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fireinthedust
2007-01-24, 10:11 PM
This is not a poll. (love em, tho!)

I DM'd a game the last night. The PCs were all 15th level monstrosities, I wanted the game to be crazy. Thing was I got lazy and over-confident with my uber-villains, and the minion body count was too easy. Also I only ever do low-level games.

WARNING: the following is a tale of woe (aka: whining). Ye have been warned!

I got the PCs defending a fort. The army of Minotaurs, apparently, is a cake walk with great cleave and a large-sized spiked drow chain with a bunch of special abilities. That was ok, as they'd be animated by the Lich (special ravenloft CS ability augmented by a wish) and when killed would explode for negative damage bursts (corpse crafter feat chain, Libris Mortis). Thing was, the PCs were mostly immune to negative energy.

Not only that but I didn't know what items to buy for the villains: the wizard only had staves (to cast more spells) and the warrior and cleric (minotaur frenzied berserker and fire giant cleric) both only had armour on; even the cleric, who was ethereal, was still harmed by the spiked chain so she died in one round of attacks. The Minotaur general took more than 50 hp on one attack and failed his fort save (no resistance bonuses, 17 con, and I rolled a 1).

Still, while they were fighting I had a bunch of fire giants beat up the druid//wizard's dire bear familiar. He didn't die after 2000 hp loss, as they had this weird spell that let's him not die from hp loss for the duration; but I still got him down!!!

the best part was the eye-opener: apparently saves are big, damage reduction is a must, and massive hp keeps high level combat going for more than one round of AoO's!

also: dry erase markers don't wipe off a battlemat UNTIL palmolive and warm water soaks, and even then i recommend a hand-cloth and elbow-grease; you can avoid a heart attack that way.

What I think I'm going to have to do is level the playing field next game: the items have to be made obsolete (if not gotten rid of); and the focus needs to be on solving puzzles as well, so they're challenged and not so smug!!!

JimmyDPawn
2007-01-24, 11:24 PM
Dont forget to play to your players weaknesses, direct each spells save type (Fort, Ref, Will) at those who have those at weakest... make liberal use of invisibility effects (can't AOO a target you can't see, even if you find it somehow), fly effects(though watch for dispel), damage reduction, maybe even save-less rays. (hey, if players can kill the taresque by knocking it out with wis and int damage, why not in reverse?)

Unless the equiptment they have is actually broken for their level, I wouldn't mess with them. It tends to make players very (expectedly, and understandably) irritated.

krossbow
2007-01-24, 11:29 PM
Dude, you forgot the most important part!


A frenzied berserker gnome riding a tarrasque with barding and death cannons into the fray! No massive battle is complete without it!:smallcool:

Indon
2007-01-24, 11:56 PM
Personally, I generally don't let my villains fail their saves in round one.

I roll behind a screen for precisely this purpose.

Zincorium
2007-01-25, 01:46 AM
A few things:

You let the PCs prepare fully for the battle, didn't ya? S'ok, we all do that occasionally. Just realize that it magnifies their power considerably over when they're surprised.

Two, I'm seeing some things which look like house rules from the way you wrote them, like the dire bear familiar. The two normally can't be combined, and a wizard/druid isn't a good combination (with the double slash, did you mean gestalt? That's what it's often used for).

Three, you should probably pay a bit closer attention to whether tactics and such used by the PCs actually work or not, and maybe target the obviously more fragile characters, such as the ones in light or no armor, over the tanks. That only makes sense from the monster's perspectives.

Anyway, live, learn, and you can't lose as the DM. A villian can, sure, but if you don't identify them as 'your' character, there's no dissappointment even.

clericwithnogod
2007-01-25, 03:38 AM
A few other things...

The massive damage rule is pretty awful, particularly as 50 HP really isn't all that massive past a certain (and not all that high) level. Dumping this is mentioned in an offhand way in one of the Rules of the Game articles regarding character death. Much as I hate house rules, the mechanics on this are so awful that this should be dumped. If not, at high levels this is going to end up killing any character that plays for any significant amount of time, as sooner or later everybody will have rolled a one for this.

Equipping monsters to make them tougher is always tricky, as when the monsters die, the characters have that much more stuff you have to factor in to create a challenge next time. But, the game is balanced so that things with character levels need items as part of their progression to be effective, so you're stuck either way.

While the actual mechanic involved, death by massive damage, is awful, ones and twenties are part of the game, they're what adds risk and great success. You could run a game and just automatically give everyone 11 on each roll, but then why bother playing at all. Just post the builds up to a forum, do some quick math, and tell everyone who won.

