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View Full Version : Werewolves, CR +2 ??? (includes after-action report)



The Prince of Cats
2007-05-15, 07:29 AM
I just ran a game-session where the party were taking on werewolves. Not so bad, I would think, even if it did happen to be in Ravenloft.

6 Rangers of level 4 with lycanthropy, natural rather than created. Each one had a wolf as a companion and cast magic fang on their bites. So, we have CR6 werewolves.
The party were level 6 and there were six of them (Fighter, Monk, Druid, Cleric, Sorceror, Rogue), plus one NPC woodcutter who stood no chance and was just there to keep a couple of the werewolves occupied until they killed him.

I confess that the party were being idiots. They had a silver longsword and a silver quarterstaff of ki-focus +1/+1 between them, yet insisted on using non-silver weapons because alchemical silver gives a -1 to damage and the monks flurry of blows was more damaging than a staff, even a staff of ki-focus. I kept saying that their weapons were not causing any injuries (even the druid's 36 points of lightning damage was thwarted by the damage resistance and the inhuman reflex save) but they insisted that it was an illusion. After all, nothing of their level could be immune to +1 weapons, could it? The monk also threatened anyone who attacked 'his targets', because he wanted to kill them.

The trouble is that fighting a werewolf without preparation is suicide. Even a werewolf of CR4 was more than a match for these players. The damage reduction 10/silver was all but impossible to beat; the monk managed to do 12 points of damage with his fists at one point, but tended not to beat 10. The silver longsword never got used.

In the end, I had to introduce a Deus Ex Machina, a vampire-hunter NPC (ranger 6 - favoured enemy undead +4, lycanthrope +2) who I was saving for later in the campaign. He killed four werewolves in three rounds. The other two werewolves were killed by the party over the course of 10 rounds, even that only after I 'forgot' their DR...

So what is the deal with werewolves? To the hunter, they might as well have been CR4 or even CR3; he had non-magical silver weapons and cut a bloody swathe with next to no resistance. To the party, they might as well have been CR10; the cleric cast sanctuary once and one healing spell per round from that point onward, but still barely kept the party alive.

Umarth
2007-05-15, 07:37 AM
Being stupid makes things harder but it doesn't change the CR.

If your party attacked things with wet fish everything would be a lot harder but it wouldn't change the CR.

Also keep in mind that 2 CR 6 things is an EL 8 encounter and 4 CR 6 things is an EL 10 encounter. If you had a bunch of CR 6 werewolves you where putting the party up against a very difficult encounter.

ghost_warlock
2007-05-15, 07:39 AM
Well, for starters...


Damage Reduction
A creature with this special quality ignores damage from most weapons and natural attacks. Wounds heal immediately, or the weapon bounces off harmlessly (in either case, the opponent knows the attack was ineffective). The creature takes normal damage from energy attacks (even nonmagical ones), spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities. A certain kind of weapon can sometimes damage the creature normally, as noted below.

(my emphasis, http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#damageReduction)

The werewolves' DR provides absolutely zero protection from the druid's electricity damage.

Otherwise, yeah, your players are dumb. :smalltongue:

Fishy
2007-05-15, 07:49 AM
To think, all the carnage that could have been prevented with a Bardic Knowledge check...

No, I'd just chalk this one up to player stupidity this time. You made sure they were carrying silver weapons, you played up the wolfishness and you described their attacks being uneffective... At some point, it's their responsibility to either change tactics or run away.

But still, this is why 'puzzle monsters' are notoriously unsatisfying.

Emperor Tippy
2007-05-15, 07:51 AM
Your party is filled with idiots?

I'm sorry but a Knowledge: Arcane or Nature or hell maybe even Religion check of DC of 15+HD would have told them that werewolves have huge resistance to non silver weapons.

Magic spells bypass all DR so the druid and sorcerer could have blasted away.

Idiot players are not the DM's fault.

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-05-15, 07:57 AM
Also keep in mind that 2 CR 6 things is an EL 8 encounter and 4 CR 6 things is an EL 10 encounter. If you had a bunch of CR 6 werewolves you where putting the party up against a very difficult encounter.
Yeah, that was six CR 6 baddies. That's half way between four (EL 10) and eight (EL 12) baddies. That means this encounter was approximately EL 11. Being five levels above the party level, that would generally spell TPK. Of course, you had a larger party, so it should theoretically be doable, but it is still nasty odds where you should be ready for one or more PC deaths.

