DM Balancing Issues.

[Dan Arcueid]

Hi,

I've recently been DMing a pathfinder campaign for awhile and the party has finally reached level 8. A bit of a thorn in my side throughout this process has been getting properly balanced encounters.

Below is a bit of an explanation of the current party configuration:

We've had a few deaths (none combat related yet mostly out of combat derps) so the party's makeup has changed a bit. The issue is either an encounter is easy, barely going to make it without miracle rolls hard, or perfect challenging.

The issue is while I've stumbled across the magic recipe for a challenging encounter with the current party makeup its difficult to achieve this without using a cookie cutter encounter.

So a little information this is our setup (and you'll see quickly how an encounter can just destroy them) so far there are players.
1. Arcanist - Magic guy of the party with an AC buffed of 20 and a health pool of about 28 so he spends the first 10 rounds of combat at least trying to get to that buffed AC level.
2. Oracle - Our "Tank". He has a health of about 80ish due to lucky rolls and a good con score. He's built as a lore mystery oracle with the clouded vision trait. His AC is decent but obviously makes up with it by having alot of healing and a massive health pool. The player isn't very creative in combat so he's primarily melee and just eats hits to the face as he's the first to rush in.
3. Barbarian - Titan mauler. Humorously enough the titan mauler thing didn't really add much to her overall damage. She's using a large bastard sword giving her a 2d8 + 7 normally and while raging + power attacking somewhere around like 2d8+21 (power attack 2h mainly + reckless raging+reckless abandon her AC is like 12 but she has a health of 108 while raging and infinity to hit).
4. Fighter - Our late bloomer who decided to be a two weapon fighter (archetype) who couldn't hit to save his life now suddenly can sometimes hit and when he does is amazing, but he's still average and won't really start getting consistently decent until 10/11
5. Inquisitor(with 1 level fighter dip) - He took the sacred huntsman archetype and rides into combat with plate armor, a tower shield, and a lance on the back of his T-Rex (yeah the silly part about all of this is he's decided to give the character the voice of Sylvester Stallone), which of course means doorways that aren't greater than 5 feet are his bane.

As you can see 4 melee (2 who could cast spells but chose not to outside of self healing) and a Mage who can be killed by a stiff breeze.

The best balance of an encounter was 1 big beefy enemy (CR 8 large guy), 4 CR 5/6 enemies, and a Mage who was CR 8/9-ish. as it put enough stuff in the way between them and the nasty mage. 2nd best was a CR 14 monster who was able to beat the tar out of the party while keeping her grappled.

Of course i can't just make this a cookie cutter encounter or else they will either adapt or simply get bored.

The biggest problem has been the barbarian. Titan mauler isn't adding that much because I had a session where she lost her bastard sword and she got to use a standard great sword and it just bumped her from 2d8 to 2d6 (oh and because this player isn't that high speed she was using a non-enchanted sword until recently in which she got a +1 vicious great sword adding 2d6 to everything she hits (for 1d6 to herself but her infinity HP doesn't care).

This player generally hits every target and when she hits for about 35 a hit. So thats 1-2 rounds generally with her current base attack bonus.

Any suggestion on how to keep up the challenge and slow this one down a bit more? Encounters with CR 12-14 monsters are ending almost immediately.

I've heard suggestions of throwing more mages at them. Some like to point out the glass cannon status of the barbarian but the problem is i'm not going to just outright kill a player (who doesn't know how to min/max at all and just kinda stumbled upon greatness because they saw "OOH BIG SWORDS" and thew everything at str). And the biggest problem is i know if i ever drop this player they're dead because they'll lose that raging HP, go negative their con score, and die.

While I know eventually their character is a bad crit/die roll away from absolute obliteration I'm avoiding just outright focus fire killing them because their character is good (but i'm not exactly avoiding killing them either as they sustain a good share of damage before they erase the creature from existence).

Any clever ideas to at least slow them because right now I'm thinking throwing enemies who specialize in disarms/grapples are my best shot but i see this eventually annoying the character.


TLDR; lvl 8 Barbarian is a pain factory working overtime and makes stuff meant for lvl 14 parties average to them.

[Elricaltovilla]

Well, you're on the right track with using larger groups of weaker enemies instead of just one or two high CR targets. Some other things to look at might be swarms, creatures with innate spellcasting and using terrain or range to your advantage.

