Crank up CR or numbers of critters?

[TheDarkSaint]

I had 6 2nd level adventurers blast through my encounters today.

Crusader
Lesser Aasimar Cloistered Cleric
Rouge
Earth Dwarf Fighter
Sorcerer
Gnomish Bard


In taking very little damage and casting fewer spells (seriously, the Sorcerer didn't magic missile anything, just shot crossbow bolts and the cleric cast Bane), they killed the following in 4 rounds

Barbarian 2/Hobgoblin Chief
Cleric 1/ goblin
Fighter1/ Hobgoblin (x3)
goblins (x4)

All of the NPC's were running in AC anywhere from 14-16, average hp were 8-11

Admittedly, the PC's tactics were sound and they were able to divide and conquer quickly, but it was still shocking to see what should have been at least a challenging encounter go so easily.

So, my dilemma is to adjust my next encounter, but how? Should I add some class levels to what is coming up, or add numbers?

[Der_DWSage]

I...think we'd actually need more information to make a valid judgement here. Normally, a 6 v. 9 fight wouldn't go that quickly, but you mentioned they made sound tactical choices. If they won by being clever, just shrug and accept it. It happens, and it's part of the fun of the game.

You have two frontline warriors, (The crusader and Fighter) one sneaky skirmisher, (The Rogue) One buffman, (Said Bard) And then some divine and arcane support. It's a pretty balanced party.

The only thing I can say is-they got clever. See what happens when an opponent gets clever in return. Have a few Orcish Shamans with Sleep next time, just for starters.

[BWR]

Was this due to good rolls as well as good tactics? Because rolls can make or break an otherwise appropriately challenging encounter. I just petrified two PCs and had the other two run for their lives last session because of some poor tactics and quite poor rolls.
Before you start messing with power level too much, I'd suggest you throw another equally powerful encounter or two to see if this repeats itself. Also, enemies are allowed to use good tactics too. Letting the enemy prepare themselves for combat will often make PCs work harder for the same amount of xp.

[TheDarkSaint]

It might have been good rolls and tactics.


The crusader was able to bullrush on into the room using Minataurs (something) that kept him from eating AoO. He then whacked the barbarian, who hadn't time to rage, hard enough to take him out of the fight. The dwarf charged in and tied up the goblins with the cleric behind him stabbing them with a long spear while the rouge moved around for long ranged sneak attacks and the sorcerer was alarmingly accurate with a crossbow. They eliminated the goblin cleric very quickly and it was just a matter of time before the goblins went down along with the hobgoblins.

I'm learning that the Crusader is TOUGH to kill.

I'm thinking of changing the goblin's feats out for Phalanx Fighting, Bracing for charge and rapid shot and arming them with appropriate weapons so they could fight in ranks. The swords and shields get superior AC bonus's, the pole arms get reach, the crossbows get to fire quickly and all crossbowman have point blank shot feat.

[Phelix-Mu]

I'm thinking of changing the goblin's feats out for Phalanx Fighting, Bracing for charge and rapid shot and arming them with appropriate weapons so they could fight in ranks. The swords and shields get superior AC bonus's, the pole arms get reach, the crossbows get to fire quickly and all crossbowman have point blank shot feat.

While I'd advise jazzing up the opponent's somehow (poison, spells, debuff effect weapons like nets or bolas, maybe a couple feat changes), I'd avoid having the enemies over-specialize in response to one set of tactics. Phalanxes are cool and a useful tactic, but they aren't very flexible mobility-wise, are severely AoE vulnerable, and once breached can have trouble maintaining the intended effect. If the party is smart, they can quickly adapt their tactic, waiting for the phalanx to come to them, forcing them into bottlenecks, grease, and so forth.

A better strategy is to have the encounters start with the goblins having a small to decisive strategic advantage. Here's a couple ideas.