The character's wizard dropping a rally dangerous demon on a critted, maximized, empowered, orb due to a failed save in the first round is something the player will really enjoy and it's the kind of thing that the players will bring up to each other over and over. Similarly when the dwarf's waraxe procs a crit three times in a row, mangling the BBEBG so badly that the DM panics and has him start trying to self heal and he goes into a healing in combat death spiral that allows the party to mop up the evil cleric and his minions with no problem, that's something the player will take great pleasure in and the other players will remember and talk about long afterward.

Similarly, it's the times that players take a nasty hit or series of hits that disrupts their normal tactics or strategies that raise the tension and make battles memorable. And the deaths that, hopefully quite infrequently, occur as a result are what give acts of courage and self-sacrifice in the game meaning.

Douglas
2007-01-25, 04:14 AM
This was the gestalt game with three free items per player in addition to wealth with no limit besides non-artifact, right? I'm curioues, how much did those uber items contribute to the massacre?

If you want a BBEG to truly make the players scared for their lives, try a high level caster with Greater Dispel Magic and a metamagic rod of Chain Spell. Add Greater Arcane Sight so he knows exactly what to target. Entire party buffed with Death Ward? No problem, that'll be four of the 1+caster level targets. Ooh, look at that, your puny Cloaks of Resistance +5 only have a caster level of 5 - they're gone for 1d4 rounds, I don't even have to roll to make the DC 16 check. Ring of Freedom of Movement preventing my Mass Hold Person from working? Add that to the list, caster level 7 is nothing. If they don't have a Spell Turning effect up, you can even get every active spell on each PC for just one target per PC, leaving more targets for magic items. If you want to be really nasty, make it Reaving Dispel from Complete Arcane - any buffs that would get dispelled get transferred to the BBEG instead. For maximum effect, give him levels in Master Specialist (Abjuration) from Complete Mage (gives +1/2 class level on dispel checks) and the Elven Spell Lore feat from PHBII (+2 to dispel checks). You'd be amazed how much weaker the party is without their equipment and buffs.

Saph
2007-01-25, 08:25 AM
I don't want to say "I told you so", but . . . this is EXACTLY why I won't play in any game that starts higher than 4th-level.

A character who's played from 1st to 15th level naturally will have lots of powerful stuff, but everyone knows about it, so it's not so much of a surprise to the DM, and a lot of their wealth will have been spent bit by bit on fixes to specific problems.

A character starting out at 15th-level, though . . . there's absolutely nothing stopping them from just flipping through the sourcebooks and assembling the most insanely powerful combination of spells, abilities, and items they can possibly come up with (and with some players, that's very, very powerful. I know some players who could replicate the Death Star with a 15th-level character's starting budget). Since the character is just starting out, there's not much motivation to hold back on their character power - they figure (correctly) that the game will probably be over soon anyway, so why not cut loose and have fun?

About the only way to challenge players at this level is to put them against stuff that they don't immediately know how to beat. Illusion effects, enemies that are very hard to detect/harm, and homebrew monsters with weird abilities are best. A bunch of melee monsters like minotaurs? Forget it. The spellcasters will slaughter them. Either that, or you buff them up enough that they can take out the spellcasters in one round, which is no fun either.

These sort of games CAN be fun, but you have to expect balance to go out the window right from the start, and make the focus more on "which powers are going to be effective?"

- Saph

Red Sky Knight
2007-01-25, 01:54 PM
Considering the +5 racial bonus to constitution, 17's pretty low for an elite minotaur!

Whatever the PCs can use, NPCs and monsters can use, too. Equip the monsters with similar items as the PCs wield. I don't think there is any need to take the character's equipment from them, there are other fixes. Warn the characters that the last session was a warm up, and next time increase the CR of the enemies the PCs are to face. After all, encounter levels are only intended as a guide as to what the PCs may find challenging, not a ruling on what you should systematically face the PCs with.

I, personally like the death from massive damage rule - any rule that makes combat a little more realistic is good. If a grizzly bear can disembowel a person with one swipe, how much more deadly would a dragon's claws be? Combat should always carry inherent risk - the PCs get rewarded for the risks they take, I say, make them earn it.

Caelestion
2007-01-25, 01:57 PM
Minotaurs have a +4 racial bonus to Con. You count from 10 if the stat is even or from 11 if it's odd.

purple gelatinous cube o' Doom
2007-01-25, 02:06 PM
a good thing to do for high level bad guy leaders is to have contingent resurrection cast on them. That way the PC's all think they have defeated him only for him to rise a few minutes later as if he'd never been in combat.

fireinthedust
2007-01-25, 02:20 PM
Yeah, it was the Gestalt game i mentioned earlier.

I did let the PCs prep. I should have started from round one (like if they want to weave a spell, they have to start from round one, even if it takes all night).

the equipment was a major factor in PC brutality. I should have done no gold and 3 items, or standard gld however they want. The PCs had a war weaver who'd transformed into a Planetar, and the Tank was a fighter, frenzied berserker monk barbarian (who had either an item or class ability allowing him to transform into a War Troll with an Uber chain and reeeeeeeach).
they went through two CR21 red dragons. 2 of them!

