Epic campaign : interesting encounters ?

[Puke]

Hi.

My players are :

23 spellthief
21 rogue
23 wizard/incantatrix/archwizard
23 fighter/crusader
23 cleric/radiant servant of Pelor

They are currently crawling some awful dungeon to defeat an evil Overseer (inspired by Dungeon Keeper/ War for the Overworld) and they succeeded in slaying everything I made them face.
The next fight includes 2 adamantine golems. I'm pretty confident they will not win this one as easily as they usually do.
The party is well balanced. The crusader tanks like HELL. And I mean... it has an amulet that divides damages incoming from natural or crafted weapons by 2...
The cleric heals. The spellthief is a pain...

Sometimes, I can make them cry a bit using Beholders and flying monsters, or massive battlefield control.

But this crusader can block and keep any freaking monster busy. I'm forced to attack him... he tanks like... BRUH. Way too much.

I think i'll put a vorpal weapon into the hands of the next monster he will face.

Do you have any guesses about how I could make some great encounter so they do not automatically delete my monsters ?
My players are pretty smart, they play well together and they know the rules as well (and sometimes better) as I do.

[~Mozza]

I suggest you not to put something just to counter one or two members of the party: first, it not may be possible for the monster to know the strenght of the party and adjust themselves; second, it could be frustrating for the PCs.

Anyway, antimagic field, dead magic/wild magic zone should probably shut down the casters.

The vorpal weapon is a bad idea, I don't think you want a vorpal in the hand of the party after the combat.

I like the idea of someone or something that is scrying them and knows what they do or can't do and puts a battleground with some traps, crowd control or similar. Maybe someone that the spellthief can't sneak-attack or some caster that controls the crusader and make it fight against the party.

Or you can put a god aspect, debuffed of course, that is interested in them because of their skill and power. If they can entertain him/her for some rounds, he/she simply goes away, or hire them form some epic and marvellous adventure.

Also, the amulet the crusader has, it's homebrew or it's in a manual?

[Puke]

I suggest you not to put something just to counter one or two members of the party: first, it not may be possible for the monster to know the strenght of the party and adjust themselves; second, it could be frustrating for the PCs.

Anyway, antimagic field, dead magic/wild magic zone should probably shut down the casters.

The vorpal weapon is a bad idea, I don't think you want a vorpal in the hand of the party after the combat.

I like the idea of someone or something that is scrying them and knows what they do or can't do and puts a battleground with some traps, crowd control or similar. Maybe someone that the spellthief can't sneak-attack or some caster that controls the crusader and make it fight against the party.

Or you can put a god aspect, debuffed of course, that is interested in them because of their skill and power. If they can entertain him/her for some rounds, he/she simply goes away, or hire them form some epic and marvellous adventure.

Also, the amulet the crusader has, it's homebrew or it's in a manual?

The amulet comes from the rules.

Retributive Amulet
This amulet provides a +2 sacred bonus to AC. In addition, when the wearer takes damage from a melee attack made with a natural or hand-held weapon, the damage is divided equally between the attacker and the target. If the damage is an odd number, the extra point of damage goes to the attacker.
The retributive amulet deals the same types of wounds upon the attacker that the wearer receives, but only damage to hit points. For example, a rogue who uses a poisoned dagger to stab the amulet's wearer would receive an identical gash in the same spot as the wearer, butt would not suffer ability loss from the weapon's poison.
The amulet must be worn to function; it needs no command word for activation.
Faint abjuration; CL 5th; Craft Wondrous Item, shield other; Price 56,000 gp.
Source: Book of Exalted Deeds

[Mjr Lee Fat]

... he tanks like... BRUH. Way too much.


Exactly how much tanking is the quantity of "BRUH"?

[Puke]

Exactly how much tanking is the quantity of "BRUH"?

He is able to survive most of the burst I'm able to provide. Mostly because of the amulet.
He has 207 HPS, 3/- dmg reduction, the amulet allows him to divide dmgs by two most of the time.
He does not take dmg on a succesful reflex save.
The cleric heals him every single round.
He can force the monsters to aggro him, so I can't reach the supports.

So far, the best I could do against him was to send him into a Maze spell.

[The_Jette]

A fun encounter might be something like this: the Cleric's deity of choice is attacked by another deity. All the other clerics of that deity lose access to their powers, while the PC is empowered a bit with the deity's essence to go forth and fight the attacker, probably some dark force or demon lord, rather than just another deity, and take vengeance. It's a nice mini-campaign. And, if it's a demon lord, or arch-devil, that gives the party an excuse to go to the abyss/hell and fight a literal horde of demons. Sure, the small ones get destroyed fast. But, there's a lot of them. And, they can fight their way through an entire castle, with Baalor/Pit Fiend Generals, and face an actual epic enemy that would normally be unbeatable, even by epic characters. Demon Lord + cronies = Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny!

