Challanging a large group

[maniacalmojo]

I am running a 3.5 game with a bunch of people and i find monster encounters to be hard to plan for

The group is all level 7

We have
-A large sized custom race barbarian with around 24 str using enchanted melee greatsword. Does about +12 bonus damage on strikes, has large reach and all normal barbarian stuff. walks through most encounters.

-A roleplay heavy bard with some decent bardic abilities like melodic song. New to system

-A machine gun magic missle mage (i think the actual class is invoker) has some utility magic along with a decently powerful magic missle attack.

-A pirate girl using pistols. Mostly a social charecter.

-a swordancer (custom class) Mainly a two weapon fighter with some cool sword abilities. Likes to pop in to attack then roll out

-A custom race large horse warblade who uses a greatsword and TOB abilities to wreck the field.

-A semi optimal elf archer. Has a enchanted bow and deals about 20 damage pershot 3-4 times a round. Has insane hide abilities. Is somewhat paranoid.

-A druid/Wizard/arcane hierophant Elf generalist casting character with 18 wisdom 16 Int a large list of spells. She has an animal familiar companion bear that has 36 str with most tricks, she can use it as the center of her spellcasting and the bear has some pretty intense saves (lowest save for the bear is 12) she is also a decent archer as well. That said she is a brand new player and is unaware of exploits so she uses her abilities to buff and heal mostly while having her bear kill things (she does make the meat tanks pretty hard to deal with however)


So as a DM i like to create challanging encounters without actually killing a party. This is not about the group being too powerful but rather there are some pretty intense differences of power. If i send something strong enough to contend with the meat tanks then the moment it hits anyone else in the party they are nearly dying. or basically dead. If i do not then the players kind of walk through things. There are no good roguish types in the party to deal with traps or things either, nor are their healers or really spellcasters of any sort except for the druid/wizard.

Any thoughts?

[VoxRationis]

Out of curiosity, what is the elf doing to get 20 damage per arrow at level 7?

My knee-jerk reaction is to say 'Throw a proportionally larger group at them.' This would keep them from ganging up on the 'boss' of the encounter and killing him before he gets initiative. However, that could slow down the action considerably and bore your players unless you either: a), are capable of adjudicating the actions of the NPCs at a very high rate; or b), make sure to involve the players. Use monsters that have save-forcing attacks rather than against-AC attacks, or better yet, use the "players roll the dice" variant from Unearthed Arcana such that everyone is likely to do something even when it's not their turn.

Alternatively, include environmental dangers or secondary objectives that occupy certain party members ("Rogue! We need this trap disarmed and this door opened NOW!") such that they can't focus all of their members on offense at one time.

You could also find ways of splitting the party into two groups (but keep them on the same initiative lineup, so that the "out-of-the-spotlight" group doesn't get bored) and make them continue through the dungeon parallel to one another.

[Falcon X]

Vox said my idea. Give them more things to do in a fight. Multiple enemies, or maybe the tanks have to hold off the bad guy while the others solve a puzzle.

[VoxRationis]

Hm. I didn't see the "no rogues" part of the original post. As far as "how do I contend with the fighters" question, I'd recommend ranged combat. Put people on makeshift ramparts, or hiding among the cracks in the cliff face, on platforms on the far side of a chasm, etc., in addition to having some foes attacking in melee. The melee characters become occupied with the question of how they are to protect their more delicate counterparts from the nearby enemies while the delicate types shoot/fly/parkour across the gap and defeat the snipers.

[maniacalmojo]

The archer does a lot of damage due to his mixed feats and enchanted composite bow.

2d6 from sneak attack
1d8 from bow
+4 str due to bow
+5 dex due to deadeye feat
+1d6 flaming from fire enchantment
+1 magical
+1 weapon focus

He also has a hide of +19 and a move silent of +18

He has rapid shot. as well. So he reliably can do about 60 per turn on a good roll.

[Tohsaka Rin]

Run a raid of a small horde (kobolds or goblins, or just human bandits or something easy) attacking a small village. Go by volume, and static places to defend against the tide of flesh.

The challenge is in protecting everyone, not 'killing the enemy'.

Ever seen The 13th Warrior? That's a good model for a campaign, just reflavor it if you don't like norsemen.

[prufock]

I count 8 players, you could make two parties. One idea, then, is to split the group into two different adventuring parties/gaming groups. It may not be feasible, depending on your schedules and the willingness of others to take on the DM role. Plus you may simply enjoy getting together as a big group. You could run different nights (DMing both yourself) or the same night with a co-DM who runs one group while you run the other (that would be a 4-player/3-player split).

Another idea, contrary to popular advice, is to split the party (albeit temporarily). Throw enemies at them who have some prep time and battlefield control abilities. Toss down some walls of stone or iron between them, and have each group deal with its own challenges. Multiple foes is essentially a must unless you have a much more powerful villain that can handle a group of that size. This is sort of a gimmicky trick that you won't be able to use all the time without being obvious.

My personal preferred setup, however, are encounters that involve several different challenges at once. Just for example's sake:
- The damsel in distress is hanging over a precipice filled with spikes at the bottom. Someone needs to save her.
- The BBEG is close to completing his ritual/obtaining the McGuffin. Someone needs to stop him.
- There is a big sub-boss in the way that will eat you. Someone needs to kill it or at least hold it off.
- The cavern is collapsing/quaking. Someone needs to protect the party from falling debris.
- There is a horde or minions advancing.
All of this is going on at once! The BBEG is about to complete his ritual. The end of the ritual is sacrificing the damsel. The magical energy of the ritual is causing the quakes. The sub-boss is the larval/juvenile form of whatever eldritch horror is being summoned by the ritual. The minions are there to protect their boss (and as cannon fodder for the party).

