Dealing with High damage PCs

[Zancloufer]

Currently DMing a game, low level at the moment, and there is some trouble with the monsters just dying too fast. The PCs just do too much damage relative to the HP that enemies have. I know that at many levels D&D can be rocket tag, but I'm wondering if there are ways to mitigate it.

I know the obvious answer is swarms of weak enemies, but it would be nice to have them fight bigger monsters that can actually take their hits without turning around and insta-gibbing them back. Any ideas to make large, or beefing enemies that can seem dangerous and tough to fight while still giving the PCs a chance to survive/avoid incoming attacks? Something they can whittle down and feel like they had to work to take it out.

For a slightly detailed review of the party:
Party is all level 2 and the game is based of the Tome of Radiance, 3 Champions, 2 Stargazer and an Empath (though not all the players are present 100% of the time). Essentially the Champions all do between 10-20 average damage up to 3 times if they can full attack. Basically anything under 100 HP that takes a full attack to the face dies instantly. I'm expecting this as all the ToR classes really spec in is blasting enemies with radiant destruction, closest thing to a ****ck they have. Not too worried about the damage getting out of hand, it should scale linearly, just having a little more trouble dealing with it than I thought I would.

[gooddragon1]

Currently DMing a game, low level at the moment, and there is some trouble with the monsters just dying too fast. The PCs just do too much damage relative to the HP that enemies have. I know that at many levels D&D can be rocket tag, but I'm wondering if there are ways to mitigate it.

I know the obvious answer is swarms of weak enemies, but it would be nice to have them fight bigger monsters that can actually take their hits without turning around and insta-gibbing them back. Any ideas to make large, or beefing enemies that can seem dangerous and tough to fight while still giving the PCs a chance to survive/avoid incoming attacks? Something they can whittle down and feel like they had to work to take it out.

For a slightly detailed review of the party:
Party is all level 2 and the game is based of the Tome of Radiance, 3 Champions, 2 Stargazer and an Empath (though not all the players are present 100% of the time). Essentially the Champions all do between 10-20 average damage up to 3 times if they can full attack. Basically anything under 100 HP that takes a full attack to the face dies instantly. I'm expecting this as all the ToR classes really spec in is blasting enemies with radiant destruction, closest thing to a ****ck they have. Not too worried about the damage getting out of hand, it should scale linearly, just having a little more trouble dealing with it than I thought I would.

Firstly, is this pathfinder or 3.5?

Environmental factors can make a fight more difficult. Though they can also be annoying. Illusory duplicates can also work. You could also give their attacks a miss chance. If you really want to scare them you can have a fight under water in pitch black water with something big (I feel that might be mean, but there you go).

[Alistaroc]

Currently DMing a game, low level at the moment, and there is some trouble with the monsters just dying too fast. The PCs just do too much damage relative to the HP that enemies have. I know that at many levels D&D can be rocket tag, but I'm wondering if there are ways to mitigate it.

I know the obvious answer is swarms of weak enemies, but it would be nice to have them fight bigger monsters that can actually take their hits without turning around and insta-gibbing them back. Any ideas to make large, or beefing enemies that can seem dangerous and tough to fight while still giving the PCs a chance to survive/avoid incoming attacks? Something they can whittle down and feel like they had to work to take it out.

For a slightly detailed review of the party:
Party is all level 2 and the game is based of the Tome of Radiance, 3 Champions, 2 Stargazer and an Empath (though not all the players are present 100% of the time). Essentially the Champions all do between 10-20 average damage up to 3 times if they can full attack. Basically anything under 100 HP that takes a full attack to the face dies instantly. I'm expecting this as all the ToR classes really spec in is blasting enemies with radiant destruction, closest thing to a ****ck they have. Not too worried about the damage getting out of hand, it should scale linearly, just having a little more trouble dealing with it than I thought I would.
Templates are your best friend. Find whatever that players have a hard time dealing with, and there's almost certainly a template that will give it to the creature of your choosing. Umbral is a pretty great one IMHO.

[Flickerdart]

You can always resort to old-school 3.0 hydras, of the sort that can't actually be killed until you get through their heads. Check out the Lernean template in Savage Species, slap it on a dragon or something, and enjoy.

You can also advance creatures with cheap HDs. Aberration, construct, elemental, fey, giant, humanoid, ooze, plant, undead, and vermin let you slap on 4 HD for every point of CR, and usually they won't give the creature much of a boost in offensive ability to go along with its newfound toughness.

