Interesting Challenges For Higher-Op Parties?

[ChaoticDitz]

Obviously, the encounters (combat and otherwise) that will be challenging but not impossible for a group of T1 and T2 characters (full and spontaneous casters/manifesters, mostly) played on the higher end of the Practical Op spectrum will be way, way more advanced than the things you'd challenge the WotC playtest team with.

... Well, really, those challenges should be worlds apart from even something as relatively close as challenges for well-played Wildshape Rangers/Bards/Warblades, but that is only tangentially related to my question here.

But yeah. You just don't try challenging such a high-op, high-power party with the average slew of monsters no matter what level they are. In a way, this is a given; after all, there's a reason those players are optimizing to such power degrees.

It can make it hard for a DM trying to keep things interesting, though. I mean, maybe I'm the weird one, but I feel as a player I'd get bored if the only way the DM ever challenged me with were other humanoid casters of varying levels in relation to mine. I mean, it seems pretty difficult to make traps and legitimate monster fights that the PCs can't trivialize. Tucker's Kobolds tactics just don't work in high-op D&D, and while I'm not arguing that you should be expect to throw mundane brutes at them and actually accomplish anything, it gets a bit ridiculous that everything needs class levels or tampering with by a creature with those class levels to be worth much.

And no, I'm not making some binary assertion that all casters are the same, or that they aren't going to be interesting opponents. This obviously isn't the case. But it's a lot harder to keep coming up with new effective combos that won't eventually either get boring or feel patterned and somewhat forced. Especially since it's very rare that the players will actually see the more nuanced parts of the build that might give them separate interest from the player perspective.

What kinds of challenges can you give much higher-op parties that won't just fade into dullness? What are some mechanically effective, creative things a DM could do to spice things up so it's not all a lot of the same full caster drudgery?

(Or am I just wrong, and most players are satisfied by what I consider redundancy?)

[Theomniadept]

Many T1 through T3 classes have summoning; don't be afraid to return the favor. Obviously it shouldn't just be T1 parties versus T1 parties but creatures with summoning can easily provide a decent challenge. Nonmagical creatures take a huge hit to power but creatures with the ability to control other creatures are a good way to shoe-horn powerful bruisers into situations they wouldn't go into normally. I cannot recall any good examples right now but dragon nests are always good. A couple big ones capable of magic with the aid of a swarm of babies, abusing transportation modes like swimming, circle-strafing, or burrowing.

[Techwarrior]

One of my most memorable player experiences at that high of a level was when we assaulted a Formian city to go after it's queen.

Another good one was a game where we spent from levels 2 to 13 chasing around Prime Material minions of a powerful Shadow Dragon before figuring out how to get to it's lair and slay it.

Traps and the like can all be advanced to challenging levels, although it requires a skilled hand to use the custom trap rules without causing a TPK or making them seem trivial. That goes for most custom encounter rules though.

High CR monsters that have magic items to cover their weakness, even if only partially (A Wartroll with a Ring of Resist Acid 30, a Dex item, and a decent Mighty Bow for instance) can make for tough, memorable challenges.

And then my favorite is the recurring NPC who manages to snatch a total victory from the PCs' hands and then make their amazing get-away, preferably while suffering losses themselves.

[LogosDragon]

Given how many people here take pride in their optimization skills and how often I see people mentioning how it's only realistic if you're good at your job, I figured people had plenty of answers about what needed those crazy abilities in their game to take care if.

Obviously I was wrong. I just hope that doesn't mean the majority of the optimizer half of these boards only finds it fun to go over the top when they're dealing with a game that can't handle it.

To answer the question, things with lots of Touch AC and high saves tend to do fairly well. Dragons come to mind, though it might violate your hope for non-casters; to be fair, the only spell that they really would care about in this fight is Scintillating Scales.

[Magesmiley]

Combined arms and numbers. Mix different creature capabilities in the combat in a complementary fashion. Combined with numbers, this can be quite challenging, even with creatures that are weaker than the PCs.

Take advantage of numbers in this scenario - you've got many more actions, these don't have to all be attack. If some of your creatures use their actions to just foil or impede those of the PCs, it makes the ones not doing so effective. Counterspell and readied actions to pincushion casters when they cast work well in this category, especially if it means they can't use their magics to wipe out the horde that is overrunning them.

Play your creatures to the full level of their intelligence. Yes, this means targeting the characters that give the monsters the most bang for the buck, based on what they can see and observe. Concentrate attacks, don't spread them around. Yes, this will generally lead to more fatalities amongst the more lightly armored squishy arcane casters.

Time pressure and limited resources. This is one of the biggest overlooked ones if you're dealing with casters. If they don't have time to recover spells and must press on, it makes them a LOT weaker. Also no free passes while resting. When the PCs are asleep is a prime time for smart monsters and enemies to attack. And it is also a really sucky time for casters to have to do battle.

Unusual environments and enemies that take advantage of the terrain. Again, play your monsters as smart as their intelligence dictates. They are familiar with the area, the PCs aren't. Use this. Traps hidden in the middle of battlefields that the monsters know enough to avoid, weak walls or ceiling supports, piles of rubble to hide behind and snipe, greased inclines or stairs, etc. Even moderately intelligent monsters should be smart enough to come up with ways to defend themselves that minimizes their personal risk.

[Talderas]

Place the characters into an Iron Chef competition. Secret ingredient pumpkin.

[Eldariel]

A simple technique: Don't plan individual encounters. Plan a world. Plan/have them decide/whatever a quest. That's it. High-op Characters have the advantage of being quite self-driven. Since you have the important characters statted up anyways, and hopefully some useful maps you can run on the important locales (if not, you can always call for session end and prepare them for the next time), you're effectively prepared for whatever they want to do.

Since powers they're hostile to act on a strategic scale too, provided they have relevant strategic power (wealth, magic, underlings/contacts), well, there's a whole lot of things they can throw at the party; bound/animated/crafted creatures, hirelings (or things of equal value bought/crafted and equipped), their whole power structure.


It's really no different from any other campaign, except that you can trust the PCs to be able to do things like gather information, move, find their goal and come up with the means without nudging from you. They've got the class features and the savviness to do that themselves.

And of course, you're free to unbound the enemies and have them play smart too. Vanilla dungeons and such aren't interesting challenges (unless running Only This Place Exists-types of campaigns solely as combat gauntlets), but defeating an organization, an outsider, a kingdom, Illithid hive, Beholderkin, a chessmaster Dragon or whatever certainly has room for powerful enemies and their abilities that can probably do the same or even more than what the PCs can.