1.) Goblin archers have full cover given by arrow slits or the like that inhibit attacking them except from behind. Scatter the archers out. To further increase the difficulty, a skill check that takes time is necessary to reach the archers. Suppose some kind of large dungeon room. There are 20' pillars around the edge of the room. Atop each pillar is a 3-sided box with an arrow slit or two facing the entrance to the room. A goblin archer is in each box. Give them masterwork arrows or something if the archers are not hitting (useful to the goblins, but their value is destroyed once they are fired).

2.) Pits are scattered about the room, covered by camouflage. The goblins all know about the pits and are carefully positioned so that charging the goblins will result in falling into a pit. A simple variation is to just make enough obstacles in the room to make charging impossible. Beware, there is a ToB maneuver that allows charging in non-straight lines, but the name isn't coming to me atm.

3.) The floor of the room is covered by 3' of water; look for rules on this somewhere, but such an amount of water could plausibly reduce character speed to 10' a round or less. The goblins toss spears and arrows from catwalks connecting a second, higher level of the dungeon room (remember the goblin dungeons in The Hobbit movie? Tons of interlaced catwalks and such, very cool). To up the danger, the water is laced with negative energy (1d4/rnd), or has some kind of fish/insect swarm in the water.

Anyway, good luck. If some of the players are good planners and like these kind of tactics-heavy things, then give them something to chew on.:smallwink:

[Chronos]

I'm learning that the Crusader is TOUGH to kill.
Yeah, that's pretty much the class's main schtick: They just keep going, and going, and going.

When you say that the fighter "tied up" the goblins while the cleric stayed behind him, what do you mean? If he was just standing there next to him, there's no reason the goblins couldn't go around him to other, squishier targets. In particular, there's no reason one of them shouldn't have charged at the rogue.

Note that your party focused down the greatest threats first. Their enemies should do that, too.

[Malroth]

small sized creatures can Squeeze through tiny sized tunnels but medium sized creatures can't, have a room filled with 1' wide tunnels and some big and distracting dumb brute creature in the middle, during round 1 front liners charge the big dangerous creature, round 2 goblins make move silently rolls to slip through the tunnels and shoot the back line with arrows coated with some cheap dex or str poison then retreat back into the tunnels the front liners can't enter. If the gnome follows them solo well thats his problem. They'll then be ready to harass and ambush the party any time they're distracted and warn all upcoming rooms of the party's presence ensuring all future encounters have buffs, helpful terrain and readied actions before the party even gets there.

[NOhara24]

CR is only an approximation, at best. CR is based on the assumption that the DM is running a party of 4. You have an additional two characters to account for, and there are few things that offer a greater advantage than an additional man on the field, let alone 2.

CR is no longer valid for your campaign, as well as any 1 enemy vs. the party encounters. It doesn't help that your party has all the bases for what makes a party strong covered, some more than once.

The best way to challenge your party is to not only have multiple enemies on the field at once, but they need to be smart too. Any tactics that your players use against your enemies are more than valid to use against them.

[Coidzor]

4-6 rounds is fairly standard outside of tough fights or comedies of error, 3 if the party is quick.

Generally you want more creatures, whether they're summoned minions or weaker minions if you want to avoid the action economy advantage of a well-organized, efficient, and larger party.

Probably though you might need to bump up the power of the individual creatures and have more of them.

[Phelix-Mu]

Masses of critters can be problematic, though, especially if they are hard to reach, as the combat can drag on (compounded by the issue of having a large party). Beware endless combat for encounters that lack plot-significance. As a climactic battle, it's fine, but excessive mooking can cause battle fatigue.

Also, to increase CR of encounters without more or stronger stuff, consider encounter chaining of some kind. Like...
-monsters followed/preceded by traps

-monsters followed by monsters

- monsters while sleeping (depriving arcane casters of rest)

- monsters while party is unexpecting/divided (like while in town...great opportunity to hit the players with the hook for a subplot)

- or monsters combined with moral/ethical/role play threat (save the maiden/orphans, party bribed to ignore the threat of the monsters, and so forth)

Generally, I find that raising monster HP to be a more predictable device at low-levels. Many enemies with strategic advantage can be surprisingly/unexpectedly effective. The mention of CR being calc'd for a party of 4 is particularly relevant, but significant mooking can be a handful for even a coordinated party (and see the boredom element...though a martial character's player might get considerable amusement out of thrashing through hordes...make sure to narrate with appropriate levels of descriptive violence!:smallwink:).