Really though, your problem isn't that the PCs are dealing too much damage, it's that they're ganging up on one guy at a time. There are two ways to go about this:

1) Make sure they can't all attack the same target. Separating them spatially can work - catch them unawares or scatter them with an explosion/bull rushes/Snatch/swallow whole/illusions, and then jump them with "sticky" foes like trippers or the aforementioned grapplers.
2) Step up to the challenge. If they're ganging up on a monster, make it a monster that can take it! The aforementioned hydra is great because it has a fat sack of HP and attacks it can divide among the party, so that it's almost like they're fighting many different opponents. Anything with many natural attacks and good reach is a prime candidate.

[Troacctid]

Give the enemies more HP. Add fat amounts of damage reduction and energy resistance on top of it.

[BowStreetRunner]

Templates are your best friend. Find whatever that players have a hard time dealing with, and there's almost certainly a template that will give it to the creature of your choosing. Umbral is a pretty great one IMHO.
Take a troll and put the Half-Dragon (Red or Black) template on it.

[Brookshw]

Build up defences, concealment, incorpeal, mirror images, fortification, etc. Manuverability goes a long way. Hit and run tactics. Advanced creatures with unassociated class levels.

Or just handwave whatever stats you don't have the time to cobble together something via rules, nothing wrong with taking a short cut so there's time to round out the rest of the adventure, just be aware to moderate and bear in mind what the party can do.

[HammeredWharf]

Crowd control and debuffs. The PCs probably can't deal as much damage if they're grappled, blinded, silenced and dispelled.

[Crake]

Have you almost exclusively been throwing small numbers of big enemies at your players? If so, then it would only make sense that they would build their characters to take on that kind of challenge. In essense you're a victim of your own creation. Build a larger variety of encounters, and players will focus on having balanced characters to compensate, rather than than ones with a "one big hit" mentality. What method do your players use to deal damage? There are various swarms that you could use that can mitigate big hitters almost entirely, forcing the players to use area attacks that they probably hardly ever use.

Alternatively, it seems you're almost always assuming your players will hit, even on full attacks. Are you making sure to take into account a creature's treasure as part of it's gear? If a giant has some loot, maybe make that loot part of it's equipment, give it some full plate or something like that. It adds 2 challenges, one for the combat, and one for how to transport a huge set of plate armor.

[rockdeworld]

Rather than trying to scale up the enemies, consider just letting the PCs be awesome. Some people want a grind, others prefer having an easy time. there's tons of threads complaining about killer DMs, but none complaining about DMs who let the PCs have their way.

When the PCs start getting bored, then consider the advice in this thread.

[Zancloufer]

Lots of good ideas here.

First, it's 3.5e not Pathfinder, though if it's available on the PFSRD I am not adverse to using it if it works.

The old school Hydra sounds like a solid idea, almost exactly what I thought might work. Would it be unreasonable to have a similar monster, but instead of extra heads each of it's limbs would have it's own HP pool and actions? Might make the monster more dangerous if they have to 'kill' some of it's legs so it actually important parts gets within there reach.

I have used hoards of smaller enemies before, and while they do last a little longer using just hoards would get boring fast IMO. Also I don't expect all they're attacks to hit, it's not uncomming for 1/3-1/2 of the hits to miss. The biggest issue is the fact that any large enemy will get ganked fast. Also having level 2 PCs with 12-24 HP that can deal 2-3 times the HP in damage is a slight annoyance.

Also I have nothing against the PCs being awesome, it's just more awesome when they stomp something that seems dangerous, instead of something that just instantly dies. This is why I want enemies ideas that are tougher to kill without it being a huge roundabout. Though a Giant sea creature is a good idea for the future. . .

[Flickerdart]

The old school Hydra sounds like a solid idea, almost exactly what I thought might work. Would it be unreasonable to have a similar monster, but instead of extra heads each of it's limbs would have it's own HP pool and actions? Might make the monster more dangerous if they have to 'kill' some of it's legs so it actually important parts gets within there reach.

Well, that's sort of how hydras work already, with each head getting its own attack (even on an AoO or standard action). They don't need to attack its legs, but they do need to kill each head individually. It doesn't matter if they do 100 or 1000 damage, that's still just one head lopped off (or nothing, if they attack the body).

[Demidos]

Your problem: When your warriors full attack they instakill big enemies.

Solution: Dont let them full attack (enemy boss moves often/has short range teleports/can run away). Make their attacks less effective (boost their HP, give them DR or fast healing). Make their attacks not hit (miss chances, high AC, illusions). Make them not want to attack (Damage reflection, objectives like bring them back unharmed). Make them unable to attack (terrain in the way, archer bosses, bruiser minions in the way).