Since most of the party is melee oriented, using ranged attacks and terrain can up encounter difficulty. Simply adding difficult terrain will prevent charge attacks and limit mobility, while using narrow bridges, cliffs and other barriers (trees, pillars, pitfalls, etc.) can give your monsters places to attack from strategically. Pepper your players with ranged attacks from behind cover to weaken them and artificially raise the threat level before they close to melee.

Another option is flight, with most of the party lacking casting ability and ranged attacks, the ability to fly puts your monsters in an advantageous position. They can attack your party then retreat out of reach to heal, or (again) attack at range to weaken/kill party members.

Lastly, instead of relying on AC/Saves to protect your monsters, use concealment (via darkness, fog, spells, invisibility etc.), blur, mirror image, illusions, enchantments and debuffs to give your monsters more survivability. For example, barbarians can't rage if fatigued or exhausted and there are a number of spells that drop those kinds of effects if the target fails a save.

Honestly, most of what well optimized players do to survive the thousands of encounters they face over their careers can be used against them just as effectively.

All that being said, I think its worth pointing out that the monsters are supposed to lose. They should be challenging, yes, but I really can't condone the behavior of most killer DMs, where the game is player vs. DMs. D&D is a collaborative game, and you should all be working together to tell a great story :smallbiggrin:

[jedipotter]

The easy way: Just add Hit Points. Start with just 20. If that does not give you the right feel go for 30 and so on. You can also add Damage Reduction. Start with 10/- and go up. It might take a couple encounters, but you might figure out that DR 20/- and 30 HP is perfect.

Not so easy: You can advance all the encounters. Use temples, for example. Give each monster at least a couple class levels...like 6 or so.

Hard: set up more challenging encounters. Flying ones. Underwater ones. Ones in outer space. And so on.

[Firest Kathon]

You could also try to give your barbarian something else to do besides hitting things, e.g. getting out of a grapple, stand up from a trip, etc.

[Arbane]

The easy way: Just add Hit Points. Start with just 20. If that does not give you the right feel go for 30 and so on. You can also add Damage Reduction. Start with 10/- and go up. It might take a couple encounters, but you might figure out that DR 20/- and 30 HP is perfect.

Please do not do this. It is a safe bet that the players LIKE being able to one-shot enemies on a good roll, and when every single mook is able to absorb more damage than a Sherman tank, it makes battles a frustrating slog without actually being any more interesting. I speak from personal experience.




Not so easy: You can advance all the encounters. Use temples, for example. Give each monster at least a couple class levels...like 6 or so.

Why is it that all your methods of dealing with players consist of taking a halfway decent idea and then taking it far beyond what's reasonable?



Hard: set up more challenging encounters. Flying ones. Underwater ones. Ones in outer space. And so on.

This is actually decent advice. (I'm shocked that he didn't include 'inside an erupting volcano' and 'on the Negative Energy Plane'.)

[Extra Anchovies]

This is actually decent advice. (I'm shocked that he didn't include 'inside an erupting volcano' and 'on the Negative Energy Plane'.)

It's worth noting that those aren't particularly dangerous environments compared to JP's examples. In the air you have to deal with potential falling (especially with dispellable means of flight), underwater you have to worry about drowning (which is a 3-round kill if your Necklace of Adaptation is suppressed), and in space you're dealing with 2d6 fire or cold, plus 1d4 untyped, plus the risk of suffocation. All you need in a volcano is Fire Immunity, and all you need on the NEP is Death Ward (in fact, one of my favorite high-level fortress ideas is a stronghold built on the NEP protected by Hallow spells with Death Ward effects linked to them). And even if your defenses are dispelled in a volcano or on the NEP, all you do is take damage (as opposed to, say, drowning).

[Dan Arcueid]

Alright I'll try some of these.

We use maptools so flying enemies and 3d encounters in general have always been a difficult experience, though I've put together two macros to help calculate distance for firing at stuff from range (as our fighter does come prepared with a bow and for our mage) as well as quick set/display something's elevation.

As for water/ect the latest dungeon I put together was going to contain a number of "unusual" fighting environments for the players potentially allowing the monsters to have at least a little threat. Though the barbarian is wearing a Buccaneer's breastplate so they can just walk on water like its nothing.

Tried DR and more health a few times and it leads to 1 problem. The barbarian is the only one who becomes useful. Our Two weapon fighter and everyone else struggles to get over 10 damage most of the time. I had an encounter once with a succubus and the barbarian was the only one actually managing to hit it with any real damage. More health gives the players that same feeling because if it isn't dead after a couple of rounds of good damage/crits from them they panic because the barbarian didn't 1 shot it for them.