This way, you split duties for a big encounter into manageable chunks. IE the barbarian and warblade take on the monster, the pistolero, archer, sword dancer, and machine-gunner mage start dealing with the minion horde, and the druid uses his tricks to try to save the damsel. The bard (depending on skill set) can buff them all, or try to disrupt the ritual, or whatever.

Another example is protecting a town from raiders/invaders. The main goal here is to protect the townsfolk rather than just kill all the enemies. Threats in this scenario can come from many different directions. You have one group trying to break down the front gate, another climbing the walls, possible air support, etc. Your ranged attackers can be on the walls dealing with air support and climbers, while your heavy hitters are on the ground holding the gate and dealing with those that get through. Your bard can buff everybody, making even the lowly 1st-level warrior town guards somewhat effective, or discover that there are moles inside the town already attacking from within.

[Amphetryon]

Having run for large groups, I 2nd (3rd, 4th, etc) the call for piles of mook adversaries, as they create a better encounter overall than simply upping the CR of a single adversary who is still likely to get run over by the Action Economy. For change-of-pace encounters, use battlefield control adversaries who can effectively remove one or more Characters from the fight for a round or two; this is particularly useful if used to allow those who tend to get less spotlight time a chance to strut their stuff.

[John Longarrow]

to add on to what prufock posted, expanding numbers and drawing out the encounter both work to mitigate single (or multiple) powerful melee characters. If you have the party face ONE Frost giant, expect a short fight that causes a dead giant. Instead try something like this;

The party sees some small creatures drop into a hole about 400 feet away. This is followed by them receiving crossbow fire.
As the party closes, they hear a shrill whistle followed by receiving crossbow fire from 6 different spots (each has 3 goblin crossbowmen).
As the party figures out how they want to deal with the incoming missile fire, 4 goblins come out from behind cover riding worgs and charge.

About round 4 or 5 the goblin spell casters (Lvl 3 who have been buffing if needed) join the fray after identifying the best targets. This should be about the time that 2 or 3 of the pits (+4 to AC against missile from cover) have been taken out. At the same time the goblin missile troops fall back to cover. The spell casters probably use either BFC spells or summons to slow down the party. About round 10 is when the real heavies show up, 4 Ogres who've dipped one level in Ranger. This should all total out to be two CR 7 encounters.

Remember, if you toss one CR 7 at the party it is going to get eaten. A CR 9 is about their "average" due to 8 characters. Putting them up against CR 9s will be tough on the less optimized characters though, so using 2 CR 7s and treating this as being 2 lvl 7 parties will work much better.

[IIzak]

The Angry DM came up with this idea that he calls "Popcorn Initiative" which is based on that old game you'd play in class called "popcorn" to decide which kid had to read the next paragraph out loud. Basically, players roll initiative like normal, then whoever rolls highest goes first, and after they go, they pick who gets to go next, and so on. I think this system would help to keep a fight with lots of people interesting, because everyone is constantly having to pay attention. I'd definitely check it out and some of the other stuff on his site, which is all very cool.

angrydm.com

[VoxRationis]

The archer does a lot of damage due to his mixed feats and enchanted composite bow.

2d6 from sneak attack
1d8 from bow
+4 str due to bow
+5 dex due to deadeye feat
+1d6 flaming from fire enchantment
+1 magical
+1 weapon focus

He also has a hide of +19 and a move silent of +18

He has rapid shot. as well. So he reliably can do about 60 per turn on a good roll.

I'm sorry I'm focusing on this so much, but how does he deal sneak attack 3 times in a turn? Even if the enemies' Spot scores are so low the -20 penalty for hiding after an attack doesn't make a difference, hiding is not a free action.

[prufock]

I'm sorry I'm focusing on this so much, but how does he deal sneak attack 3 times in a turn? Even if the enemies' Spot scores are so low the -20 penalty for hiding after an attack doesn't make a difference, hiding is not a free action.

If you've already hidden at least 10 feet from an enemy, hiding with the -20 after an attack is actually an immediate action. See "Sniping" in the hide skill description.

There are many ways to qualify for sneak attack. Marbles, grease, blindness, greater invisibility, etc.

[John Longarrow]

If you've already hidden at least 10 feet from an enemy, hiding with the -20 after an attack is actually an immediate action. See "Sniping" in the hide skill description.

There are many ways to qualify for sneak attack. Marbles, grease, blindness, greater invisibility, etc.

Character is +19 to hide, no biggie.
Biggie is "Is reliably getting". This sounds like something else is going on OR the character never faces creatures immune to crit/smart enough to get close.

maniacalmojo
Can you please walk us through an average fight for this party?

[prufock]

Character is +19 to hide, no biggie.
Biggie is "Is reliably getting". This sounds like something else is going on OR the character never faces creatures immune to crit/smart enough to get close.

Or never gets a chance to, what with 7 other characters standing around and being very well hidden. I'm not saying he should be reliably sneak attacking, just that there's no reason he shouldn't, either.

[John Longarrow]

prufock,

I'm just trying to figure out how in an 8 person party the archer always gets within 30 feet hidden and can pull off full attack actions for sneak damage. This may be because most of the fights in my game are fairly dynamic, so sitting in one spot generally means you don't stay within 30'.