Examples:
Add mineral warrior template (+1 LA, 8 DR/adamentine) to creatures, say 2 goblins with glaives, armor spikes, and combat reflexes. 2 CR 1 1/3, deal small damage but are rather dangerous with reach and DR.

Use +1 full plate on a boss. If the boss has 12 dex, they have (at least) 20 AC right there.

A single boss with full plate, mineral warrior, a special ability that reflects 50% damage, and reach would be terrifying to level 2s, enough that perhaps you only have to choose 2/4 of those.

[Segev]

A psion or wilder with vigor can pump PP into gobs of hp, especially if using the psicrystal trick whereby they share the vigor power with the psicrystal (generating 5 hp per PP for both psion and psicrystal) and then share pain with the psicrystal (so damage is divided evenly between them).

Admittedly, at level 2, that's only 20-30 hp per manifestation, which might not cut it with that much damage from your party.

Mirror image gives a high chance they'll hit an illusion rather than a real target. Blur will make them have a 20% miss chance.

A medium number of kobolds using their stealth capabilities to the best of their ability in order to be ambush predators with ranged weapons could do a number on them. Sure, they can off up to 3 each per round if they can get within reach of 3 of them...but finding them and getting them clustered will be a pain.

Reach creatures could also theoretically force them to keep walking up to them, suffering AoOs, and only getting one attack in each round while the reach creature gets to full attack.

Fleshraker dinosaurs (MMIII) have leaping charge; this would let them close and deal damage first, before the party could murder it. Have one on each of them, and now they have to decide who to help first.

[Brookshw]

Rather than trying to scale up the enemies, consider just letting the PCs be awesome. Some people want a grind, others prefer having an easy time. there's tons of threads complaining about killer DMs, but none complaining about DMs who let the PCs have their way.

When the PCs start getting bored, then consider the advice in this thread.

There have been a few threads though you're right, complaints are voiced far louder about killer DM's. Still, I can certainly recall instances where my players have ended up disappointed when the big tough fight ended up being a laughable walk in the park. Never hurts to be able to deliver on an expectation.

[Segev]

There's always "the anti-party." Emphasize in fluff descriptions that these guys use the exact same tactics and techniques as the PCs, and they should take one look at their numbers and realize that it's rocket-tag. This will make for a very DIFFERENT challenge than normal. Play the anti-party intelligently; they don't want to die, either. So both will be trying to figure out how to make the rocket tag work only for them, or how to avoid it altogether.

[Troacctid]

There have been a few threads though you're right, complaints are voiced far louder about killer DM's. Still, I can certainly recall instances where my players have ended up disappointed when the big tough fight ended up being a laughable walk in the park. Never hurts to be able to deliver on an expectation.

Yeah, it's no fun if your players feel like they're dying without being able to do anything about it, but it's also no fun if they curbstomp boss fights in the first round. I've found the solution is to give a lot of buffed-up defenses to important enemies while keeping their offensive abilities fairly modest. This helps extend fights, which makes them more dramatic and gives the PCs more opportunities to come up with clever tactics. That way, even if they lose, they feel like they had agency over the outcome.

[Flickerdart]

It's actually very simple to make a monster that's highly resistant to full attacks:

The feat Sidestep lets you take a 5ft step as soon as you make an AoO once per round;
Evasive Reflexes lets you take a 5ft step instead of an AoO, unlimited times per round;
Defensive Sweep lets you take a free AoO every time someone starts and ends their turn next to you;
Shifting Defense (Swordsage 5th level stance) lets you take a 5ft step every time you're attacked, at the cost of an AoO use (so pick up Combat Reflexes);

You can also use the mystery flicker or the conjurer ACF Abrupt Jaunt to teleport away before you are attacked even if your enemies have some means of moving and full attacking in the same round.

[Sagetim]

Have you almost exclusively been throwing small numbers of big enemies at your players? If so, then it would only make sense that they would build their characters to take on that kind of challenge. In essense you're a victim of your own creation. Build a larger variety of encounters, and players will focus on having balanced characters to compensate, rather than than ones with a "one big hit" mentality. What method do your players use to deal damage? There are various swarms that you could use that can mitigate big hitters almost entirely, forcing the players to use area attacks that they probably hardly ever use.

Alternatively, it seems you're almost always assuming your players will hit, even on full attacks. Are you making sure to take into account a creature's treasure as part of it's gear? If a giant has some loot, maybe make that loot part of it's equipment, give it some full plate or something like that. It adds 2 challenges, one for the combat, and one for how to transport a huge set of plate armor.