So we've got:
Über-difficult encounter
Improperly applied DR
Stupid PC behavior
Yeah, that's not gonna end well.

lord_khaine
2007-05-15, 08:33 AM
honestly, you should have let the werewolfs eat them, they seriously deserved it, and maybe it would have forced them to be smarter next time.

Really, the monk alone deserve to die several times for thinking more about "his" kill, than on surviving the encounter.

The Prince of Cats
2007-05-15, 09:50 AM
Also keep in mind that 2 CR 6 things is an EL 8 encounter and 4 CR 6 things is an EL 10 encounter. If you had a bunch of CR 6 werewolves you where putting the party up against a very difficult encounter.
Really? I have awful trouble with the whole CR thing. I kind of thought one CR6 monster would a be fair match for one ECL6 player.

(Edit: SRD to the rescue - "This shows the average level of a party of adventurers for which one creature would make an encounter of moderate difficulty.")

This party is hard to DM for anyway. They had massacred a CR 8 vampire in two rounds at level 5, killed a CR7 ranger at level 3 within a single round (they all took improved initiative, were lucky to roll initiative with ranged-attackers hitting before the melee attackers charged in and all rolled solid hits - it was unlikely, but still not impossible)

I concede the lightning was a mistake; in my defence, she only got one bolt off before being hit for 10 damage and losing concentration. I let the sorceror do full damage and their +1 weapons all did 1 point of damage per hit.

The werewolves didn't even start the fight; the monk did. This is the same monk who decided to try to kill Strahd. (A monk I hate; he once told me his attack bonus was +22 - +6 for strength (16 strength is +3, I corrected) and +6 for level 6 (the table says +4), then +3 for flurry of blows (no, that is +3 instead of +4, not as well) and the +7 that he has written next to 'fists' entry on his list of attacks (no, that +7 is the +3 for strength and the +4 base attack bonus) and then told me Still Mind let him ignore all mind-effecting effects and, since I was in the middle of a combat-scene that was over-running, I didn't demand he show me the passage in the book like I normally would)

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-05-15, 10:03 AM
Really? I have awful trouble with the whole CR thing. I kind of thought one CR6 monster would a be fair match for one ECL6 player.
If by "fair match" you mean 50/50 chance of victory, sure. But it's pretty intense when you have a 50% chance of dying, don't you think?

Since the PCs are meant to be the protagonists of the campaign, they're expected to win fairly regularly, and, when they lose, it will generally be in a fight where their life isn't on the line or they have the opportunity to retreat. As such the guidelines are built such that a "Challenging" encounter can be fairly easily defeated but not without using up 20% or so of the party's resources (those being hit points, spells per day, rages per day, bardic music uses, expendable magic items, and so forth).

The bulk of a party's encounters is meant to be with opponents whose encounter level exactly matches the party level. At least in a standard 4 person party. You can probably up the average encounter level to Party Level + 1 in a six-person party.

For more information, I suggest looking at "Encounters" on pages 48-51 of the 3.5 DMG. Particularly look at Tables 3-1 and 3-2, which help determine total Encounter Level and how many encounters of a given Encounter Level should comprise and adventure respectively as well as the section of text labeled "What's Challenging?" (p. 49).


This is the same monk who decided to try to kill Strahd.
If the monk isn't dead after such a foolish action, the monk wasn't trying hard enough.

Piccamo
2007-05-15, 10:27 AM
A monster's Challenge Rating (CR) tells you the level of the party for which that monster is a good challenge. A monster of CR 5 is an appropriate challenge for a group of four 5th-level characters
...Parties with five or more members can often take on monsters with higher CRs
...To balance an encounter with a party, determine the party's level (the average of all members' character levels).

This suggests that the party is averaged for 4 characters. When I make my averages I generally multiply party level x number of party members / 4.

By this logic it makes the battle Very Difficult, but I might even consider this "Easy if Handled Properly." Werewolves just don't have enough HP if silvered weapons are used on them to last very long. Trip is nasty, but their lower attack bonus means its not going to hit very often. All-in-all I'd say your players were ridiculous. I probably would have killed at least one of them before introducing the vampire hunter and made the rest of the pack flee when he showed up and started slaughtering them.

The Prince of Cats
2007-05-15, 10:30 AM
Sadly, I cut my teeth on Vampire: the Masquerade. To me, the very idea that the party would imagine they could take on all comers is amusing.


If the monk isn't dead after such a foolish action, the monk wasn't trying hard enough.
Strahd, in a rare forgiving mood, told the monk to sit down and shut up. There was a lovely moment as the rest of the party moved away from the monk as fast as they could. The monk, unsurprisingly, failed the save and was stuck sitting quietly for the rest of the conversation. One more of those little mistakes and I will not be so kind.
I always give a hint first before killing players. In this case, I let the monk know the DC to resist Strahd's command. Next time he meets Strahd, I have this urge to try out a Maximised Enervation...