[Trebloc]

I enjoy running epic games as it lets me come up with just about any encounter I can think of. So many ideas and possibilities. At that level, I put almost not thought into "how" the group will overcome an obstacle, epic PCs should have quite a toolbox of options at that point.

-The Crusader can tank everything? He's only one guy, have other baddies go around/over him or teleport past him. Maybe even grapple the crusader. Don't have to deal damage to him, just hold him down while the other goons pummel his buddies.

-You are using the Tome of Battle to right? I wouldn't cheese it too much, but having a wizard teleport a warblade buddy next to some squishies, then watch the warblade do a Time Stands Still + Belt of Battle for 3 full attacks is fun.

-Sneak attacks and misdirection. Have some baddies appear up front, then a round or two later, have some pop out from behind

-Be crazy with the battle field. Fight over a lake of acid (with no walkways of course). Or while going straight down a 1000' tunnel. Or in a room that has a constant effect of Repel Metal cast on it (while the enemies do not have armor and can utilize mobility to hit & run the PCs without getting hit back).

-Use no-save effects. Things like Vampire's energy drains, or most ability damage. Sure, the group can heal that stuff, but it adds up.

-Split that party up. I know, I know, that is a taboo. But something I've done a time or two to good effect. Something like needing to flip two switches at the same time. One that took a bit of effort, but my players loved, is that I put them all in a maze, in different locations, trying to find the exit. Of course the maze came with traps and monsters, and illusionary doubles of all the PCs for more hijinks.

-Do not let them do the 30-minute adventuring day. Put them on a strict time limit. And ignore the 4-battles a day nonsense at this point. I've thrown well over 20 battles in a single day at epic PCs, along with other traps and challenges.

-At this level, no baddie worth his salt is going to let the PCs scry & die him.

-Speaking of challenges, let your imagination run wild. Have them need to get to the middle of a lake of lava that is entirely in an Anti Magic Field. Tread across rooms that have predetermined hazards (you move onto the red area, you set off a fireball, move onto the green space and you get zapped by Energy Drain...etc). Fight in a room that is a maze of force walls and random teleportation squares.

-Actively try to kill the characters. Do not try to play patty cake with them. Cast those save-or-dies. Use tactics. Battle field control. Stick the Crusader in a force cage. Have some goons with Silence chase after the casters. Bull rush players into pits and other hazards.

-Hit them with dispel magic. Don't let them run around willy nilly with a bunch of long duration buffs on, at least not the entire time. Strip a few off here & there. Don't overdo it of course.

-Unique encounters. One fight that was deadlier than I had though was I had a couple mook wizards take the Multispell feat a couple times, and were running with only Maximized Magic Missile memorized. Sure, that is easily countered by a Shield spell, which my casters didn't take (unknown by me). However, spamming 5 maximized magic missiles each turn per wizard was quite a bit of unavoidable force damage being thrown about. Other things like spiked chain huge giants with trip and the Spellcasting Harrier feat. Vampires/Mummys with some class levels and Robilar's Gambit (to naughty touch the Crusader a TON of times for bad effects).

-Do the casters use Celerity or other broken spells? Remember you have those as well. I enjoyed the mind games of a PC wondering if I was going to cast Celerity in response to them casting it. Basically, I told my party, whatever tactics they used, that it was fair game for me to use as well, so that stopped some of the cheesier options from being on the table.

-Design some epic spells for the baddies. One of my favorites was "Honey Do" -- a major female baddie had an epic charm that had an incredibly high Will DC. Of course, we house ruled that immunities (Mind Blank, Prot Evil..etc) would provide a +20 save versus epic spells. However, there are plenty of other epic spells you can come up with for 1-time baddies to use.

[Puke]

Wow thanks buddies.

My players are pretty well optimized and uses everythind at their disposal to defeat my monsters.

The last challenging encounter, i Used an unique monster : The Big Horny.
It was a 1500 HPS barbarian with a scyte mage of pure magic.
I should have killed at least one of them, but he abused me by misreading a rule. Won't happen again tho.

I already did the thing with the busy god. Pelor was busy trying to stop the herald of Tharizdun with the help of the avatar of Boccob. Most of Pelor's followers lost a part of their powers and the cleric of the group was exhausted most of the time.

Sounds like when you are running an epic campaign, you must stop being a nice DM...

And you are right, they have a great toolbox. But so do I.
As for epic spells, the hidden ennemy is a very powerful archmage capable of casting contingent momento mori.