Well, you put the full plate on. If I'm remembering correctly, magical armor resizes to fit the wearer. It might sound like a really strange solution to the problem, but it should work.

Anyway, dealing with this problem can be tricky. Are they doing some kind of special element of damage? If they're doing physical damage, then mixing mineral warrior with Feral can result in some very tough, very strong opponents who have a little fast healing and 8 dr. You can then spin that into a subplot about a wizard taking on feral creatures as servants through the Mineral Warrior spell. Of course, that also involves a caster capable of casting the spell, which means....probably an 11th level wizard. And while their damage is very high for level 2, it would be irresponsible to pit them up against an 11th level wizard (who could kill them outright with a fireball, or any of many tricks that wizards can have up their sleeve).

If they are relying on touch attacks, then monks are going to be a problem for them (possibly other classes too, but monks have a decent touch ac built into their class). If they aren't relying on touch attacks, then an ac of 20 or higher is going to give them a hard time, or potentially be impossible for them to compensate for.

Using weak creatures with tactics is also fair game, but for the sake of fairness there should be a leader behind any coordinated attacks from, for example, goblins. As I recall, goblins don't tend to organize very well on their own, so this sets up a potential fight with a big bad evil guy. The boss doesn't need to be a potent fighter either, because all that's really required of them is the ability to organize and use tactics. If you don't build the boss up as some kind of powerful encounter, then the players should hopefully not suffer any disappointment when they murder it in one round.

[Elric VIII]

I believe you are overthinking the problem. The easiest way to beef up monsters is to just add some extra hit points. There is nothing at all wrong with this and it increases the challenge of the fight without threatening to annihilate your players with an overpowered monstrosity. Health points are an abstraction anyway, so it's not like having double health means your players have to actually stab the guy twice as much, it means that their attacks are less potent or the enemy defends against them slightly better.

It does require some experience to get the feel of what is right, but it works just fine and I have never had anyone in any of my groups have issue with this, other than the occasional "wow this guy is tough." I usually give 3x health to lone bosses, 2x health to bosses with minions, and 1.5 to stronger minions in non-boss fights.

In fact, I find that my players actually enjoy being able to have longer combats where they all have a chance to do their thing without the risk of an enemy being able to 1-shot someone due to increasing its HD or adding levels/templates. (not to say templates and levels are a bad thing, just more work than is necessary)

[Bullet06320]

A medium number of kobolds using their stealth capabilities to the best of their ability in order to be ambush predators with ranged weapons could do a number on them. Sure, they can off up to 3 each per round if they can get within reach of 3 of them...but finding them and getting them clustered will be a pain.


http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Tucker%27s_Kobolds

death by a thousand cuts kobolds

add skill focused challenges to make it more interesting too

[GreatDane]

The easiest way to handle this is just giving the monsters maximum hp, or increasing their Con by 4-8. More hit points = lasts longer = more (fun) fight.

However, I'm a little lost on how your level 2 PCs are full attacking at all, much less wth 3 attacks.

[Larkas]

I was going to suggest max HP enemies, but it seems I'm 2 posts late. :smalltongue:


The easiest way to handle this is just giving the monsters maximum hp, or increasing their Con by 4-8. More hit points = lasts longer = more (fun) fight.

However, I'm a little lost on how your level 2 PCs are full attacking at all, much less wth 3 attacks.

I'm not familiar with Tome of Radiance, but that can be easily done with, say, TWF+a natural weapon.

[Strigon]

If they're mostly melee characters, flying is always an option - although it completely shuts down any melee characters, so try coupling it with something else.
Environmental challenges are always nice. Maybe there's a Druid corrupting the local countryside, and everything from the wolves to the trees and even the weather is on his side. Fight him, and you can expect something nasty putting itself between him and you. I don't care how high your attack roll is, you can't kill a forest on 3 attacks (insert proof/video here)

Finally - and here's one I'm surprised hasn't been brought up yet - not every fight has to be about punching the other guy in the face.
Next time, what if they just had to pass through a canyon full of carnivores and make it out alive? Their survival skills and defense get put to the test, not their attack vs. the monsters'.
Or maybe they have to defend a town, or some precious artifact. Or simply distract the enemy long enough for x to happen.

Try something other than a straight-up fight, and see how that goes.

[charcoalninja]

I vote just increasing the hp. I've run all my monsters with Max hp for years for exactly this reason. Default hp values lead to gore explosions.