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-05-15, 10:40 AM
This suggests that the party is averaged for 4 characters. When I make my averages I generally multiply party level x number of party members / 4.
The one problem with that sort of calculation is that it doesn't take into account that some abilities that make a huge difference just aren't available unless your party has the actual levels to back them up.

For instance, that calculation creates an Effective Party Level of 9. A number of EL 9 encounters would assume access to fifth level spells and characters with 9 hit dice and the saves to match them. But this 6th level party can't even manage 4th-level spells. They can just barely handle a 9th-level wizard's cloudkill. Their saves are significantly weak against a lot of EL 9 DCs. And so on.

Of course, this particular situation involves an Encounter based upon a large number of creatures whose individual CRs are appropriate for the party's actual level. As such, this might be appropriate. However, in general, you should probably use a more conservative estimate. Better to give the PCs a cake walk than have to deal with an unintended campaign-wrecking TPK.


Sadly, I cut my teeth on Vampire: the Masquerade. To me, the very idea that the party would imagine they could take on all comers is amusing.
Well, they certainly can't take on all comers. The aforementioned table on p. 49 recommends an Overwhelming encounter about 5% of the time. Another 15% would be made up of encounters where "One PC might very well die." So that's a full 20% of particularly intense life-on-the-line combat.

What it comes down to is "Where's the fun if you can't take two steps forward without having to retreat and rest up?"


Strahd, in a rare forgiving mood, told the monk to sit down and shut up.
Strahd and forgiving? Must have been an off day for the vampire. :smalltongue:

Piccamo
2007-05-15, 10:58 AM
The one problem with that sort of calculation is that it doesn't take into account that some abilities that make a huge difference just aren't available unless your party has the actual levels to back them up.

For instance, that calculation creates an Effective Party Level of 9. A number of EL 9 encounters would assume access to fifth level spells and characters with 9 hit dice and the saves to match them. But this 6th level party can't even manage 4th-level spells. They can just barely handle a 9th-level wizard's cloudkill. Their saves are significantly weak against a lot of EL 9 DCs. And so on.

Of course, this particular situation involves an Encounter based upon a large number of creatures whose individual CRs are appropriate for the party's actual level. As such, this might be appropriate. However, in general, you should probably use a more conservative estimate. Better to give the PCs a cake walk than have to deal with an unintended campaign-wrecking TPK.

While I agree its not perfect, they can certainly easily overcome level-appropriate foes. I'd rather not give a cake-walk as it makes combat less interesting. The world my players' characters are in is not one where they will always have the option of expecting level-appropriate challenges. If they accept a task to go kill a great dragon while they're too low level they know to run away; failure is an option.

Characters are not perfect. While they are meant to complete an overarching storyline, they do not have to complete every side-quest along the way. My world does not adapt to them, they adapt to my world. It is a living, breathing place; if they decide the orc warlord's threat to a village is minor and move on to do something else that village will probably be destroyed or occupied when they return.

That said, my players usually have strong tactics. Many of the challenges I setup often fall into the "easy if handled properly" category. My current world is more of a sandbox, anyway. Its not story-driven, its character-driven. That may make a difference :smalltongue:

Sorry if this sounded like a rant; this post is way longer than I meant it to be.

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-05-15, 11:13 AM
While I agree its not perfect, they can certainly easily overcome level-appropriate foes. I'd rather not give a cake-walk as it makes combat less interesting.
But then the next combat for Throthgar the Mighty can more than make up for it. If it's too hard, there may very well be no next combat for Throthgar the Mighty. And if a Player has any reason to believe his or her PC died simply because of an unintended miscalculation on the DM's part rather than because it was supposed to be "that tough", it will rather soil the experience. I doubt there are many players that would be happy with that. Assuming, of course, players that develop reasonable attachment to their PCs.

In any case, I assume you at least try to guide your PCs into encounters of the appropriate difficulty rather than just have them blindly stumble around. And, in those cases, you'll want to know for sure what encounters have an appropriate difficulty.

Lapak
2007-05-15, 11:15 AM
I concede the lightning was a mistake; in my defence, she only got one bolt off before being hit for 10 damage and losing concentration. I let the sorceror do full damage and their +1 weapons all did 1 point of damage per hit.Just to clarify, here: from that point on she was being hit every time she tried to cast? Because concentration isn't something you have and then lose once; it's a contest each time you try to cast, opposed by either a flat difficulty (if you cast defensively) or by the damage from the AOO it provokes in melee.