I'll try more combat maneuvers to slow the barbarian though I think this may frustrate the player if it happens to them a little more frequently than the rest of the party (considering the rest of them couldn't pass a CMB/CMD check to save their lives).

Eventually though I assume the barbarian might slow down on their reckless abandon/raging as its going to get harder and harder for them to not just fall over dead.

So I'll try a combination of these things over the next few encounters and hopefully it might raise the difficult a bit more.

[Ssalarn]

Well, you're on the right track with using larger groups of weaker enemies instead of just one or two high CR targets. Some other things to look at might be swarms, creatures with innate spellcasting and using terrain or range to your advantage.

Since most of the party is melee oriented, using ranged attacks and terrain can up encounter difficulty. Simply adding difficult terrain will prevent charge attacks and limit mobility, while using narrow bridges, cliffs and other barriers (trees, pillars, pitfalls, etc.) can give your monsters places to attack from strategically. Pepper your players with ranged attacks from behind cover to weaken them and artificially raise the threat level before they close to melee.

Another option is flight, with most of the party lacking casting ability and ranged attacks, the ability to fly puts your monsters in an advantageous position. They can attack your party then retreat out of reach to heal, or (again) attack at range to weaken/kill party members.

Lastly, instead of relying on AC/Saves to protect your monsters, use concealment (via darkness, fog, spells, invisibility etc.), blur, mirror image, illusions, enchantments and debuffs to give your monsters more survivability. For example, barbarians can't rage if fatigued or exhausted and there are a number of spells that drop those kinds of effects if the target fails a save.

Honestly, most of what well optimized players do to survive the thousands of encounters they face over their careers can be used against them just as effectively.

All that being said, I think its worth pointing out that the monsters are supposed to lose. They should be challenging, yes, but I really can't condone the behavior of most killer DMs, where the game is player vs. DMs. D&D is a collaborative game, and you should all be working together to tell a great story :smallbiggrin:

This is spectacular advice and is something every GM should be told at least once in their careers.

I'll add in (and repeat others to a certain extent) that varying the environment your party adventures in can drastically change the nature of the game in a (hopefully) positive way. I used to have applying the Advanced simple template to monsters as a default assumption to deal with the increasing system mastery of my players, and then I ran a campaign set entirely in an aquatic environment that drastically changed the dynamics of the game in a huge way. Suddenly we had lighting (see- concealment) variables, big differences in mobility, flowing water, changes in stealth and perception, even cover bonuses for creatures in water being attacked by creatures not in the water. There were so many new tools for me to use as a DM, and so many new variables for the party to deal with, that it turned out CR appropriate creatures adapted to the environment were almost too much for them to deal with (at least until they'd had time to develop new tactics and adjust their expectations). Basically, the moral of the story is that sometimes you can make a big change in the game not by changing the monster make-up of the encounters, but by changing the location. Those new rules for whatever environment you choose to use (tundra, underwater, swamp, desert, etc.) can be a unique and game-changing challenge all by themselves. While I have yet to play it myself, I'm told that the Reign of Winter is often considered to be excruciatingly difficult for some groups, and that this is almost entirely due to adventuring in a hostile environment against creatures who are already adapted to it.

[Psyren]

I'll leave this here. (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nx-o8VAjhUwh3nnfzDQT-JA5eFLnN_BZJiBitGjBMDg/edit) It's a document most if not all GMs should read.

[the clumsy bard]

I'll leave this here. (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nx-o8VAjhUwh3nnfzDQT-JA5eFLnN_BZJiBitGjBMDg/edit) It's a document most if not all GMs should read.

I second reading the document.

Also if not already mentioned add something time sensitive to the encounter. Fighting mobs is fun, but if someone has to rush to break/bash/turn-off/stop a ritual/bomb/doomsday device/grab a crown etc... before someone else that is GM controlled it becomes a lot of fun.

Unusual encounters are also a lot more difficult.

I ran this encounter (http://zenithgames.blogspot.ca/2012/11/more-interesting-traps-boulder-trap.html) and my party had tons of fun / more interesting decisions to make.

I have since had fun designing encounters that are not all hack and slash and sometimes are designed with other things to do as well.

Again though I am seconding the suggestion by Psyren. The document quite helped me quite a bit when I was in similar shoes.

[jedipotter]

Please do not do this. It is a safe bet that the players LIKE being able to one-shot enemies on a good roll, and when every single mook is able to absorb more damage than a Sherman tank, it makes battles a frustrating slog without actually being any more interesting. I speak from personal experience.