In any case, I'm sure you'll get the hang of it.

[Lightlawbliss]

simply put, I can't remember the last time a party I was part of went against something we knew/know to be our cr in mm.
A 6 man party is approximately an entire cr ahead of a 4 man party, don't be afraid to "compensate" for this difference however you like, including but not limited to treating a fight as the cr it more appropriately is for the group involved.

If your party is the kind that knows all the info about monsters by heart, feel free to let things they should never be able to beat be visible once an a while. This is especially true if they attack monsters on sight.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Throw in some kind of special abilities, opponents need to be able to do more than just taking away some hit points. For those opponents, a few things I would have done differently:

Barbarian 2/Hobgoblin Chief - Intimidating Rage (CW) to keep the strongest looking opponent debuffed, possibly spend a standard action to Intimidate check again to make him Frightened for a round.

Cleric 1/ goblin - Earth Devotion (CC) to create difficult terrain as an immediate action, which can even ruin a charging opponent's round. Cast Ice Slick (FB) or Grease (Slime domain) to trip up anyone in heavy armor. Faith Healing (SC) on the chief when he gets hurt.

Fighter1/ Hobgoblin (x3) - Sneak Attack (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#fighter) instead of the bonus feat, Glaive with Combat Reflexes, Quick trait (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/characterTraits.htm#quick). Hobgoblins are supposed to be natural tacticians, show it!

goblins (x4) - Tanglefoot Bags, Alchemist's Fire, Eggshell Grenade: Dust (OA), Marbles (A&EG), Screaming Flask (CM), pretty much anything else from this collection (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148101). Poisoned darts. Some kind of melee weapon so they can help the hobgoblins flank.

Also, I'm surprised you allowed someone to play a Rouge (http://www.darklegacycomics.com/41.html).

[Lightlawbliss]

rougue's aren't overpowered, they are very nitch.

[TheDarkSaint]

Thanks folks, excellent ideas.

[Andvare]

rougue's aren't overpowered, they are very nitch.

You missed the joke.

This is a rogue:

https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQOIjaHOA2U3BWGh1A3XaAxpZIzYrRsj 5XOTd3B9fgZuck7BTgr

This is rouge:

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQrM_3ty0YPGHUYmrWv0stuhakrCU7H_ YE3sy8rGqLWvEk5vdOnsA

:smallbiggrin:

To answer the question in the title, it is usually better to get a higher CR enemy, instead of more lower CR enemies. The actual challenge doesn't scale too well with the "double the number of monster, +1 CR" rule.
(ignoring any synergy and/or cunning tactics)

[SiuiS]

I had 6 2nd level adventurers blast through my encounters today.

Crusader
Lesser Aasimar Cloistered Cleric
Rouge
Earth Dwarf Fighter
Sorcerer
Gnomish Bard


In taking very little damage and casting fewer spells (seriously, the Sorcerer didn't magic missile anything, just shot crossbow bolts and the cleric cast Bane), they killed the following in 4 rounds

Barbarian 2/Hobgoblin Chief
Cleric 1/ goblin
Fighter1/ Hobgoblin (x3)
goblins (x4)

All of the NPC's were running in AC anywhere from 14-16, average hp were 8-11

Admittedly, the PC's tactics were sound and they were able to divide and conquer quickly, but it was still shocking to see what should have been at least a challenging encounter go so easily.

So, my dilemma is to adjust my next encounter, but how? Should I add some class levels to what is coming up, or add numbers?

