Summoning and CR, balancing a BBEG encounter.

[Shrikethrush]

So, I'm running a new campaign, and the idea is that Evil Druids are doing bad things, essentially.

Unforunately, I now have 8 players, and my players are weirdly insistent that I allow anyone who wants to play to play or they'll walk out.

The party ECL is 2, and there's 8 of them, so CR 4 encounters are considered appropriate, and CR 6 are challenging encounters. I've given them the rather powerful stat array of 18/16/14/14/12/10, so they have nothing to complain about there.

So, I'm having them go up against a BBEG who gets to use the same stat array. She's a Uldra Druid 3 with the Woodling template from MM3. She's taken the Greenbound Summoning and Ashbound Summoning feats; since my players specifically requested that campaign setting books be allowed, I figure they're fair game, and fit the fluff.

My issue is, it seems really off that summoning 3d3 Greenbound/Ashbound Wolves over 3 rounds (barring them mobbing her early, as is wise) doesn't increase the CR of the encounter at all.

Is this encounter reasonable in terms of difficulty?

[ArcturusV]

Maybe. It depends on where your metric of "Reasonable" is. Be aware that it's going to be bloody and messy. I mean when you have that many bodies involved, people are going to die. Particularly at level 2 where they don't have a lot of options to save people. If that's reasonable, it works. If it's not a reasonable result where you don't want 1-3 PCs (At least) dead, not so much.

... I know you can't help it, but it's why I hate running large groups in a single mass. See if you can get them to split the party? I mean with a large mass like that it turns into your villain getting surrounded entirely and hacked apart. Or it turns into a Mob vs Mob where unless you artificially somehow manage to get 1 on 1 for every match up (never happens, players will team up and focus fire at the very least), you'll end up with a bloody massacre.

If you're a vindictive DM of sorts, this could help drive home a lesson. If they all mob together into one 8 man squad... the enemy will mob together everything (nothing else to keep them busy, not even potentially), and you'll end up with combats where, particularly at level 2, 1-3 characters are dying off.

Give them a chance to split later on, so it's 4 and 4, and they find the enemies have to split as well, and you don't end up with 1-3 characters dead in every major fight.

[Shrikethrush]

That's the beauty of the Greenbound template, though - Wall of Thorns 1/day and Entangle at-will for all the wolves. That's a considerable amount of control to help keep everyone in line, and because the plants used to peform the Entangle are going to be the selfsame Wall of Thorns, they'll be taking 1 damage for every failed save against Entangle.

1-3 characters dying off is precisely my intention. That will reduce the number of characters I have to deal with for the rest of the session, and also impress the players that this character is a serious threat.

[Spore]

You could always just have it be a Druid 5 with the Fire Domain and kill them outright with a Fireball after they fail Perception against your insane stealth. With 8 players you can kill someon off and they'd have their new character finalized and written a backstory before the combat ends.

[Shrikethrush]

True, but that wouldn't fit the fluff I'm going for, with Plant-type enemies, hence why I'm playing with the Woodling template and the Greenbound Summoning feat.

[lsfreak]

1-3 characters dying off is precisely my intention. That will reduce the number of characters I have to deal with for the rest of the session, and also impress the players that this character is a serious threat.

Removing part of your players from playing for a good chunk of the session is a **** move. Even though so is making you DM that many players.


My issue is, it seems really off that summoning 3d3 Greenbound/Ashbound Wolves over 3 rounds (barring them mobbing her early, as is wise) doesn't increase the CR of the encounter at all.
That's a problem with the CR system. You're right that it should be a higher CR encounter.

Keep in mind Greenbound Summoning was intended to be a... +3? metamagic I believe. It was dropped during editing either by accident or malicious stupidity.

I don't have suggestions on exactly how this would play out, but how I'd handle the situation is flat-out tell my players I won't DM that many people. They can cut the group down, make two groups, or find a different DM.

[Shrikethrush]

Removing part of your players from playing for a good chunk of the session is a **** move. Even though so is making you DM that many players.


That's a problem with the CR system. You're right that it should be a higher CR encounter.