Depends. Sure players love easily killing foes with on attack, and making a pile of dead foes in a couple rounds. But few DM's find that fun. The DM makes an encounter, and the players end it in three rounds and are like ''what do we find for loot?"

And note i did not say ''add 100 hit points'', I said try 20, then 30, then 40 and so on. A DM can find a sweet spot.




Why is it that all your methods of dealing with players consist of taking a halfway decent idea and then taking it far beyond what's reasonable?

I'm not what you'd call ''reasonable''. And a couple class levels can really change and encounter...



This is actually decent advice. (I'm shocked that he didn't include 'inside an erupting volcano' and 'on the Negative Energy Plane'.)

Ah, well over the summer I did have an erupting volcano on the negative energy plane...negative lava...and the vampire touch/magma bolt living spells.




Though the barbarian is wearing a Buccaneer's breastplate so they can just walk on water like its nothing.

Just make the liquid....not water.



Tried DR and more health a few times and it leads to 1 problem. The barbarian is the only one who becomes useful. Our Two weapon fighter and everyone else struggles to get over 10 damage most of the time. I had an encounter once with a succubus and the barbarian was the only one actually managing to hit it with any real damage. More health gives the players that same feeling because if it isn't dead after a couple of rounds of good damage/crits from them they panic because the barbarian didn't 1 shot it for them.

So, you have tried it and it works? Adding DR slows down and encounter and stops the easy kills? Well, then mission done?




I'll try more combat maneuvers to slow the barbarian though I think this may frustrate the player if it happens to them a little more frequently than the rest of the party (considering the rest of them couldn't pass a CMB/CMD check to save their lives).


Now this is a problem. If your going to hold back so the players don't get frustrated or mad, then the players will just walk all over the game. Your just typing your own hands behind your back.

If they can't pass a check...that is a huge weakness...exploit it!

Sure it sucks when some tentacled monster grapples a character and takes them out of the fight....but then that is the point of the grapple ability. It is made to be ''bad''. And the other side is...''oh the monster does not attack with any of it's ten tentacles, and will just bite once'' and ''round 2, monster is dead.''

[Ssalarn]

Now this is a problem. If your going to hold back so the players don't get frustrated or mad, then the players will just walk all over the game. Your just typing your own hands behind your back.

If they can't pass a check...that is a huge weakness...exploit it!

Sure it sucks when some tentacled monster grapples a character and takes them out of the fight....but then that is the point of the grapple ability. It is made to be ''bad''. And the other side is...''oh the monster does not attack with any of it's ten tentacles, and will just bite once'' and ''round 2, monster is dead.''

This actually ties in to another conversation I frequently have with new DMs: Understand your monsters. If you think a balor's vorpal sword or a pit fiend's natural attacks are that creature's best weapons, you're missing the point. Those are the things that they use to clean up encounters they've already won. If you have monsters or spellcasters with summoning spells or abilities that they're using in combat, ask yourself why. If they could have cast those before combat, they really should have. The same is true of a lot of buffs, personal use items, etc. The beatstick game will usually favor the party, so you want to make sure you're taking advantage of the full toolbox your monsters present you with.

[jedipotter]

This actually ties in to another conversation I frequently have with new DMs: Understand your monsters. If you think a balor's vorpal sword or a pit fiends natural attacks are that creature's best weapons, you're missing the point. Those are the things that they use to clean up encounters they've already won.

Dragons are my classic example. I have dragons often use their breath weapon on the first round of combat, either on a obvious target, a tough looking target or if they can the whole group. Or take to the air. A fight vs a dragon is more like fighting Warhog ground attack plane. Plus use their spells. I've seen DM's just do ''the dragon walks over to be in melee and stands there so you can make your full attacks on it''.

I do things all the time like: the trip and smash. This is simple enough. One attacker is a tripper and one is a smasher. A classic is a goblin with a big hammer and a wolf. And for more advanced, trip them and hold them...add a third goblin with a tanglefoot bag. And this can make for a crazy fun combat encounter where the characters are tripped and held and slip and fall and fight a bunch of goblins.

[Ssalarn]

I do things all the time like: the trip and smash. This is simple enough. One attacker is a tripper and one is a smasher. A classic is a goblin with a big hammer and a wolf. And for more advanced, trip them and hold them...add a third goblin with a tanglefoot bag. And this can make for a crazy fun combat encounter where the characters are tripped and held and slip and fall and fight a bunch of goblins.

