Never satisfied players?

[Starchild7309]

I would like to preface this by saying that I am a first time DM, but long time player. I have been running a premade 1-20 campaign for about a year now with pretty much the same 3-4 people and a few that come and go. Most are level 14-15 and fairly optimized.

My concern is that they can get very vocal which is fine, but it seems that when the encounters are normal, they steam roll them and complain that its too easy. When I optimize the encounter to make it a challenge, they complain that its unfair and too hard.

Now when i say optimize an encounter I mean minor mechanical optimization and more tailoring it so it is a challenge to their abilities. They are fighting the minions of a God that knows they are coming and has had experience with them through lesser minions that were able to report back information such as who does what and what sort of strengths and weaknesses they have are.

Not all encounters are this way, many they still steam roll. Is it a case of me being unfair and "meta gaming" or is it reasonable that these challenging encounters would occur and my players just want to complain? Example, the last fight there were two character deaths, some chumps showed up to kill time fighting while 4 assassins dimension doored into the room with squishy casters and waited and then used death attack killing two of them. It would seem lack attention and their refusal to guard against a 2nd level spell did them in, since I mentioned the popping sound in the room with the casters when they hopped in through dimension door. Is it just me being unfair or them being sloppy?

[prufock]

Now when i say optimize an encounter I mean minor mechanical optimization and more tailoring it so it is a challenge to their abilities.
This might be the problem. If they have strongly built characters (higher than normal PB, high-tier classes, optimized builds) then it's not surprising that they would roll over everything in a prepublished adventure. But when you tweak to challenge them specifically, you might be negating parts of their builds that make them effective. For instance, let's say you have a fire mage who deals a load of damage, then you throw fire-immune enemies at him.

If the "learning their strengths and weaknesses and exploiting them" is part of the adventure path, I'd say it's a fault of the adventure and not you. However, if you're exploiting things that the enemy wouldn't actually know, you need to scale back.

I have to say that at level 15, casters should not be vulnerable to assassins; that's likely players failing to play them to their potential. It would probably help to know more about their playstyle. What characters are they playing? Are they god-wizards or blasty-wizards? etc. They can be built to be powerful in combat while not having much utility, for example.

I usually employ one or more of the following methods to make encounters harder if players are running wild like Hulkamania.

Increase enemy stats. Enemies normally use flat (10,10,10,11,11,11) or elite (15,14,13,12,10,8) arrays. I increase flat to elite array, and elite to "champion" array (17,15,13,12,10,8). This improves the enemy in most respects by a small amount.
Increase enemy hit points to maximum. This makes enemies last longer, though not more dangerous in any other way.
Increase number of enemies. The rule of thumb is doubling the number of enemies increase the encounter level by 2. So I'll add 50% to 100% more enemies, giving them an action economy advantage.

[atemu1234]

This might be the problem. If they have strongly built characters (higher than normal PB, high-tier classes, optimized builds) then it's not surprising that they would roll over everything in a prepublished adventure. But when you tweak to challenge them specifically, you might be negating parts of their builds that make them effective. For instance, let's say you have a fire mage who deals a load of damage, then you throw fire-immune enemies at him.

If the "learning their strengths and weaknesses and exploiting them" is part of the adventure path, I'd say it's a fault of the adventure and not you. However, if you're exploiting things that the enemy wouldn't actually know, you need to scale back.

I have to say that at level 15, casters should not be vulnerable to assassins; that's likely players failing to play them to their potential. It would probably help to know more about their playstyle. What characters are they playing? Are they god-wizards or blasty-wizards? etc. They can be built to be powerful in combat while not having much utility, for example.

I usually employ one or more of the following methods to make encounters harder if players are running wild like Hulkamania.

Increase enemy stats. Enemies normally use flat (10,10,10,11,11,11) or elite (15,14,13,12,10,8) arrays. I increase flat to elite array, and elite to "champion" array (17,15,13,12,10,8). This improves the enemy in most respects by a small amount.
Increase enemy hit points to maximum. This makes enemies last longer, though not more dangerous in any other way.
Increase number of enemies. The rule of thumb is doubling the number of enemies increase the encounter level by 2. So I'll add 50% to 100% more enemies, giving them an action economy advantage.


These Ideas usually work. I can back most of them.

[HJPotter]

Personally, I don't see the fun in using death effects against PCs. As a DM, my minions are supposed to lose, and it's no skin off my back when they do so efficiently, via death attack or the like. Any minion I don't want that to happen to, should be 'recurring villain' level, and thus have their defenses up. The PCs (in my games) on the other hand, tend to be longtime investments on the players' side, and oneshotting them, meh. Doesn't sound fun for anyone, really (again, to me. That's a personal preference, though. If you think it is cool, that is just as valid. I'm just trying (failing) to set aside my personal dislike of using death effects vs PCs).

Now, if this is an accepted practice in your games, then yes, your players are whining, but that really doesn't change the outcome. Talk to your players. Line up your expectations. They can expect to face death effects. You expect them to have their defenses up, at this level not an unreasonable expectation. If, however, this is the first time they encounter such tactics, to test their defenses with a binary outcome death attack, seems a bit much. If they regularly face this sort of thing, and they were just 'off' today, again, they are whining a bit, and, again, you all should talk about what all of you want from this game.

I'm reminded of when our clericless party faced a Bodak at level 5. Technically, we probably could have survived that encounter. Realistically, though, the following TPK should have been high on the expected outcomes list by the DM. That encounter stuck with us for a long time, as the entire party simply keeled over, one after the other. Little satisfaction was had on either side of the DM screen. I don't mind my characters dying, in fact, you would not believe how often my squishy wizard-types have (stupidly) stood their ground against greater foes. What sets these situations apart, for me, is that they were always aware of the danger, and had the agency to make a choice to stand with the party, or to do something else.

Stating "you hear a popping noise", and bam, three rounds later, squishies 'R dead, is not meaningful player agency. Have your PCs be aware of the danger that those watchful, dark types represent. Roll some kind of knowledge/bardic check. Give them a choice. If they go with it, go to town.

[eggynack]

Yeah, the problem could be insta-kill effects rather than you tailoring your encounters to the party. Try to make it such that the encounters intended to be difficult stretch out combat some. A battle where the opponents just jump in and kill you makes you feel like you died at the hands of a single mistake, or even like you died at the hands of a malicious DM (whether that's actually the case or not). A battle where the opponents jump in and remove a pile of buffs, then set up layers of debuffs and BFC's over time, blocking some set of the party's attacks with buffs, and maybe takes out a party member after seven rounds of tactical volleying makes you feel like you died at the hands of an interlocking web of choices that each existed along a spectrum of correctness. In a sense, the logic at work here is rather akin to that of the philosophy of the god wizard, and it's the thing that might sometimes make a charging barbarian seem more powerful than a caster.

[Starchild7309]

Stating "you hear a popping noise", and bam, three rounds later, squishies 'R dead, is not meaningful player agency. Have your PCs be aware of the danger that those watchful, dark types represent. Roll some kind of knowledge/bardic check. Give them a choice. If they go with it, go to town.

In all fairness they have faced these assassins before and they also spellcrafted the dimension door and I gave them listen checks to know it was into the room.

I am not a big fan of save or die, but at 15th level 4 CR7 assassins shouldn't be killing them. I have repeatedly tortured them with invisible (not greater invisibility) They just refuse to do anything about finding a way around invisibility.

[Starchild7309]

Yeah, the problem could be insta-kill effects rather than you tailoring your encounters to the party. Try to make it such that the encounters intended to be difficult stretch out combat some. A battle where the opponents just jump in and kill you makes you feel like you died at the hands of a single mistake, or even like you died at the hands of a malicious DM (whether that's actually the case or not). A battle where the opponents jump in and remove a pile of buffs, then set up layers of debuffs and BFC's over time, blocking some set of the party's attacks with buffs, and maybe takes out a party member after seven rounds of tactical volleying makes you feel like you died at the hands of an interlocking web of choices that each existed along a spectrum of correctness. In a sense, the logic at work here is rather akin to that of the philosophy of the god wizard, and it's the thing that might sometimes make a charging barbarian seem more powerful than a caster.

While I understand all this and usually I would agree, I should put it in perspective of what they are doing currently. They are invading the home base of a outlaw pirate network. They decided to do so unprepared with no desire to find intel, they got beat up by an advanced eye of the deep and then decided in mid invasion to "camp out" in a storage building....all the while people are searching for the invaders, alarms are going off, the whole base if being mobilized.

I dropped hints as to the association between the pirates and the assassins guild on multiple occasions with hooks to send them in that direction to eliminate and weaken the base and they decided to plow forward. Most of their issues come from either rogues or spell casters who have been briefed that the war forged tank is impossible to hit, so avoid him or at least distract him while you pick away at the others, or the cleric appears to be immune to magic so shooting spells at him is pointless. These are all things other minions who have fought the party and escaped have seen and therefore relayed on to their bosses. I am not putting in fire immune creatures to defeat the fire blaster or anything cheezy like that.

[ComaVision]

While I understand all this and usually I would agree, I should put it in perspective of what they are doing currently. They are invading the home base of a outlaw pirate network. They decided to do so unprepared with no desire to find intel, they got beat up by an advanced eye of the deep and then decided in mid invasion to "camp out" in a storage building....all the while people are searching for the invaders, alarms are going off, the whole base if being mobilized.

I dropped hints as to the association between the pirates and the assassins guild on multiple occasions with hooks to send them in that direction to eliminate and weaken the base and they decided to plow forward. Most of their issues come from either rogues or spell casters who have been briefed that the war forged tank is impossible to hit, so avoid him or at least distract him while you pick away at the others, or the cleric appears to be immune to magic so shooting spells at him is pointless. These are all things other minions who have fought the party and escaped have seen and therefore relayed on to their bosses. I am not putting in fire immune creatures to defeat the fire blaster or anything cheezy like that.

Sounds good to me. I'm of the mind that if the party doesn't learn and adapt then it only makes sense that they'd die.

[Faily]

I'm of the mind that if a party has reached level 15 and don't take care to take precautions, reconnaiscence, Scrying, See Invisibility, Invisibility Purge, Deathward, Fortification and the likes... yeah, not the fault of the GM if they haven't learned from previous encounters.

[jedipotter]

Never satisfied players?


Some players....people...are just never happy.

[LoyalPaladin]

I actually have a great time when our DM throws things at our party that are completely useless. After getting divine sacrifice as a Paladin spell I was able to dish out 10d6 of damage to evil creatures a round. So what did our DM do? Well, I was swallowed whole twice the next session...

I think challenges that are nearly impossible to defeat are way more fun. Our DM also sends us to higher level dungeons, takes the harder route, and multiplies their health by 1.5... It's really pushed us to be tactical, since we have two medium optimized characters, two low optimized characters, and one completely unoptimized character. I think you should give them hell haha.

[mvpmack]

How are they "fairly optimized" if they're not gathering intelligence?

The #1 value of fairly optimized parties is that YOU ALWAYS KNOW WHAT BAD GUYS ARE DOING. If they can't do some basic planning and preparation, they shouldn't be whining. If they seriously heard the dimension door, made the spellcraft checks, didn't see anything and didn't think "Time for some true seeing" they deserve to die.

They're in a situation where the bad guys would try to hunt them down, have the tracking skills to do so, correctly assess the situation and respond accordingly. It's the players' fault for being obviously transparent and having no fallback options.

(edited for clarity)

[HJPotter]

Sounds good to me. I'm of the mind that if the party doesn't learn and adapt then it only makes sense that they'd die.

Agreed :D

My earlier comments were made with the available information. You gave them time to learn about being prepared/having defenses up, so it's not your fault if the party didn't do the prep. If you don't want to die, don't be an adventurer:smallwink:.

I still think the fight itself could have been more interesting if it wasn't a death attack (because I personally think that save or dies are boring), but you played your part and you played it well. It may still be interesting to discuss this latest encounter with your players; if you want to explore what in particular they liked/disliked mechanically about the encounter (and if there's a possible mismatch in expectations), maybe that could put you on a path to create more mutually fun encounters.