That's a CR 1 encounter... They are level 2, there is 50% more of them than te CR system is designed to handle, and from your tone you find crossbow (1d8) over magic missile (1d4+1) to be weird, so you probably aren't use to optimizing.


The best idea is to keep a copy of relevant player data. Don't give monsters "AC 14-18", give a monster "best fighter in party hits on a 17+ on D20". Tailor encounter numbers.

But let them win some like these, because enemies not bein prepared and expecting a fair fight works wonders for verisimilitude and morale.

[TuggyNE]

That's a CR 1 encounter... They are level 2, there is 50% more of them than te CR system is designed to handle

Er, CR 2 + CR 1 + 3xCR 1 + 4xCR1/3 is not EL 1, by any faint stretch of the imagination. What's more, APL is at least a nod toward non-standard party sizes. The result is that an encounter calculator says it's an APL 3.2 party against an EL 7 encounter: very difficult, but winnable. That was not apparently the case here.

However, tightening up NPC tactics a bit might help quite a lot, really, doing more with less. Consider the ways the characters in question might behave if their collective backs were to the wall, and the crazy or desperate schemes they might try, and then work that out.

[Zombimode]

That's a CR 1 encounter... They are level 2, there is 50% more of them than te CR system is designed to handle, and from your tone you find crossbow (1d8) over magic missile (1d4+1) to be weird, so you probably aren't use to optimizing.

Uh... 1 CR2, 4 CR1 and 4 CR1/3 is NOT an EL 1 encounter. Its an EL 6 encounter. The party level is slightly above 3, so this is, nominally, a APL+3 encounter, pegging it "difficult".
I also don't know what you mean by "more then the CR system is designed to handle". Creature's (and trap's) CR is mainly there to calculate how much EXP a given party member gets for defeating the encounter. This works as well with a party of 4 as it works for a party of 6.

[Chronos]

One other caveat about throwing higher CR monsters at the party: You should have some sense of why a monster has the CR it has. Some monsters have special abilities that a party below a certain level simply can't handle, no matter how many party members there are. Others do the same things as low-CR monsters, just more of it. Scaling up using the latter type is generally fine, while scaling up using the former type can sometimes hurl your party headlong over a cliff.

[molten_dragon]

I had 6 2nd level adventurers blast through my encounters today.

Crusader
Lesser Aasimar Cloistered Cleric
Rouge
Earth Dwarf Fighter
Sorcerer
Gnomish Bard


In taking very little damage and casting fewer spells (seriously, the Sorcerer didn't magic missile anything, just shot crossbow bolts and the cleric cast Bane), they killed the following in 4 rounds

Barbarian 2/Hobgoblin Chief
Cleric 1/ goblin
Fighter1/ Hobgoblin (x3)
goblins (x4)

All of the NPC's were running in AC anywhere from 14-16, average hp were 8-11

Admittedly, the PC's tactics were sound and they were able to divide and conquer quickly, but it was still shocking to see what should have been at least a challenging encounter go so easily.

So, my dilemma is to adjust my next encounter, but how? Should I add some class levels to what is coming up, or add numbers?

Do a little of both. Make tough things tougher and add a few minions. The tougher big creature will stay up longer, and the extra minions will help keep the action economy from going too far in the players' favor.

[Kelb_Panthera]

By my estimation using the EL estimation table in the DMG that was only about an EL 5-6 encounter. Call it 7 since the enemies had the party outnumbered by about 50%.

That would be an "overwhelming" encounter, except, because of its component parts, it's actually an "easy if handled properly" encounter. I'm guessing they seperated the level 2 leader from his allies and focus-fired him to death, then nailed the cleric, leaving the scene as a match between a near even number of characters in which the enemy was all a level -below- the party.

You're also in the "luck is one of the biggest factors" portion of the game (levels 1-4/5), where these calculations are more than a little suspect and subject to swinging wildly when strategy and tactics come into the picture.

Anyway, I'd suggest beefing up your mooks more than adding more of them, since more actions to adjudicate can slow the game down pretty bad.