Also, Strahd should have had him jump off the balcony. He doesn't suffer fools gladly.

Lord Lorac Silvanos
2007-05-15, 11:15 AM
Two things struck me when reading this paragraph.



I concede the lightning was a mistake; in my defence, she only got one bolt off before being hit for 10 damage and losing concentration. I let the sorceror do full damage and their +1 weapons all did 1 point of damage per hit.


I assume we are talking about Call Lightning here
You do not need to concentrate on the spell, except for the rounds where you call a bolt of lightning and in the process of casting it of course.

The enhancement bonus on a weapon does not ignore DR.



Our group had a similar encounter where the fighter would not draw the silver dagger in favor of the bastard sword.
It has difficult for me not to tell him the consequences during play :smalltongue:




EDIT: Many ninjas here today it seems....

Closet_Skeleton
2007-05-15, 11:43 AM
To quote (or at least paraphrase) some immortal words


If duffers, then drown

Strahd should have used suggestion to make the monk jump of a balcony. He's a monk so he might survive.

If there's a character like Strahd then if you include him in the campaign expect him to kill someone. He's not like Elminster who'll medel with weak characters or Hamaster who's too mad to care.

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-05-15, 12:10 PM
Strahd should have used suggestion to make the monk jump of a balcony. He's a monk so he might survive.
That's... far too merciful for Strahd.

6th level... the monk really shouldn't have gotten far enough for Strahd to have to take care of him personally to begin with.

And if Strahd was having an off day to the point where he was feeling forgiving or merciful in any fashion, I can't see him taking enough interest to step in just for the fun of it. Nah, the monk should have been taken down by wolves, Vistani, zombies, or any number of traps Strahd would have around.

The Prince of Cats
2007-05-15, 12:22 PM
If there's a character like Strahd then if you include him in the campaign expect him to kill someone. He's not like Elminster who'll medel with weak characters or Hamaster who's too mad to care.
Well, he kind of has a use for them. They upset him enough that he came to warn them not to disappoint him. Once he no longer has a use for them, or next time they come to his attention, they will have to escape or die.

Citizen Joe
2007-05-15, 12:27 PM
Here's a handy encounter calculator:
http://www.d20srd.org/encounterCalculator.htm

That site has some other nice features too, including a monster filter so you can sort by CR.

But yea, EVEN prepared, that party would have been toast. I don't think you even factored in those pet wolves.

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-05-15, 12:32 PM
But yea, EVEN prepared, that party would have been toast. I don't think you even factored in those pet wolves.
The "pet" wolves are part of a class feature, and, as such are (theoretically) factored into the werewolves' base CR of 4 due to their ranger levels.

ravenkith
2007-05-15, 12:42 PM
BAse cr 7 + 5 others = cr 12 encounter...

Party level = 6 @ 6 or cr 7.

Not getting full damage from spells...?

Yeah, they should have been having trouble.

Oh well.

Vulgosh
2007-05-15, 12:50 PM
I feel your pain I for one have had my fair share of incompitent players.
In fact one of my players died 7 times in one day and he was nearly the same character every single time, a half-orc barbarian with under 8 intelegence and 20 strength. Also one of my other players threw a nearly unconcious ally at a hord of feindish town folks, the unconsious one survived 8 cou de grace but the one who threw him died after the next hord arived. They are always at each other's throwts...... they're sort of dumb.

Tweekinator
2007-05-15, 01:13 PM
That has got to be the luckiest monk in the world. He tried to attack Strahd, who did not harm him in any way, and then he threatens to attack any of his companions who go after "his target"? Did he try to kill this vampire hunter NPC who took down practically all the werewolves?

You might want to tell him that eventually his lucky steak of eminently merciful and forgiving NPCs and fellow adventurers may come to an end very soon. I would have had Strahd kill him for daring to attack the lord of Ravenloft and his party for going along with it/completeness; let alone their retardation with the werewolves.

Fax Celestis
2007-05-15, 01:25 PM
Put the monk in his place by throwing a no-save, no-sr spellcaster at him.

Matthew
2007-05-28, 04:20 PM
No, no, kick his ass with a Fighter...

How's this Ravenloft Campaign going now?

Shalist
2007-05-28, 05:38 PM
Prince of cats, you should be happy--there are so many groups out there that know everything about everything--you can't even spit out 3 words about an encounter, and they'll already know the AC, hitpoints, vulns, best strategies, etc to fight the monster. The fact that they did so poorly due largely to a lack of player knowledge and experience could be seen as a good thing. I'm sure part of the basis for CR's and ECL's is that the players aren't always optimized--gear/spellwise or knowledgewise--for every encounter. I'm sure a lot of ravenloft monsters base their predatory habits around sneakiness and a certain degree of mystery, and a lot of 'em aren't anywhere near as scary if you actually know what you're up against.