Effective use of combat maneuvers can be a great way to raise the complexity/difficulty of a fight without changing the numbers on the monsters or the CR of the challenge. Oftentimes a player's CMD is lower (maybe substantially so) than his AC, so while your monsters may only have a 10-15% of landing a normal attack, they may have closer to a 30-40% chance of tripping, grappling, dirty tricking, etc. A lot of DMs I know avoid combat maneuvers because of the wonky scaling, but the truth is that CMB/CMD only really go out of whack against non-humanoid threats pulled out of the Bestiary who are generally adding big size bonuses and other effects to their CMD. When used against standard medium sized humanoids (like most of your party members) they work great. I had a dirty fighting orc fighter/monk BBEG who drove my party crazy. He'd trip, blind, daze and otherwise mess with their day while being very difficult to lock down or hit, all while the other members of his monastery made general nuisances of themselves. My group still thinks of it as one of the most challenging and fun encounters we've ever had, despite the fact that no one's character was ever even knocked unconcious. They were just provided with a lot of obstacles to overcome from resilient opponents who forced them to burn resources and adjust their strategy to account for weaknesses they didn't know they had.

[Dan Arcueid]

Just make the liquid....not water.



So, you have tried it and it works? Adding DR slows down and encounter and stops the easy kills? Well, then mission done?

Now this is a problem. If your going to hold back so the players don't get frustrated or mad, then the players will just walk all over the game. Your just typing your own hands behind your back.

If they can't pass a check...that is a huge weakness...exploit it!


1. The item gives them water walk but the thing in question states "can tread on any liquid as if it were firm ground."

2. It didn't work, instead it made the encounter take forever with 4 of the party members feeling extra useless because the mage kept attacking with stuff it was immune to (letting the player know it "seemed" ineffective to hint that they should try something else). And 2ndly it resulted in the barbarian being the only one who could kill it. This it the problem is keeping it balanced while making it so the other players can actually feel necessary to a fight. More AC/DR isn't the solution if it results in the barbarian being the only one who is useful.

3. I've used these here and there with success but the reason for this post was for some ideas for alternatives as having DMed and been a player it gets simply tiresome fighting the same mechanics over and over especially when there's not much of a way to deal with such a problem.

Overall I'm going to try a few different ideas but making the barbarian useless every single encounter is going to eventually make the player quit because they're effectively being told they can't play their character.

[Ssalarn]

1. The item gives them water walk but the thing in question states "can tread on any liquid as if it were firm ground."


This won't negate environmental effects like extreme heat/cold, so there's still some options there. Also, put stuff in the water that wants to get grabby. Fighting things that are in the water when you're not can be rough, because they've got cover and various other advantages.



2. It didn't work, instead it made the encounter take forever with 4 of the party members feeling extra useless because the mage kept attacking with stuff it was immune to (letting the player know it "seemed" ineffective to hint that they should try something else). And 2ndly it resulted in the barbarian being the only one who could kill it. This it the problem is keeping it balanced while making it so the other players can actually feel necessary to a fight. More AC/DR isn't the solution if it results in the barbarian being the only one who is useful.


DR shouldn't impact the mage at all (though if it also has a slew of resistances and/or SR that could play a role). Try using non-AC defenses for your bad guys. For example, mirror image is a defensive spell that stays fairly useful throughout the life of the game, but which actually favors the two-weapon warrior over the barbarian since the number of attacks being made is more important than the damage per attack. Similarly, stoneskin may be more easily powered through on an individual attack by the barbarian, but the spell will be used up quicker when subjected to the multiple attacks of a two-weapon combatant.



3. I've used these here and there with success but the reason for this post was for some ideas for alternatives as having DMed and been a player it gets simply tiresome fighting the same mechanics over and over especially when there's not much of a way to deal with such a problem.
Overall I'm going to try a few different ideas but making the barbarian useless every single encounter is going to eventually make the player quit because they're effectively being told they can't play their character


As I mentioned earlier, environment, combat maneuvers, and alternative defenses are the way to go here. Don't make the barbarian useless by fiat (essentially what happens when all your encounters are keyed against him) just learn how to come at all of the party members from different angles.
An enemy or group of enemies using disarm/sunder could give the two weapon warrior more of a chance to shine; not only does he have more weapons, he's probably got a higher CMD since he's probably pumping both STR and DEX more. Really, combat maneuvers in general could open up a lot of challenges that would help even out the experience for the whole party without specifically targeting the barbarian.

