the players becoming dismissive and detached, which is what I want to avoid: I definitely don't want to nerf any of the players, but I am finding it difficult to keep up the challenge difficulty. My first goal here being to provide something fun.
Any thoughts and suggestions?