The way the acted could be interpretted as good RP, if for the wrong reasons--how many big beefy warriors are going to give up their trusty Magical Greatsword of *cough*Kickiness that's hacked off so many limbs in the past, for some pidly mundane tarnished shortsword/dagger without a very good reason? It'd be just a bit counterintuitive, like in the horror movies where they keep using guns on everything instead of putting their faith in the ordinarily harmless whatever, even though the guns obviously ain't doing a whole lot. Also, the lack of teamwork sounds almost RPish (what difference does it make if the monk kills the werewolf or not, everyone gets the same exp anyways), and apparantly wasn't _that_ bad if they managed to survive as well as they did.

I'm just saying. It can be frustrating to watch them beat their heads against a brick wall when there's a sledge hammer laying right beside them, but it can be funner as well--funner for them as they figure out how to treat each encounter with a bit of respect, and for you as you watch them learn. If you're worried about them dying, you can just have whatever they're facing run off as soon as they whip out its' kryptonite--I'm sure most werewolves aren't used to actually fighting people who have silver and that can fight back, kinda lke how trolls are deathly afraid of fire and will lose heart for a fight rather quickly if its bandied about, and orcs will run if they don't outnumber you 10 to 1 anymore--not many things want to die just over a meal or a few pieces of currency

....
2007-05-28, 06:18 PM
Shalist is right. Nothing more annoying than going:

DM:Before you is a hulking creature with compound eyes, long talons and-

Players: Oh, an umber-hulk.

DM: With it is a strange, squid like monster, pure black and-

Players: And a darkmantle.

More than once out of spite I've not told the players what hits them, just tell them to take forty points of damage and make a fort save. :smallfurious:

Draz74
2007-05-28, 08:23 PM
Are you playing in 3.0? Because that's the kind of thing you really need to mention on these forums. People will assume you're playing 3.5 unless they're told otherwise.

I'm making this guess based on 1) the players' apparent assumption that magic weapons would help them pierce most DR, and 2) the mention of separate attack tables for the Monk's attack, depending on whether or not he's using Flurry.

Do you have a 3.0 PHB and a 3.5 MM or something? Because that would go a long way toward explaining the players' apparent stupidity.

Jack_of_Spades
2007-05-29, 02:42 AM
Shalist is right. Nothing more annoying than going:

DM:Before you is a hulking creature with compound eyes, long talons and-

Players: Oh, an umber-hulk.

DM: With it is a strange, squid like monster, pure black and-

Players: And a darkmantle.

More than once out of spite I've not told the players what hits them, just tell them to take forty points of damage and make a fort save. :smallfurious:


That's being unfair. I don't think players should be punished for knowing how to play the game well. I WISH my players knew the rules and monsters that well. The last time I tried to give my players a hard challenge they said that I was being spiteful and unfair. They were level three, their enemies were four kobolds on a ledge fifteen feet above. Long story short, the ranger died, the fighter caught on fire and eventually burned to ash, the rogue was unconscious, the cleric tried to drag the ranger and rogue out of the dungeon; he tried to use his tower shield as a sled to lower the ranger down a steep mountain side, the ranger died. The rogue and cleric made it back to town after one week with no food or water.

Lord Lorac Silvanos
2007-05-29, 04:31 AM
... The rogue and cleric made it back to town after one week with no food or water.
(My emphasis)

Interesting considering that Create Water is a 0th level cleric spell. :smalltongue:

Fizban
2007-05-29, 04:33 AM
I figure I'll chime in about the importance of numbers, as in strength in numbers.

Baisically, in DnD, actions are king. An adventuring party normally has 4 memebers, and thus has 4 times as many actions as a single opponent. If the players coordinate their actions, or just win initiative, a single opponent could be taking 1 action compared to 5-8, which means he's toast. In the same vein, a party outnumbered 2 to 1 is screwed unless the enemies are vastly inferior.

This encounter involved twice as many creatures as the PC's once you include the wolves. Add to that the fact that the werewolves were each individually considered a "challenge", and that spells dead to a party that doesn't have some advantage. Since the party squandered what advantages they had, death followed.