Keep in mind Greenbound Summoning was intended to be a... +3? metamagic I believe. It was dropped during editing either by accident or malicious stupidity.

I don't have suggestions on exactly how this would play out, but how I'd handle the situation is flat-out tell my players I won't DM that many people. They can cut the group down, make two groups, or find a different DM.

There's a core group of 4 that has a reasonable understanding of the rules and whom I quite enjoyed DMing for, and then suddenly there was four other people clamoring to join, none of which had ANY understanding of the rules whatsoever.

I'll see about telling them that I can't handle more than four players, and that I'd like to stick with the original four who know what dice to roll and what modifiers to add. We'll see how that goes.

[Zanos]

There's a core group of 4 that has a reasonable understanding of the rules and whom I quite enjoyed DMing for, and then suddenly there was four other people clamoring to join, none of which had ANY understanding of the rules whatsoever.

I'll see about telling them that I can't handle more than four players, and that I'd like to stick with the original four who know what dice to roll and what modifiers to add. We'll see how that goes.
I highly recommend this. My group had issues with having too many players and combat became a bogged down nightmare, and RP was difficult with multiple people trying to get a word in.

The situation sort of defused itself for us since the core group is rather...abrasive. I do recommend trying to bring your group down to a more reasonable size.

I'm sure you're aware that for it's cost, greenbound summoning is an enormously powerful feat. I would honestly suggest removing it if the group isn't high OP.

[Shrikethrush]

I highly recommend this. My group had issues with having too many players and combat became a bogged down nightmare, and RP was difficult with multiple people trying to get a word in.

The situation sort of defused itself for us since the core group is rather...abrasive. I do recommend trying to bring your group down to a more reasonable size.

I'm sure you're aware that for it's cost, greenbound summoning is an enormously powerful feat. I would honestly suggest removing it if the group isn't high OP.

My current idea is to have the encounter be the BBEG dropping 1d3 Greenbound Wolves and then continuing on her way; I don't see why she would use all her 2nd-level spells on the party, and even that many wolves (depending on rolls) would be effective.

I'm also making a simple Uldra Druid 3, and give her Woodling template later. That's CR 4, which is exactly appropriate.

[Tim Proctor]

TPK the party, and give them all zombie templates. That way you can enact plants vs. zombies.

Honestly, the 8 players is a bit much. I would explain that 1) it makes things harder for you, 2) it means they are most likely going to be fighting things much harder and its on a exponential scale so a CR6 is near impossible for them to beat because they will be losing 2 to 3 people a round, and 3) unless you're fighting a bunch of smaller things its just going to be a bad issue.

Having said that, I would look at lots of smaller creatures rather than large ones. Leave the bigger guys that can summon out of the mix for now and just have them fight X-wolves. No reason to deal with the druids at this point, but when the wolves are an annoyance insteadt of a thrat have the druids step in.

[Shrikethrush]

TPK the party, and give them all zombie templates. That way you can enact plants vs. zombies.

Honestly, the 8 players is a bit much. I would explain that 1) it makes things harder for you, 2) it means they are most likely going to be fighting things much harder and its on a exponential scale so a CR6 is near impossible for them to beat because they will be losing 2 to 3 people a round, and 3) unless you're fighting a bunch of smaller things its just going to be a bad issue.

Having said that, I would look at lots of smaller creatures rather than large ones. Leave the bigger guys that can summon out of the mix for now and just have them fight X-wolves. No reason to deal with the druids at this point, but when the wolves are an annoyance insteadt of a thrat have the druids step in.

Lots of small creatures + 8 players = Combats cannot be completed in a two-hour session.

A few things I can do, though:

1. Tell the girl I didn't want to play with to shove off, resulting in the other two girls 'boycotting'. End result; 4 person party, no girls. I'll call this the "Boys Only Club" result.

2. Split the party into a "People who know what they are doing" and "People who can't tell a quarterstaff from a ten-foot-pole". Have the people who know what they're doing remain on the Friday campaign, and run the people who can't tell a quarterstaff from a ten-foot-pole through a low-level module so they can better learn the rules of the game. This increases my workload but splits it into manageable chunks.