DMing for a party of spellcasters

[Alasdair89]

Hey guys,

So I'm a relatively new GM (playing pathfinder) and I'm running a game with a few of my friends, an adventure that I wrote up. I try to balance encounters by CR to make them doable, but the problem is I have a sorcerer, wizard, and a bard, and they are very unoptimized. They are level 5 and would have a pretty hard time with a 3 or 4 CR encounter on their own. The party barbarian just left the game for reasons, so they hired a rogue and fighter henchman. I'm just using the PFS pregen valeros and merisiel pregens for the henchmen, and they helped a lot, but I think they also made the players feel kind of useless.

So, I want to make the game interesting and doable for the characters. What suggestions do you guys have on how to make an interesting game for a party of spellcasters?

[Chronikoce]

Easiest way would be to have more roleplaying encounters and less traditional combat. The change of focus means the players can drive the story forward without as much impact due to poor optimization.

This does require a group that likes that sort of thing though. If they are more interested in a game where they get simple kill/fetch quests then I need to know more about what makes them so unoptimized before I can give advice.

[Drork]

Teach them about the power of summon monster. Regret ever mentioning summon monster.
Seriously if you want them to optimize a little more throw NPCs of similar level just more optimized at them when they ask how he did X you can direct them towards something for them to consider.
If you are happy with where they are at, reduce things staves/HP.
Also give one or all of them the chance to re roll a non caster to help round out the party.
Another way you can help tip the balance into the PCs favor is give them information of what they are going against if the wizard knows what spells to have ready they are going to be a lot stronger.

[ryu]

Are they willing to do some reading? If so we have multitudes of guides related to exactly what to look for in spell selection, how to use them smartly in combat, and how to have long term plans for character growth. In my experience they should be up to a level of baseline caster competent in about a week tops. For reference though an entire party of baseline caster competents should be somewhat more capable than the average party even if they literally just learned the basic recommendations.

[Evan Epis]

Can you really have an "unoptimised" wizard? If he didn't misplace his ability scores on purpose, even with poor feat selection, his spells are still there.

If spell selection is the problem, well, he is a wizard so there you go. Give him some of what he might be missing, e.g Grease, Glitterdust, Web, Slow or some other strong spell you think he might be lacking.
That's all you need to end encounters.The other 2, unfortunately, are in a bit "worse" position, and will take a bit longer. They are spontaneous, so they cannot learn new spells from scrolls like the wizard.

Lastly, go over the rules again. Make sure you are not missplaying battles. It's always good to brush them up and I believe there will be always something new to learn.

They are all casters and 2 of them are full casters. I say you enjoy the moments now that they feel weak! :smallwink:

[Troacctid]

Low levels can be rough on arcane casters. Without good spell selection and careful resource management, it's really easy for them to get in trouble. Things should naturally improve for them as they level up and get more spell slots so that they can toss their magic around more liberally. Until then, bringing in hirelings as meatshields is a pretty good plan.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Just use weaker enemies, CR is merely a guide line a starting point.

[Ettina]

Just use weaker enemies, CR is merely a guide line a starting point.

Also, you can adjust on the fly by changing the characters' behaviour. Once, my brother was DMing for two guys taking on an encounter meant for four players vs a bunch of partying fey, so he decided to make one of the fey so drunk he didn't participate in the fight at all (just stumbled around and barfed in the fountain) and once a couple fey had died he had the rest flee. Plus, they were triggering attacks of opportunity like crazy, and one of the characters was a class with a lot of extra attacks of opportunity per round.

[Jay R]

Hey guys,

So I'm a relatively new GM (playing pathfinder) and I'm running a game with a few of my friends, an adventure that I wrote up. I try to balance encounters by CR to make them doable, but the problem is I have a sorcerer, wizard, and a bard, and they are very unoptimized. They are level 5 and would have a pretty hard time with a 3 or 4 CR encounter on their own. The party barbarian just left the game for reasons, so they hired a rogue and fighter henchman. I'm just using the PFS pregen valeros and merisiel pregens for the henchmen, and they helped a lot, but I think they also made the players feel kind of useless.

So, I want to make the game interesting and doable for the characters. What suggestions do you guys have on how to make an interesting game for a party of spellcasters?

Attack them with an unoptimized level 5 party composed of a sorcerer, wizard, and bard, with a hired rogue and fighter. By definition, this is an even fight.