Finally, CR is not a hard number. It varies based on the characters, the number of characters, the characters' resources, and pretty much any aspect of the game. Always play out a quick fight in your head before sending the PC's in, comparing what numbers they'll likely have to roll vs what the monsters have to roll to do their thing. Figure out roughly how many hits the fighter can take, and how long it will take for those hits to happen for example. This will give you the actual challenge of the fight.

That sounded more condescending than I meant it to.

The Prince of Cats
2007-05-29, 07:57 AM
We are playing 3.5 but the players are used to second edition. Almost no monster I use gets re-used; I know so many synonyms for and variations on most creatures in the MM from folklore that the players rarely ever manage to work out the stats for the thing they are fighting. (even my notes will not have the MM name; when I slip and say something like 'the svartaelf' or 'Renfield', they don't connect the word with the stats for a Drow or a Vampire Spawn)

The werewolves were a rare example of me letting them know what they were fighting. I let them use any OOC knowledge they had, since werewolves and silver are common knowledge.

On the rare occasions when they do say 'Ooh, trolls hate fire', they have been trained to think 'Hey, if we can use potions of fire resistance, could they not use them too?' and approach carefully.

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-05-29, 08:44 AM
Prince of cats, you should be happy--there are so many groups out there that know everything about everything--you can't even spit out 3 words about an encounter, and they'll already know the AC, hitpoints, vulns, best strategies, etc to fight the monster. The fact that they did so poorly due largely to a lack of player knowledge and experience could be seen as a good thing.
I think you're giving thes players a bit too much credit. From Prince's description, it seems he a very large "DM-Hint-Hammer," and despite this, the players didn't budge. The characters were supposed to have known that werewolves are better harmed by silver.

In any case, the players were clearly trying to play the numbers. The reason they gave for not using the silver weapons was because it did -1 damage compared to standard weapons. They just happened to fail in their evaluation of the situation.


I'm sure part of the basis for CR's and ECL's is that the players aren't always optimized--gear/spellwise or knowledgewise--for every encounter.
Yeah. CRs and (I assume you mean) ELs are assigned assuming a magical "average" party. And the PCs don't change that at all. Reference the DMG passages mentioned above for more info.

In any case, the EL did indicate a nast possibly-over-the-PCs'-heads fight. Though the ready access to silver weapons does place the encounter in the "Easy if handled properly" category. They just didn't handle it properly.


The way the acted could be interpretted as good RP, if for the wrong reasons--how many big beefy warriors are going to give up their trusty Magical Greatsword of *cough*Kickiness that's hacked off so many limbs in the past, for some pidly mundane tarnished shortsword/dagger without a very good reason?
Well, firstly, the silver weapons weren't that much worse than their current weapons. Heck, the quarterstaff was even a +2 equivalent—better than the +1 weapons they were trusting in.

Second, once the vampire-killer arrived on the scene and demonstrated just how much more effective the silver weapons were, I'd expect the PCs to take the hint that sometimes not even your "Greatsword of Kickiness" just won't cut it.


It'd be just a bit counterintuitive, like in the horror movies where they keep using guns on everything instead of putting their faith in the ordinarily harmless whatever, even though the guns obviously ain't doing a whole lot.
But then, eventually someone does put their faith in the ordinarily harmless whatever, and the day is saved. Sometimes this happens when a mysterious and more experienced character (such as Prince's vampire-killer) arrives out of nowhere and demonstrates the virtues of the ordinarily harmless whatever.


Also, the lack of teamwork sounds almost RPish (what difference does it make if the monk kills the werewolf or not, everyone gets the same exp anyways), and apparantly wasn't _that_ bad if they managed to survive as well as they did.
While it's not a bad idea to give the players a benefit of doubt, Prince's description of the event as a whole does give one the impression that the characters were rationalizing many of their decisions on questions other than "Is this how my character would act?"


That's being unfair. I don't think players should be punished for knowing how to play the game well. I WISH my players knew the rules and monsters that well.
Do remember that just because a player knows every entry in the MM by heart doesn't mean his or her character does. This is a role-playing game. As such, when one steps out of character—out of the role of the PC—to make an in-character decision, that typiclally does not fall within the provinces of "playing the game well." In fact, playing that way is generally considered to be just the opposite—a very poor job of playing the game.

Now, it's inevitable that a player—even one who's never DMed or peeked at the MM—will become rather intimate with the abilities of at least several monsters. The trick is then learning how to discern when it is appropriate to use that knowledge in character and when it is best to pretend you've never even heard of a "red-bellied dracobelcher."