Another major factor was they have very high saves with Gestalt, so even with a time stop and a disjunction, they didn't loose much of anything. The Tank had evasion from monk levels, so even two red dragon's breathing on him missed. Grrr.

HOWEVER: I have six months in England to fixup a dungeon that will take them down. Already the entire dungeon is going to have a no-fly zone on it. I want a corridor with anti-magic in it, and if they use some item to overcome that the walls have Moil zombies buried in them. I'm going to have to make a level filled with Constructs led by a Gestalt Dr. Doom (artificer//wizard?). I want another with a Rust dragon beefed up with spells. One area should have spheres of annihilation in it, in a maze of Invisible walls of force... oooh, I have an idea for that: use my old master labyrinth board, have it BEHIND A SCrENe, and tell them to move their PCs in a square on the battlemat. They can feel along the walls, but the walls deal some kind of damage to them, or something. Meanwhile, the Spheres move along the paths (not through the walls) towards them at speed 20 (less then them).

They do need a combat... I guess I could go for Outsiders, but I don't want it to be too much of a cake-walk for them.

Does anyone play RPGA in England/Britain? I've been told they'll teach me how toplay/powergame.

Caelestion
2007-01-25, 02:21 PM
I know a couple of people who play in the RPGA. If an ex-friend of mine is anything to go by, take Warmage and lots of it! *gag*

Gamebird
2007-01-25, 02:22 PM
Ten years ago, after several sessions of combat-smugness from my Vampire players, I took my copies of their character sheets and used those for the next group of bad guys, using similar tactics.

-- It was a serious challenge.
-- They weren't smug afterwards.
-- Most of them thought it was hilarious and a lot of fun.
-- They made fun of the weakest "enemy" character and the player counterpart got so mad he quit the game.


I also want to second some of the strategies outlined above:
-- Use surprise.
-- Don't attack the PCs in a defensive position.
-- Don't let the PCs know the abilities of their foes.

And I'll add:
-- Have the NPCs retreat when they get seriously threatened.
-- Make sure they retreat into a position/location where the PCs are at a serious disadvantage (PC: "I cast Limited Wish so this next teleport spell takes us to wherever the bad guys just went." DM: Okay. You cast Teleport and find yourself in a huge cavern. You see the bad guys about 30' away, explaining themselves to the largest beholder you've ever thought about. Twelve others float nearby, all wearing regalia and ornaments that let you know these are the elite of their tribe. More are coming. Oh, and none of your magic works. It's all deactivated by the 13 beholders looking at you. Roll initiative." - or something like that).
-- Don't forget that the point of the game more-or-less involves the PCs winning.

Gamebird
2007-01-25, 02:26 PM
If you're doing gestalt with high level adds, make sure the bad guys have the same advantages.

I'll also say that if you can't take the heat, quit playing with the fire. That is, if you don't know how to whip the player's butts with a certain ruleset, then go back to low levels, introductory, factory settings and learn. There is a reason why I'm two years into my first D&D campaign and still consider myself a novice at running D&D. If you insist on starting fast and powerful, then don't whine about the ever-increasing number of crash-and-burns you have.

fireinthedust
2007-01-25, 02:38 PM
Indeed, indeed. This actually works for me: I hate losing (ie: not having the best Mod out there, high quality as it could be), so this is a good challenge. I'm not trying to kill them, but I want to WOW them. That's how I, as DM, can win. I don't wnt any of them sitting out, I don't want them feeling like they could be somewhere else, I want them eating out of my hand thinking it's the best game they've ever played. That would be sweet.

I like the idea of using their PCs. I like that a lot. And I think a dungeon would work well, as it lets me change the scenery to suit the game.

Good point about the fire. Thing is, if I don't start using it I'll never have used it. I need to get my feet more than wet: I need to stew!

Saph
2007-01-25, 02:46 PM
This was the gestalt game with three free items per player in addition to wealth with no limit besides non-artifact, right?

Oh, good grief. I didn't see that the first time round. That's just freaking INSANE. Forget the Death Star, those players could have created the entire Imperial Starfleet.

You have to cut, way, WAY back on the power level. For starters, consider that a standard 15th-level party, with access to lots of books and standard wealth-by-level, can wipe out pretty much anything ALREADY, as long as they use good tactics. If you give them that kind of equipment, and making them gestalt as well . . . I don't even want to know. It's like giving a bunch of kids flamethrowers and sending them to go play in a fireworks factory.

Don't allow anything into your game that you don't thoroughly understand, and don't GM at any level that you aren't already experienced with. Otherwise, this kind of stuff happens.