[Alasdair89]

Thanks for the input guys. I'll respond to your suggestions once I get back from school today.

[Curmudgeon]

Traps are a useful teaching tool. Once the PCs stumble across the first one, they should stop and think about how to deal with more of them. Unlike active enemies, traps give the PCs plenty of time for pondering and discussing options.

[danzibr]

Attack them with an unoptimized level 5 party composed of a sorcerer, wizard, and bard, with a hired rogue and fighter. By definition, this is an even fight.
Isn't this actually a CR of APL+4?

[With a box]

Isn't this actually a CR of APL+4?

In this paragraph, even means they have same chance of wining

[ZamielVanWeber]

Can you really have an "unoptimised" wizard? If he didn't misplace his ability scores on purpose, even with poor feat selection, his spells are still there.

Oh good lord yes. There are plenty of bad spells out there and a wizard can easily pick those.

Or have a party the keeps going first and runs into the area of CC so he can never cast it /spiteful

[Ssalarn]

Isn't this actually a CR of APL+4?

+3, I think. In Pathfinder (and I believe 3.5 as well), an enemy party consisting of identical characters to the PCs, but with NPC wealth (or roughly half the party's), is a CR+3 or "epic" encounter.

To the OP,
You've got two paths forward:

1) Help them optimize themselves. Point them towards some of the class guides for suggestions, drop hints that most of the best spells aren't actually the ones that do damage but someone probably does need to be able to do it, and maybe offer them the chance to partially rebuild their characters after they've studied up.

2) Nerf your encounters. While this makes a little bit more work for you, it's going to be easier in the long run than trying to GM a group consisting of optimized wizards, bards, and sorcerers, probably three of the best core classes in the game. Seriously, when I saw the thread title and the classes in question, I assumed this would be a thread about how they were breaking your game, not the opposite. Just subtract one creature from whatever encounter you're using, or apply the Young simple template to single monster challenges, and call it good.

I've personally gone with option 1 in scenarios like this, though I've always felt option 2 would have made my life easier...

[Alasdair89]

Can you really have an "unoptimised" wizard? If he didn't misplace his ability scores on purpose, even with poor feat selection, his spells are still there.

If spell selection is the problem, well, he is a wizard so there you go. Give him some of what he might be missing, e.g Grease, Glitterdust, Web, Slow or some other strong spell you think he might be lacking.
That's all you need to end encounters.The other 2, unfortunately, are in a bit "worse" position, and will take a bit longer. They are spontaneous, so they cannot learn new spells from scrolls like the wizard.

Lastly, go over the rules again. Make sure you are not missplaying battles. It's always good to brush them up and I believe there will be always something new to learn.

They are all casters and 2 of them are full casters. I say you enjoy the moments now that they feel weak! :smallwink:

It's not like the sorcerer is running around with a 14 charisma and 14 intelligence at the same time. It's that he took the celestial bloodline, and then as a 5th level sorcerer uses his 1st level holy fire ability (which does 1d6 +1/level damage to evil creatures only) on the creature when it isn't even evil. They just don't have good combat tactics sense for the game, generally picking bad spells. I think both of the primary casters are of the opinion that rolling damage dice is the best way to play a spell caster, and they miss their ranged touch attacks about half the time. And I do agree with the last part of your statement too! They are still pretty weak and they will get to a point where they aren't, I just want to make the game fun for them and have them feel like their characters don't have to be saved by the henchmen or NPCs I provide them with.


Are they willing to do some reading? If so we have multitudes of guides related to exactly what to look for in spell selection, how to use them smartly in combat, and how to have long term plans for character growth. In my experience they should be up to a level of baseline caster competent in about a week tops. For reference though an entire party of baseline caster competents should be somewhat more capable than the average party even if they literally just learned the basic recommendations.
Well, I've given them links to optimization manuals, and we've talked pretty extensively about how to build/play effectively but I don't think they really looked through them that closely. I'm relatively sure that I'm the only one who thinks about the game in between games.


Easiest way would be to have more roleplaying encounters and less traditional combat. The change of focus means the players can drive the story forward without as much impact due to poor optimization.

This does require a group that likes that sort of thing though. If they are more interested in a game where they get simple kill/fetch quests then I need to know more about what makes them so unoptimized before I can give advice.
Yeah, this was my first thought honestly, but it doesn't seem to me like they enjoy the roleplay encounters that much. That could be my fault as a DM too, so I'll try and see what I can do there, but they seem to like the roll dice and do damage part of the game the most. They just aren't that good at it :smallbiggrin:


Teach them about the power of summon monster. Regret ever mentioning summon monster.
Seriously if you want them to optimize a little more throw NPCs of similar level just more optimized at them when they ask how he did X you can direct them towards something for them to consider.
If you are happy with where they are at, reduce things staves/HP.
Also give one or all of them the chance to re roll a non caster to help round out the party.
Another way you can help tip the balance into the PCs favor is give them information of what they are going against if the wizard knows what spells to have ready they are going to be a lot stronger.
I like this suggestion. It might help them see that wizards aren't best played as cannons and beat sticks, but battlefield controllers and summoners, which would help them be more independent. At level 5 they have access to enough spells to provide good battlefield control.

Overall, it seems like the best way to make this a bit more fun is help them optimize their characters. Although help that the most common thing I hear at the table each game is "How do I calculate my spell save DC/ranged touch attack bonus again?" *facepalm* They're learning how to play, and maybe I should have dissuaded them from playing casters their first time through a bit more.

[Alasdair89]

+3, I think. In Pathfinder (and I believe 3.5 as well), an enemy party consisting of identical characters to the PCs, but with NPC wealth (or roughly half the party's), is a CR+3 or "epic" encounter.

To the OP,
You've got two paths forward:

1) Help them optimize themselves. Point them towards some of the class guides for suggestions, drop hints that most of the best spells aren't actually the ones that do damage but someone probably does need to be able to do it, and maybe offer them the chance to partially rebuild their characters after they've studied up.

2) Nerf your encounters. While this makes a little bit more work for you, it's going to be easier in the long run than trying to GM a group consisting of optimized wizards, bards, and sorcerers, probably three of the best core classes in the game. Seriously, when I saw the thread title and the classes in question, I assumed this would be a thread about how they were breaking your game, not the opposite. Just subtract one creature from whatever encounter you're using, or apply the Young simple template to single monster challenges, and call it good.

I've personally gone with option 1 in scenarios like this, though I've always felt option 2 would have made my life easier...

This is a really good point too. I run another game (The Crown of the Kobold king line of quests) with my brothers/wife/dad and they eat up optimization guides, so I'm constantly beefing up the encounters and traps just to make it interesting and challenging for them, and the only primary spellcaster is a druid. The others are playing a monk, ninja, and arcane archer. But, they also provide good roleplay and interaction with how well their characters' actions are thought out. They narrate what they are doing and are very creative with their characters' abilities.

[ryu]

Have you considered demonstrating how powerful battlefield control is by them finding a helpful mid level mage running a small guild in the next town? Have the guild offer to teach them how to fight effectively, even offering good low level spells on the cheap all on the grounds that they might be a good source of higher level spell knowledge later. Have the guild demonstrate the power of BFC just by casting things like web, grease, glitterdust and other similar things on them while talking about all the things that could be done to opponents in these situations. Bonus points if you mention that in this helpless condition a small child with a decent sized rock is a legitimate threat just by sheer value of coup de grace. After having made a rather thorough impression let the wizard scribe things and the others retrain just their spells.

Suddenly you've got the caster version of a Rocky film complete with training montage.

[Honest Tiefling]

Who controls the hirelings? If it is you, I'd give everyone an Eidolon or something crazy. Really helps the castery feel, and maybe give the bard a eidolon that doubles as an instrument or performs for their bardic stuffs. OP, sure, but...Sounds like it might still be reasonable.

Are these guys open to learning more of the game? Give suggestions and hints in game or a mentor. The mentor shows them tactics, but also gives them hooks and sweet, sweet, loot. And then politely keels over as the plot demands.

Also, ask them what they want to do. Maybe they aren't even big on combat! Maybe they want to research arcane lore or make a magic school. I must repeat, ask them for hooks!

[Alasdair89]

Suddenly you've got the caster version of a Rocky film complete with training montage.
Haha, I love this idea! The bbeg is a spellcaster, so I'll have them fight him at the end of this dungeon and get trounced, then go get some training for combat. I'll just need to add eye of the Tiger and maybe some karate kid music to the adventure sound track along with all my neverwinter nights music.