How're the Barbarian's saves? If he hasn't taken Superstitious he could be susceptible to enemies who use attacks that target Will. Granted, the Fighter will probably take a bit of a beating here too, but the other party members should get a chance to step up.

Aquatic sessions can change things a lot. If the Barbarian is typically using big slashing or bludgeoning weapons, anyone with piercing weapons could have an edge. Giant Lake Octupii are bad mama-jamas and could be a way to get the barbarian into an uncomfortable environment.

Ray of exhaustion is a spell that messes up everybody's day, but the barbarian's doubly so. An enemy with a rod of lesser quicken could double cast this spell to nix a barbarian's rage right out the gate. As long as he's spreading the wealth to the other party members as well, no biggie here.

[jedipotter]

.....but the reason for this post was for some ideas for alternatives as having DMed and been a player it gets simply tiresome fighting the same mechanics over and over especially when there's not much of a way to deal with such a problem.

Overall I'm going to try a few different ideas but making the barbarian useless every single encounter is going to eventually make the player quit because they're effectively being told they can't play their character.

So you want suggestions and ideas that will make encounters in your game more balanced, but not change the way anything is happening in your game right now. And you want ways to slow down and challenge the barbarian character, without effecting them at all.

See the problem is your your own worst enemy.

For example you did admit that DR(or more hit points) did slow an encounter down and ''make it take forever''. But that slows down the game too much?

And you don't want to make the barbarian ''useless'' during an encounter. So the barbarian is either killing monsters with ease....or useless. As when the barbarian is effected by anything, the player might feel ''useless'. So you just don't target the barbarian with any effect.


The bigger problem is you might be thinking of things from too low a level. And combined with your desire for all the characters to be super stars all the time......makes for weak encounters.

So how do you run a 12-14 CR monster? Lets take a single Gelugon (CR 13) in a 100' or so long/50' or so high cave.

So the Gelugon has simple guards that can tell it ''adventures coming''. Let just say a goblin. So with at least a minute or so to prepare the gelugon can make an illusion of ''a gelugon in the middle of the room eating a deer'' and then fly/teleport up to a high nook/ledge where it can hide. Every round the gelugon has after the warning is one round to make an illusion or a wall of ice for lots of pre-battle field control. Plus it will try it's summons too.

As soon as the adventures fall for the ''gelugon eating'' illusion, or just enter the cave...it will open with cone of cold. And it will watch the effect it has on the group. Round 2 it teleports away....outside the cave...and casts wall of ice to trap the group. If the group looked immune to the cold damage, it might wait a couple minutes, hoping the durations will run out. Then try a ''teleport into a hidden hole'' and blast away.

It can do the Teleport in, hidden and out of sight in a hole/nook...then peak up and blast away...and then teleport away all day. And even add a teleport in, leap out and stab with spear and teleport away. And with fly it can stay just 15 feet off the ground and blast away too...and only spells and missile weapons will get to it, and it avoids melee.

A gelugon...as with most fiends....is just perfect for an Alien/Predator/Monster encounter.......

[atemu1234]

Challenging environs are good, but simple templates might work fairly well here, too. Just not too many or too much.

[Dan Arcueid]

So you want suggestions and ideas that will make encounters in your game more balanced, but not change the way anything is happening in your game right now. And you want ways to slow down and challenge the barbarian character, without effecting them at all.



Maybe I'm just really bad at explaining things but that's not what i meant. What i was trying to convey is the suggestions here i plan to try is not a single one but multiple idea to constantly keep things changing.

If something works it can work for a bit but 600 straight encounters of the barbarian being grappled in a corner could get boring/frustrating for that player. So what I was trying to convey i was going to try each one and not stick to just a single thing because I want to up the challenge level while keep the overall mechanics of the encounters feeling varied rather than static that is all.

So I'm planning to try incorporating the combat maneuvers+flying enemies+environments+ect.. and spread the ideas over multiple encounters so I'm not just attacking the same weakness every single encounter.

[Ssalarn]

If something works it can work for a bit but 600 straight encounters of the barbarian being grappled in a corner could get boring/frustrating for that player. So what I was trying to convey i was going to try each one and not stick to just a single thing because I want to up the challenge level while keep the overall mechanics of the encounters feeling varied rather than static that is all.

So I'm planning to try incorporating the combat maneuvers+flying enemies+environments+ect.. and spread the ideas over multiple encounters so I'm not just attacking the same weakness every single encounter.

That's smart, and a good way to go about it. It'll have the added benefit of making your games more complex and interesting for everyone, which is a good thing :smallbiggrin: