[PF] My players do too much damage!

[cloudjsh7]

OK, well it's not that bad.

TL;DR my players love to fight one BBEG rather than a slew of monsters. As the DM, I also don't mind it simply because tracking one monster's HP, init, and all that other fun stuff is simpler than 4-6 other monsters. However, seeing as there is only one target, all my players focus their fire on said BBEG, thus, giving my BBEG only one attack before it dies.

Other than obviously pitting them against something that negates or otherwise makes Player X, Y, or Z less efficient with resistances and whatnot, what other creative things have you come up with the extend big monster fights?

[Boci]

Damage reduction, miss chance, hit and run tactics combined with regeneration or fast healing, having lots more HP in the first placed (undeadifying template applied to something with a high charisma). There's quite a few options. Anything to narrow it down?

Also what's with the TL:DR? Its longer than what preceded it.

[Daftendirekt]

How about forget what the players prefer once in a while and make them fight a crowd of monsters. Fighting one guy at a time every single time would get boring as hell for me.

[Bhaakon]

Surrounding a BBEG with mooks isn't the only way to up the difficulty of an encounter. Advantageous terrain or traps work just as well, and require less paperwork.

[JusticeZero]

Right. Beyond that, you could throw in the Psionics stuff; there are a few things in there to cheddar the heck out of tanks. Maybe even more now that temporary hp have been declared as stacking. Might not be able to do a lot beyond tanking, they don't have a lot of resources to throw around, but a mountain of temp hp, shared with shared pain, on something that has a miss chance and needs a will save to attack in the first place is going to take a bit of doing to bring down, especially if they have chosen a good location to attack from and had time to lay down some control effects first. Hide a Vitalist and a Tactician behind the curtain too. :smallsmile: Swap places with a puppy when the heat gets bad, refresh the temp hp, re-ambush.
At least some of these can be done with standard magic spells, but my game bans magic and so I am rusty on Core gouda. Look into God - wizard tactics and make the battlefield miserably hard for them to work with right before the fight.

[Crustypeanut]

Might I recommend a Mythic BBEG, giving him the Guardian Path to seriously up his survivability?

[Crustypeanut]

My own players in my Mythic Campaign that has recently started do a buttload of damage themselves. The Saurian Druid with her Spinosaurus companion, the Barbarian with a Greatsword, and even the Monkey Goblin Gunslinger - to name but three out of eight players. As a result, I need to pay close attention to the same thing you mentioned; Their damage output. By playtesting their characters on roll20 while I design the encounters, at their current level, level 2, they can easily handle a CR 6 encounter (with numerous mooks, rather than one or two big bads) and come out still ready for more.

So, I'm planning on throwing things at them that they can't just bash through; Things like illusions, hazardous terrain, etc. I'm going to avoid 'One big bad' fighting them if at all possible - or, if I do use that tactic, to make the big bad be intelligent, able to use the terrain to his advantage, or just be such a bad ass that he can handle 8 on 1. Namely, I'm going to be using Mythic in all likelyhood.

So with your BBEG, if he isn't mythic, make sure he can separate the players, distract them, slow them down with hazards, etc. A few good spells can do the trick marvelously.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Use a magical trap: As soon as the entire party walks into the room, the BBEG pops in and the trap goes off. Everyone (except the BBEG) must make a DC (highest Will bonus in the party +11) Will save or be dazed for 1 round: Any spellcaster in the room, regardless of whether they succeed at their save has one of their spells (GM's choice) go off, affecting whatever targets/area the GM chooses. Have them give the BBEG a free Haste or dump a Stinking Cloud on themselves. These effects apply every round until you succeed at your will save: After that, you're immune to the effects for 24 hours.

[Eldariel]

There are ways to reduce incoming damage (spells for it), ways to make the target harder to hurt (spells for it), ways to interrupt player actions (spells for it), etc. If the enemy isn't a caster, he'd still have access to Potions and Use Magic Device for Scrolls and Wands.

Basically, if the BBEG knows enemies (the PCs) are coming (such as if they knock down a door and kill everything in a dungeon, that's a pretty good alarm system), have him chug down potions, cast buff spells, etc. until he becomes much harder to harm. You can also have villains who use clones, or illusions/magic to split the party up or whatever. And of course, the villains can have (generally consumable) magic items that substantially increase their durability or revive them once but shatter for it or so.


Of course the key is to make most of this stuff consumable so that the BBEG doesn't give them ridiculous amounts of loot if they do manage to beat him (getting consumables as loot is fine, they'll be gone eventually either way) beyond what they get from the place already. Also helps to make the enemy mortal eventually.

Of course, monsters with lots of class levels tend to be subtantially hardier than equal CR humanoids. E.g. a Stone Giant Cleric of CR X is subtantially more durable than the humanoid counterpart. Of course, always remember that single bosses need to be higher level than the PCs if they're to engage them alone without substantial environmental advantages.

[Kerilstrasz]

1st thought..
dominate their highest dmg dealer and turn him against them

2nd..
use different kinds of terrain thus forcing them to focus on something else too
for example: BBEG is standing behind some rocks (cover) on a pedestal. the surrounding ground trembles and hot steam geysers go off at random locations around him (terrain dmg). The steam forms vapor clouds around him.
Players can't charge (trembles), casters need to deal with clouds so they negate most of the cover, melee need to tumble, dodge or whatever to avoid geyser dmg.

3rd..
Champs walk into the room where BBEG is waiting. 99% of players will focus on him.. only 1% will think that this room may also have traps too... now.. use AMF traps that last 1-2 rounds.. or hold humanoid.. or whatever you like.

4th..
give that BBEG a custom item that returns dmg.. lets say 50% of dmg is negated/- and returned. Make sure to provide 1 or 2 easy escapes.. cause when they realise what happens they will want to retreat and think of a better strategy. Ofc , when they beat him the item will be destroyed :P

[Ezberron]

I've found out the hard way that you can't really expect a single BBG to survive more than a round or two against a whole party of adventurers.

Either it's so off-the-scale tough (as in CR + lots) that it should squish each player a round (no fun) or they simple focus fire on it and it's toast.

I personally don't like handling dozens upon dozens of low level monsters either but I think the real trick here is to give the players more than one thing to light up. instead of 1 really big bad...give them 3-4 medium/hard monsters to fight.

From a player standpoint, it gives the players choices. a single big monster is (as someone pointed out) dull and not a lot of choice. they have to focus fire on it because there's nothing else.

Personally, I think the best option is to have a big bad guy surrounded by a lot of mooks. disposable minions that mainly act as cover and a screen for the main bad guy.

The necromancer surrounded by ranks of skeletons and zombies.
The lizard man chieftain behind his 2 ranks of bodyguards
Etc...

the advice on consumables is pretty good too. I've seen the reverse happen (the players gave a powerful barkskin potion to the bard, who ended up tanking most of a big encounter because nothing could hit her...) so having a few buff potions never hurts.

Also, I think that when you have 3 or 4 creatures to play with, they can tag team and combo on players versus a single monster that just swings and misses.

I'm starting to change my view on things. I'm not going to have quite as many throwaway fights and focus more on intelligent tactics (including running away!) for my encounters. a lone PC is generally toast, why should the BBG be any different? (This is why I'm shifting from single BBGs to duos and teams)

Also, I recently posted for some advice for this same situation and got some good ideas...it can be found here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=307810

[angry_bear]

Some sort of ranged opponent with blink could be devastating. Set it up so that the party is in a room with a series of pillars or outcroppings, basically anything high up the party can't quickly reach, that he teleports to each round, and fires a few shots off at them. See to it that he's got a high touch ac, good reflex and fort saves, then see how the party handle an opponent they can't touch. Protection from Arrows is still a thing in Pathfinder right? If it is, toss that on him as well.

That only works at lower levels though. Higher up I'm guessing that the players will have access to flight of some kind. But as it is, with this kind of opponent; it'll be challenging, but they'll likely have lower HP, so for the party it'll be incredibly satisfying when they work out a way to land a big enough hit on him to win the fight.

[Brookshw]

To some extent this depends on party composition. I don't see any reason that a bbeg shouldn't have reasonable defences even if they shut down certain party tricks (so heavy fortification, mind blank, deathward, various miss chances) but I would only do this if the party has an opportunity to shut these effects off. More its to tie up some of the players action economy.

Tying up the party with various battlefield control, solid fog etc. Through that force cage on the ubercharger or archer, not to tie them up but to tie up the wizards action busting them out.

Or just crank the HP. One of my players suggested to me adding half cr worth of HP to each hit die. So a cr6 8hd creature would get +3 HP per hd or +24 in this case. Also maximizing its HP. It's a fiat if anything (or blatant dm cheating) but considering the alternatives I'd rather go this route than letting a game devolve to rocket tag, setting up builds to stop specific builds, or every combat being another "ho hum, massive great wyrm? No problem, as soon as its my turn its dead".

[Ravens_cry]

I'd shy away from domination effects. It's really annoying to gear up to play, only to find 'Whoops, you don't get to play your character today, isn't that fun'. As an occasional thing, sure, especially if the players are geared to get rid of it, but certainly not the final, climactic boss fight. Trapping the BDF in a force cage is similarly not kosher. Yes, it's damn effective, but now the player can't play. Now, if you want to make things tricky while still having one big monster, have something else for the players to care about at the same time. To use the cliché example, the captured princess is slowly being lowered into the death trap. Or perhaps some non-combat cultists, the kind you can great cleave through like butter, are summoning an even bigger baddie.
Now the players must divide their attention, split their forces, without massively slowing down combat. It will also make a more memorable encounter than 'Remember when we buffed up, surrounded the baddie and then wailed on it for two rounds? Man, that fight took so long. They lasted one more round than the last one.'

[Crustypeanut]

I find that domination effects work much better when used on PC's allies or minions.

"Oh, did your spinosaurus animal companion just get turned against you? WOOPS! I hope someone in your party brought Dispel Magic!" (And yes, I'm going to do that to the druid in my campaign.)

Heh.. thats the kind of thing I'd use that for. Never do it to the players themselves - unless its for a short time, or have a reasonable chance to get rid of it before the encounter is over. Definitely don't make it last the entire session.

[Libertad]

To the OP, can you tell us a bit more about your characters? What is your party's class make-up? Average experience level? What sourcebooks is your group using?