Baisically, in DnD, actions are king. An adventuring party normally has 4 memebers, and thus has 4 times as many actions as a single opponent. If the players coordinate their actions, or just win initiative, a single opponent could be taking 1 action compared to 5-8, which means he's toast. In the same vein, a party outnumbered 2 to 1 is screwed unless the enemies are vastly inferior.
But don't forget that not all actions are created equal. There are very few actions that can compare to the action of casting a 9th level spell—even those spells that don't effectively grant other actions. So if the outnumbered side in a battle has access to a superior set of possible actions, that can even things out.


Finally, CR is not a hard number. It varies based on the characters, the number of characters, the characters' resources, and pretty much any aspect of the game.
Actually, CR is pretty hard. It is based upon an "average" party of four. Beyond the common resources of hit points, base saves, and BAB, and available spell levels, no specific resource is taken into account in assigning CR.

Now, what does vary is however is the actual challenge to a specific party. Those other factors may be taken into account in determining the Encounter Level as it applies to your given party. See the last paragraph under "Difficulty Factors" on p. 50 of the DMG and "Modifying XP Awards and Encounter Levels" on p. 39 of the DMG.


Always play out a quick fight in your head before sending the PC's in, comparing what numbers they'll likely have to roll vs what the monsters have to roll to do their thing. Figure out roughly how many hits the fighter can take, and how long it will take for those hits to happen for example. This will give you the actual challenge of the fight.
Good advice here. :smallbiggrin:

ElHugo
2007-05-29, 09:06 AM
Besides... Seriously...
Werewolves. And silver weapons? And they aren't figuring it out?
If I was playing -anything-, DnD, computer, board game, kick-the-can, w/e, and a werewolf comes up, and I have a silver weapon, I whip it out. It makes sense, pretty much every bit of werewolf mythology ever written mentions their vulnerability to silver. Now combine this with the fact that your attacks don't seem to be having effect - I think this is a simple case of Terminal Stupidity.

I'm not familiar with the setting, and this is too rantish, but What The *boop*!?
Are you sure they weren't doing it on purpose? This almost caused my head to melt off my shoulders...

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-05-29, 09:15 AM
Besides... Seriously...
Werewolves. And silver weapons? And they aren't figuring it out?
If I was playing -anything-, DnD, computer, board game, kick-the-can, w/e, and a werewolf comes up, and I have a silver weapon, I whip it out. It makes sense, pretty much every bit of werewolf mythology ever written mentions their vulnerability to silver. Now combine this with the fact that your attacks don't seem to be having effect - I think this is a simple case of Terminal Stupidity.
Mind you that the character's might not be in a world where werewolves have this well known mythology. It could be better role-playing to not know their weakness. If no one in a game world had ever heard of a werewolf, and you break out the silver the first time you ever see one, I'd consider that to be terrible metagaming.

Of course, as I mentioned above, Prince gave this party enough hints that they should have known in-character as well as in-character.

Aquillion
2007-05-29, 09:24 AM
To think, all the carnage that could have been prevented with a Bardic Knowledge check...Technically, Bardic Knowledge doesn't work that way. It provides information about individuals and unique things or places, not general species and types:

A bard may make a special bardic knowledge check with a bonus equal to his bard level + his Intelligence modifier to see whether he knows some relevant information about local notable people, legendary items, or noteworthy places.Of course, allowing more general bardic knowledge is a pretty common houserule, but if so you have to decide if you want it making all the other knowledge abilities obsolete or not, and limit it approprately.

Now, in any case, it could've helped the monk who tried to kill Strahd, certainly...

Runolfr
2007-05-29, 11:19 AM
In the end, I had to introduce a Deus Ex Machina, a vampire-hunter NPC (ranger 6 - favoured enemy undead +4, lycanthrope +2) who I was saving for later in the campaign. He killed four werewolves in three rounds. The other two werewolves were killed by the party over the course of 10 rounds, even that only after I 'forgot' their DR...

You know, if my party were demonstrating that level of stupidity, I'd just let them die.

ElHugo
2007-05-29, 11:24 AM
Mind you that the character's might not be in a world where werewolves have this well known mythology. It could be better role-playing to not know their weakness. If no one in a game world had ever heard of a werewolf, and you break out the silver the first time you ever see one, I'd consider that to be terrible metagaming.

Although that isn't specified, wouldn't that be common knowledge (in a stories-told kinda way) ingame as well? I can easily imagine it is - the knowledge DC on such a thing could be so low anyone would pass it. Bummer they're trained only - where do you start distinguishing between "if you don't make the knowledge check, you don't know it IC, so using it anyways is meta-gaming" and "roleplaying not knowing this is simply defying common sense"

Such common knowledge could include plenty of falsehoods too - does garlic effect vampires in DnD? I don't have the books on hand, but such an oddball weakness I can imagine not being included, but when you don't know for sure except knowing your attacks aren't doing anything, such 'unreliable common knowledge' would still beat 'lets continue doing what isn't working'.