- Saph

Dausuul
2007-01-25, 03:18 PM
Good point about the fire. Thing is, if I don't start using it I'll never have used it. I need to get my feet more than wet: I need to stew!Dude, this is like saying "I want to learn martial arts, so the first thing I need to do is jump into a tiger pit armed with a ping-pong paddle."

Really... start small. Pick a low level. I find 3-5 is good; lower than 3 and the PCs die if you breathe on them, higher than 5 and the casters start getting hard to control. Give them standard wealth by level, and learn how that goes. Restricting your players to core books only wouldn't hurt either. Once you get the hang of that, then start branching out.

I've been playing and running D&D in its various incarnations for almost twenty years, and I still find things starting to spin out of control when the campaign gets past level 12 or so.

Renegade Paladin
2007-01-25, 05:43 PM
My worst time DMing has to be, hands down, the first time I ever tried a war campaign.

The PCs were supposed to be functioning as an elite commando unit. What'd they do? They went straight to the front lines, created a gigantic mud pit with magic, and proceeded to try and hold off the orc horde.

We were swamped in rolls. Couldn't get a damned thing done. Campaign didn't go for a second session. And I'd put so much work into it beforehand, too. The surrounding terrain, multiple copies of maps of said terrain, the orc warlord's bodyguard, the strategy of the grossly outnumbered town militia to evacuate the town and pull back across the river, the whole lot. All to waste because most of the party just decided to charge the nearest orc.

krossbow
2007-01-25, 05:55 PM
Somethign that I learned long ago: Never count on your PC's running or even retreating, even if they've gotten numerous visions of themselves in the future running, and basically a big "OMG, Run from me!" sign on enemies.


They either kill it or die half the time that i've seen.
________
BUY ROOR BONGS (http://glassbongs.org/)

NullAshton
2007-01-25, 06:06 PM
Minor thing... to get marks off of an easel or something, just scribble over it with the marker. Then erase the marks, the new marks will come right off with the old marks.

Chris_Chandler
2007-01-25, 06:15 PM
In this situation you clearly gave the PCs an overwhelming advantage. The minotaurs were mooks, clearly mooks, which is fine, but the power level was just monstrous. To "even the playing field", you need to come out just as monstrous.

Mechanically speaking, big red dragons are beaten pretty quickly, but let me ask you - how many spells did those dragons cast? How high in the air were they when they were whooped? Where were their minions?

This is just a quick note - I'm not picking - all DMs have been "whooped" before, but that's exactly why you don't just look at Hit dice, number of attacks and Spell resistance. You look over everything and look over everything that the players have. If you were running a lich up to the task of being the BBEG for a ECL 15 gestalt game, he should have know just about everything about the PCs, especially since this was an in media res affair.

Gamebird is quite correct though - the goal of D&D, if there ever is one, is to allow your characters to grow, develop, and become great. That's the winning to D&D. Don't be sore, but, to assuage your hurting ego, give 'em something to sweat about next time. It'll mean more then, for both you and your group.

Gamebird
2007-01-25, 06:53 PM
They either kill it or die half the time that i've seen.

Same here. Quite a few players would either kill their characters than have them do something cowardly like retreat. Doubly so if one of their allies has fallen.

Also, the rules don't make it all that easy to survive a retreat. Usually by the point in time you want to run away, you can see you won't survive doing so (attacks of opportunity, ranged weapons, enemy has a faster movement rate, etc.)

Renegade Paladin
2007-01-25, 07:01 PM
Running away wasn't the problem; they were supposed to hit the orcs' back ranks and take out their command staff, such as it is. Without the warlord, the horde breaks. Instead, they decided to wade straight through the front line.

It was all my brother's fault; he's just opposed to his characters ever taking orders from anyone at any time for any reason, so he just led a charge because it was the opposite of what the general wanted. If the campaign had gone further, I would have had him court-martialed and executed because I was quite sick of his antics by then.

Viscount Einstrauss
2007-01-25, 07:23 PM
Player: Heh, that was easy.
DM: You take 12 lethal damage.
Player: Huh? From what?
DM: Raw spite.

Ethdred
2007-01-26, 09:27 AM
Try dragging the combat out by using lots of little guys rather than a few big guys. So the party arrive in a dungeon and meet 4 mooks who set off the alarm. Party decides it doesn't need to waste spells on such a poxy encounter so sends the tank in to smack them about. Then next round, four more mooks come rushing in. Party decides that they should all get involved in the combat. A few rounds later, the party realises that maybe they should have buffed up for this one. A few rounds after that, their buffs start to wear off and the casters are worried about how many spell slots they have left. And then the mook army's commanders wander in to see what the fuss is about.

Make sure you always leave an escape route for the party, because if you do this right (and big enough) they'll need it.

DaMullet
2007-01-26, 10:37 AM
Player: Heh, that was easy.
DM: You take 12 lethal damage.
Player: Huh? From what?
DM: Raw spite.
This is getting sigged.