I will follow your advices.

[Trebloc]

Wow thanks buddies.

My players are pretty well optimized and uses everythind at their disposal to defeat my monsters.

The last challenging encounter, i Used an unique monster : The Big Horny.
It was a 1500 HPS barbarian with a scyte mage of pure magic.
I should have killed at least one of them, but he abused me by misreading a rule. Won't happen again tho.

I already did the thing with the busy god. Pelor was busy trying to stop the herald of Tharizdun with the help of the avatar of Boccob. Most of Pelor's followers lost a part of their powers and the cleric of the group was exhausted most of the time.

Sounds like when you are running an epic campaign, you must stop being a nice DM...

And you are right, they have a great toolbox. But so do I.
As for epic spells, the hidden ennemy is a very powerful archmage capable of casting contingent momento mori.

I will follow your advices.

You don't have to stop being a "nice" DM. The key is for everyone to have fun, including the DM. For me, epic let me not worry about "how" encounters are going to be beaten. So I just focused on making a number of fun, diverse encounters. And really, at that level, "death" shouldn't be a big deal. It should be like an annoying condition like being poisoned or diseased at this point. If your players get mad when their HP hits -10 or they fail a save, then epic probably isn't the best to play.

Really, some of the things I thought would be challenging, the group curb stomped. Some of the things I thought would be easy, the group struggled with. And my group enjoyed having to be careful with their resources, so people weren't going nova every battle. Especially if they thought the next door might be the big bad that they'd have to square off against while low on resources. And the group would also have to deal with trying to guess how far they should push themselves -- they know they have 3 days to make it to the end of the dungeon to save the damsel.

And to be fair to them, I always stuck to not modifying the dungeon after they began. So I didn't cheat them and add, or remove encounters. They were aware of this as well.

That said, I fully put in encounters where I knew the group could bypass parts of them. Makes the PCs feel good for having a way past. Things like the Iounstone that lets you breath without air and dropping them under water to fight sharks. Or traps I suspected the rogue would find. A poisonous cloud but the group had eaten a Heroes' Feast.

[~Mozza]

Sounds like when you are running an epic campaign, you must stop being a nice DM...


IMHO you have not to be the nice DM even at lower levels. You have to be the right DM, the one that doesn't kill a PC for no reason but isn't afraid of killing it during the last boss fight. We have a "homerule" that says that if the death of a PC is too stupid, or simply it doesn't feel good to anyone at the table, the PC survives. Maybe is put in a sort of a coma, or his/her hp are set at -8 or something like that.

If one of your demons kills a PC, well, it's time to roll a new one. If one of your low-level minion rolls a trilpe-20 during a meaningless encounter, well, it's not fair.

[John Longarrow]

6 pixies, all level 15 or so warlocks, should slow the party down A LOT... Especially your tank. He'll get tired of getting hit by 20 something dice of damage each round from magic ranged attacks... Plus unless the party is on their toes fast flying enemies who shoot and move can do a number on a group.

And then they all have invocations. :smallcool:

[Puke]

I have an idea.
They will soon fight a very powerful mage (20 wizard, 5 archwizard, 5 arcanist)

I'm wondering. Can i force them to planeshift ?

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/planeShift.htm

Is it a touch attack ? If I want to send someone away ?

[Braininthejar2]

I think Order of the Stick used it that way (in the siege of Azure City, in the duel between Redcloak and the paladins' high priest)

When used with some intelligence, it's a "save or die and good luck looking for the body"

[Puke]

Sending someone to the negative energy plane sounds like fun, does it not ?

[Kaleph]

The amulet comes from the rules.

Retributive Amulet
This amulet provides a +2 sacred bonus to AC. In addition, when the wearer takes damage from a melee attack made with a natural or hand-held weapon, the damage is divided equally between the attacker and the target. If the damage is an odd number, the extra point of damage goes to the attacker.
The retributive amulet deals the same types of wounds upon the attacker that the wearer receives, but only damage to hit points. For example, a rogue who uses a poisoned dagger to stab the amulet's wearer would receive an identical gash in the same spot as the wearer, butt would not suffer ability loss from the weapon's poison.
The amulet must be worn to function; it needs no command word for activation.
Faint abjuration; CL 5th; Craft Wondrous Item, shield other; Price 56,000 gp.
Source: Book of Exalted Deeds

If you're interested (read: if you think the amulet is a pain in the ***), the retributive amulet has been nerfed in the Magic Item Compendium. So the version you posted is superseded by a minor one, that works only on 3 attacks per day and has to be activated as an immediate action.

[Puke]

Oh.
Love you dude.