Hmmm, I hope this didn't come out too agressive

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-05-29, 11:46 AM
Although that isn't specified, wouldn't that be common knowledge (in a stories-told kinda way) ingame as well?
No.

How can anything about werewolves would be common knowledge if no one has heard anything about werewolves? Not even old legends.

And that's my point. If no one in the campaign world knows anything about werewolves, no matter what the players know, the PC's definitely have no excuse to pick up silver as soon as they see a man transform into a wolf.

Anyway—Even if there are stories about werewolves, that doesn't mean the PCs have heard those stories. Just because werewolf stories are ubiquitous in the real world doesn't mean they're so common in the game world.


I can easily imagine it is - the knowledge DC on such a thing could be so low anyone would pass it. Bummer they're trained only...
Do note that Knowledge skills can be used untrained when the DC is 10 or lower.


Such common knowledge could include plenty of falsehoods too...
Indeed. Several Monster Ecologies articles in Dragon gave gave a list of information to be gained about specific creatures from given Knowledge checks where low check results would yield false legends rather than fact.

Suvarov454
2007-05-29, 12:16 PM
Sadly, I cut my teeth on Vampire: the Masquerade. To me, the very idea that the party would imagine they could take on all comers is amusing.

If you're used to White Wolf publications, does that mean your players do as well? How could any World of Darkness player NOT know to use silver on lycantrhopes?!?

P.S. according to d20srd.org (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/lycanthrope.htm#werewolf), werewolves are LA +3, so they were CR 7 monsters, for a total EL of 12 for the six of them. As said earlier, a party of 6 is a +1 to the effective level of the party, meaning they should only have faced one of your were-rangers (and I suspect they still would have had trouble, because they ignored their silver weapon).

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-05-29, 01:08 PM
P.S. according to d20srd.org (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/lycanthrope.htm#werewolf), werewolves are LA +3, so they were CR 7 monsters, for a total EL of 12 for the six of them.
Uh, CR adjustment and LA are very different things.

The template only adds 2 to CR. Right there in the template description, too.

Dark
2007-05-30, 02:15 AM
How can anything about werewolves would be common knowledge if no one has heard anything about werewolves? Not even old legends.

And that's my point. If no one in the campaign world knows anything about werewolves, no matter what the players know, the PC's definitely have no excuse to pick up silver as soon as they see a man transform into a wolf.

I think it's bad form for a DM to deliberately set up tension between player and character knowledge this way. Keeping them separate is hard enough as it is.

If a world doesn't have any legends about werewolves, then presumably it doesn't have any werewolves either. If the DM then introduces werewolves, why should those werewolves fit into the legends that this world doesn't have? Just give them a different name, change their immunity from silver to something else, and the entire problem goes away.

Diggorian
2007-05-30, 02:43 AM
If a world doesn't have any legends about werewolves, then presumably it doesn't have any werewolves either. If the DM then introduces werewolves, why should those werewolves fit into the legends that this world doesn't have?

I'm thinking "common knowledge" is being misunderstood.
This is any Knowledge check with a DC 10 or lower by RAW, which isnt enough to give accurate info on werewolves (requires DC 10+HD).

A world with werewolves has legends of them but mostly they're inaccurate & exaggerated. "Wolvesbane will protect ya from a wolfman."--"Werewolves are afraid of domestic dogs." -- or "Werewolves are helpful if you offer them jerky, they love it." could be a DC 7, 4, or 2 check respectively. It's usually some old educated guy that knows the real deal, he's got actual ranks in the skill (uncommon knowledge).

The common people in a D&D world are level 1-2 Commoners. Their knowledge is mostly about farming etc.

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-05-30, 07:45 AM
If a world doesn't have any legends about werewolves, then presumably it doesn't have any werewolves either. If the DM then introduces werewolves, why should those werewolves fit into the legends that this world doesn't have?
Maybe werewolves can only be found on a particular continent that no one has ever been to in ages and the PCs are in a "First Contact" position?

Maybe werewolves are a totally new monster just created by a wizard or Lupus the Wolf God?

Or maybe Diggorian successfully stripped my hyperbole down to what is generally supposed to be the case to begin with?

Diggorian
2007-05-30, 12:39 PM
Or maybe Diggorian successfully stripped my hyperbole down to what is generally supposed to be the case to begin with?

Your welcome :smallbiggrin: