Do you punish an unbalanced party?

[Wonton]

In my Pathfinder game, my party consists of a Samurai, a Rogue, a Barbarian, a Monk, and a Witch (a Necromancer variant who mainly focuses on undead minions). So basically, 4.5 / 5 of them are melee, with the occasional spell or hex thrown out by the Witch. They are currently level 5.

My question is, given this party's OBVIOUS weakness against things like flying/ranged enemies, to what extent is it okay to use enemies like that in my game?

Obviously, there's a spectrum - on one end, you can be a **** and constantly screw over your players with enemies that counter them. And when they TPK against that Sorcerer with Fly and Protection from Arrows, you say "sorry, should have built your party better".

On the other end, you can say "I don't want to be unfair" and avoid enemies like that entirely. At which point the game becomes too easy unless you literally give every enemy ridiculous AC/HP/DR to survive the all-melee onslaught.

Clearly, the ideal answer lies somewhere inbetween. But it's still a challenging question, because given their extreme melee focus, a level 3 Ranger with a Wand of Fly would probably be a greater threat for them than CR 8 Dire Tiger.

The reason I ask is because I'm running an adventure path, and they've recently reached the end of a section of wilderness (where they were fighting beasts, something they're VERY good at). But coming up, there will some very difficult encounters for them. A Necromancer who can Fly, a Shadow Demon (Invisibility+Flying), and an Enchanter with Spider Climb.

So how would you handle a party like this?

[LTwerewolf]

Make it believable. If a place will having flying enemies, let them have flying enemies. If the party scouts or gets intel, let them find out about that.

[Coventry]

The answer to that question depends on you and your players. To wit:

Will they enjoy what's about to happen? There are two sides:

If your players are all about realism, then getting their butts kicked by a flying opponent may be the memorable and enjoyable gaming experience that they talk about for years to come.

If your players are easily frustrated by not being the victors, then you have a problem brewing that may end your gaming group.


The flying necromancer can simply hover over them and say, "You can't hurt me, can you? Why should I even bother to kill you?"

[Hackulator]

I would suggest hitting them with some relatively weak enemies who have skills and abilities that counter them. They should realize their weakness and start to come up with strategies to counter those issues. In an extended campaign, the enemies SHOULD start to tailor their tactics against the party, and the characters should have to adapt in turn.

[Waker]

I would "punish" the players insomuch as it would make sense. Have the party constantly get pestered by every flying enemy in the book? No. But if the party is going to an area known to have harpies or manticore or... Then that is their fault.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Give a fair mix of encounters / provide encounters that make sense for the area/enemy, without taking their choices into account. That's the fairest way to do it, though I know you end up feeling kind of bad. So you can skew things a bit in their favor, but they should definitely still have to face encounters they're not well equipped to handle. Might convince them to diversify their capabilities, which is what you really want out of this (certainly don't penalize someone wanting to retrain for the sake of party balance by making it cost money or xp or whatever...I never make retraining cost anything.)

Obviously, enemies who've fought them before and survived, or who have studied them, would know of the imbalance and seek to exploit it as best they can.

[Gildedragon]

Variety.
Toss one or two flying enemies at them in a believable fashion. Have them be attacked by something flying but not too strong so they see their weak spot.
Possibly let them gain flying themselves soon after... reanimated flying beast to start.

And don't think about punishing the party
It's not a helpful mindset.

[Malroth]

They've got a necromancer on their side, throw some big dumb flier brute they can animate as a zombie so your melee guys can play air cavalry.

[Mordaedil]

Don't punish your players.

But don't coddle them either. You don't need simply flying enemies to present a challenge to a range-lacking party, play with height-advantage and various other range challenges. I mean, your players should at the very least have a ranged alternative, but also offer them to be inventive ways to getting into melee with the ranged characters to end them. Don't just put everything within easy reach. Put the archers in guard towers that they have to spend several rounds to chop down as the ladders have been withdrawn up into the tower, or allow them to haphazardly climb the outside of the tower to get up, but they become an easy target to other enemies doing so.

[Boozy]

I can only assume they play the characters they chose because they think they are fun, and as such are engaged. I'm going to further assume you want to keep them enjoying the sessions, not "win".

There's a couple of ways to go about their imbalance. They want to play melee-centric, great. Give them nasty melee challenges in the main, and use ranged variations on occasion to create tension. Opponents that exploit gaping holes with ill will make great villains. Again, the DM Golden Rule comes into play: you always have more resources than the players, but also more responsibility. No matter their strengths, you can always challenge them, strength on strength. If that's what they like and gets them engaged, awesome.

The above is a meta approach, aware that it's a game. A setting that's not self-aware would of course not generously play into their forte, and brutalize them. That's an approach that desires to inject realism into the setting. I've used it before, in fact settings like Dark Sun make that a central theme. It can be appropriate and add to the mood and tension of games, but often players don't find it fun. No matter how even-handed you go about it, there's always the chance they will think you're a DM "out to get them," and you can lose the benefit of the doubt over the course of a campaign.

[Alcore]

Never punish


But don't coddle them like a bunch of kids if they knew better. 3 of 4 melee are proficient in ranged weapons just of the top of my head (i just have my doubts about the monk, not all monk weapons behave the same) so ranged and flight battles shouldn't be an impossible barrier. Getting all five into the sky at once might be impossible without preperation.


I, personally, would save flying magical (thus ranged) enemies for special occastions but I would also keep the world making sense. As much as they ever do.

[Eldariel]

I run organic worlds that do not revolve around PCs. Thus it is simply a factor of where they go and whom they antagonize.

[Wonton]

Make it believable. If a place will having flying enemies, let them have flying enemies. If the party scouts or gets intel, let them find out about that.

That advice basically amounts to "don't change anything", which will result in laughably easy melee encounters, and incredibly frustrating/borderline impossible encounters with ranged spellcasters. Not a good gaming experience, IMO. I'd prefer to sacrifice some realism for balance/fun. I agree that rewarding scouting is a good idea, though. Problem is, the Barbarian and Samurai characters (not the players, but the characters they've made) are very brash and... stupid, and prefer charging into battle over scouting. *

* (I know at this point you're wondering "how the hell would adventurers that dumb expect to survive for any length of time" and I completely agree with you. But they have fun playing them. Hence this thread.


The answer to that question depends on you and your players. To wit:

Will they enjoy what's about to happen? There are two sides:

If your players are all about realism, then getting their butts kicked by a flying opponent may be the memorable and enjoyable gaming experience that they talk about for years to come.

If your players are easily frustrated by not being the victors, then you have a problem brewing that may end your gaming group.


The flying necromancer can simply hover over them and say, "You can't hurt me, can you? Why should I even bother to kill you?"

To have fresh new corpses to raise, of course. Why wouldn't a Necromancer kill 5 people (loaded with gold and magic items) that can't hit him with their pointy swords?

As for my players, they certainly aren't the type to run out of the room crying when their character dies in battle (had that happen before...... it was extremely awkward), but they also can get upset if they feel a fight is too unfair, and can sometimes slip into the sulking "the DM is trying to kill us" mindset.


They've got a necromancer on their side, throw some big dumb flier brute they can animate as a zombie so your melee guys can play air cavalry.

That's actually a great idea. I might throw a Dimorphodon skeleton their way or something, so they have something that can fly and maybe even carry a small rider.

Along the same veins, some magic item drops to help them fight at range might not be a bad idea. They'd probably never buy a +1 Composite Bow, +1 Returning Shortspear, or Javelin of Lightning, but if they find one, they might use it rather than vendoring it for 1/2 price.

[Pleh]

Never forget terrain advantages.

Always leave the party a backup plan in case things go awry. I mean, it's a fantastic and common trope in fantasy that the enemy swoops down in a flying ambush, so the heroes fight for a short time while looking for cover. If they can escape to a small, enclosed space, the enemy will have to abandon their advantage to be able to continue the pursuit.

Not every encounter has to be defeated by killing the monsters. Sometimes just surviving the ordeal is worth the same experience.

It can be difficult outrunning a flying creature, so pick poor or clumsy maneuverability for this trope. That gives the players a moment to take action while the enemy flies off to make a wide turn to come around again.

[Florian]

So how would you handle a party like this?

That will depend on what talk you had before starting the AP. If it´s clear that you stick to the rules and use the AP as written, then it´s a cue for the players to build a well-rounded party or face problems from time to time (or compensate using equipment).

All in all, I´d give them a warning shot that they have to come up with some working tactics to handle that kind of stuff in the near future and be done with that.

[AlanBruce]

It's a long read, but I believe relevant, (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?526455-How-to-Survive-This)

Needless to say, that party in particular lost 2 important NPCs with the PC monk blinded by Glitterdust and knowingly running through a Spirit Wall after already being hit once and gaining a negative level.

He now lies unconscious and with 2 negative levels past the wall and alone, since the rest of the party decided at around round 14 to flee (mind you that the Necromancer in question popped up at round 3 and had been spell slinging every round- these guys just took it and never opted to escape or, in the beguiler's case, dispel the guy so as to make him an easier target).

So is it good to punish PCs? It depends: If you hand out the info and tools beforehand and they choose to ignore them, then the gloves come off and all you can do as a DM is hope that they use common sense to retreat.

[denthor]

You have identified a problem. Now as a DM solve it for your players.

Boots of flight reward

Ring of flying reward

Scrolls or potions of fly found in treasure

Found in a treasure maybe a mission where they get one of these as a reward.

[Alcore]

Additionally flying mounts would work. Zombie is a good answer (that has been mentioned) but some mythical creatures also give prices on eggs and combat trained versions (griffins, hippogriffs and dire eagles comes to mind). 3.5 arms and armor also have flying mounts.

[Psyren]

You don't have to go straight to divebombing them with dragons and storm elementals. You can slowly introduce them to the idea that they need to diversify their tactics and worry about looking up as they get higher in levels. Throw a couple of winged enemies into an encounter, like adding some goblin gliders or a couple of Strix/Raptorans to the wandering bandits. Or put some archers up on a ridge or in the treetops. Basically, if at the end of the fight one of your players says "that would've been a lot easier if we could fly" then you've done your job as far as making the game world more realistic but still fair.

You can include a scroll of fly in some loot as a not-so-subtle hint to the party witch, and some magic arrows as a not-so-subtle hint for everyone else.

[Buufreak]

I try to not punish the party unless they truly deserve it. If you are on an escort mission and decide its simply easier to kill the subject and deliver a corpse, then consequences will exist. However, I'm not going to punish a party that wants to play simple, non magic using characters.

[Jay R]

They need to rescue a grateful wizard or cleric, or find the right hoard of magic items, very soon.

[And if they rescue a grateful wizard or cleric, it should be one who specialized in buffing spells, so the people doing the major fighting will still be the PCs. Note that such a wizard is not very powerful alone, and therefore easily captured before the party arrives. She might even still have buffing spells memorized, and able to help them when they arrive. Those spells are kind of useless for a wizard alone, but great when the fighters show up.]

[Zanos]

That advice basically amounts to "don't change anything", which will result in laughably easy melee encounters, and incredibly frustrating/borderline impossible encounters with ranged spellcasters. Not a good gaming experience, IMO. I'd prefer to sacrifice some realism for balance/fun. I agree that rewarding scouting is a good idea, though. Problem is, the Barbarian and Samurai characters (not the players, but the characters they've made) are very brash and... stupid, and prefer charging into battle over scouting. *
So? The party has strengths and weaknesses. They dominate melee encounters and suffer in ranged encounters and encounters they aren't prepared for. Are you going to make every encounter a melee encounter?

If my party consists of five fighters with weapon focus(greatsword), weapon specialization(greatsword) and 18 str/10 dex on each character, that doesn't delete flying enemies from my setting. It doesn't delete wizards from the setting(although the wizards will probably have magic missile instead of sleep and grease). It doesn't delete traps from the setting, although there's a strong argument traps are dumb to begin with. And there's still going to be flying wyverns on wyvern mountain. Now if any of them is a little bright they'll stick to adventuring in places where flight isn't a major advantage, like crypts and caves and the like.

[LTwerewolf]

That advice basically amounts to "don't change anything", which will result in laughably easy melee encounters, and incredibly frustrating/borderline impossible encounters with ranged spellcasters. Not a good gaming experience, IMO. I'd prefer to sacrifice some realism for balance/fun. I agree that rewarding scouting is a good idea, though. Problem is, the Barbarian and Samurai characters (not the players, but the characters they've made) are very brash and... stupid, and prefer charging into battle over scouting. *

* (I know at this point you're wondering "how the hell would adventurers that dumb expect to survive for any length of time" and I completely agree with you. But they have fun playing them. Hence this thread.





If they don't get info, that's ok. Eventually all adventurers, soldiers, generals, etc learn that they need to look before they leap. It's a character growth thing. With a little intel, it's not super hard to figure out ways for even melee focused folks to deal with flyers for relatively cheap.

[Darth Ultron]

So how would you handle a party like this?

Throw whatever at them and see what happens.

I'd never metagame and ''punish'' the players, but I'm also not going to ''cakewalk'' things.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

The goal of the game is to have fun. If you're throwing encounters at them with the express purpose of getting them TPK'd you're generally doing it wrong.

It's not hard for the DM to kill all the players, you're not bound to any limits, you can easily kill any party.

You can use their weaknesses to challenge them, they might even start trying to fill in those holes.

[Karl Aegis]

I'd like to point out your party has a weakness to the standard 10'x10' hallway. If there are enemies in only one direction a full half of your party is doing nothing.

[Zanos]

I'd like to point out your party has a weakness to the standard 10'x10' hallway. If there are enemies in only one direction a full half of your party is doing nothing.
You could complement that with reach weapons.

[Gildedragon]

Drop an Elvencraft Hank's Energy Bow or gloves of the dagger/throwing axe, with axes that explode like flasks of acid

[BWR]

What do you mean by punish?
Do my players sometimes encounter challenges they have a hard time defeating because of the sort of characters they do not have? Yes.
Do I go "haha, I see you have no [insert whatever], so I shall send an inordinate amount of challenges you are weak against. That'll teach you to not create 'imbalanced' parties!"? No

All GMing is throwing encounters at your players that you feel they should be able to handle in some way (even if it is running away). The exact degree of this varies from GM to GM and how much of a challenge they like varies from player to player.
In general, if something exists in a game world there are chances that PCs in my games will come across them. How they handle it is up to them. OTOH, if the players all make a certain type of character it obviously means they want to play that sort of character so it's worth considering being a little nice and throwing the kind of challenges they like their way a bit more often than you otherwise would have. It is very frustrating to make a character who never gets to shine because the GM is always throwing encounters at you where your choices are rendered irrelevant.

I generally feel a GM should be honest and upfront about the sort of things a party is likely to encounter in a game. "you don't know what you will meet, so a wider variety of abilities may be useful" is a valid warning, but letting players make characters that will definitely not fit the game is just unfair.

[thorr-kan]

I'm just gonna suggest talking to the players and briefing them on what you see as their tactical deficiencies. Once everybody has the same info, see what happens.

[lord_khaine]

I will just ask, why the heck is this an issue?

In a lot of ways, you have a party thats very easy to challenge now. Simple things like a broken bridge or a tall wall is now something they need to think about, instead of just the expending of a single lv 3 spell slot.
And you can actually place big melee brutes, like hydras, in the path and fell certain that the party is not just going to stroll by (just remember things will get reanimated).

So my advice is to treassure your party composition and the innocence of the players. If they are unusually adept at crushing things in melee, then just simply double or triple the number of targets for them. Instead of making a tougher boss troll, just send 2 trolls after them. Or one troll and 3-4 ogres.

[Jay R]

You wouldn't "punish" a party that didn't earn enough experience points to reach the next level as soon as you thought they would. So you also shouldn't punish a party for playing the characters they want to play instead of the ones you think they ought to want to play.

There is no problem here, except the false assumption that all parties will have the same level of power.

The DM's job is to provide cool, challenging encounters for the actual party in front of him, not for the hypothetical party he thinks ought to be in front of him.

[Wonton]

Not every encounter has to be defeated by killing the monsters. Sometimes just surviving the ordeal is worth the same experience.

Damn, I wish more people understood this, but unfortunately, I find most players just tend to go "psh, the DM scripted us to lose, what a jerk" and get really salty.


You have identified a problem. Now as a DM solve it for your players.

Boots of flight reward

Ring of flying reward

Scrolls or potions of fly found in treasure

Found in a treasure maybe a mission where they get one of these as a reward.

Hesitant to do those first 3, since those magic items are waaaay too much gold for a 5th-level party. That's part of the problem with being able to sell nearly anything for 1/2 price. I've actually considered a campaign in the past where magic item vendors don't exist at all, for this very reason. You can't give your party cool loot without thinking "wait, how many +1 swords are they going to get if they sell this for half price?"


You can include a scroll of fly in some loot as a not-so-subtle hint to the party witch, and some magic arrows as a not-so-subtle hint for everyone else.

I believe they already have some magic arrows. I'll ask to make sure. The scroll of Fly is a good idea, I'll almost certainly do that at some point.


If my party consists of five fighters with weapon focus(greatsword), weapon specialization(greatsword) and 18 str/10 dex on each character, that doesn't delete flying enemies from my setting. It doesn't delete wizards from the setting(although the wizards will probably have magic missile instead of sleep and grease). It doesn't delete traps from the setting, although there's a strong argument traps are dumb to begin with.

I consider "having fun at the table" more important than "my setting". (And it's not my setting anyway, it's a Pathfinder AP). See rule -1 in my signature. We're just friends playing a game, I'm not going to make the game unfun for my players out of some sacred obligation to "my setting".


I'd like to point out your party has a weakness to the standard 10'x10' hallway. If there are enemies in only one direction a full half of your party is doing nothing.

lol

To be fair, the Rogue can tumble, and the Monk probably can too? That's funny though, I never realized that. I should put them through the 2nd edition Caves of Chaos (http://alphastream.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/c2afe4bc66b7eab58842a61a2e5b8640.gif) with all its 5 foot hallways, and see how they do. :smallamused:


I will just ask, why the heck is this an issue?

In a lot of ways, you have a party thats very easy to challenge now. Simple things like a broken bridge or a tall wall is now something they need to think about, instead of just the expending of a single lv 3 spell slot.

That's a refreshing take on it. Yes, there's been several times that they needed to climb a cliff, where I joked "if you had a Druid this whole thing would be done in 30 seconds". But yes, I will keep these kinds of challenges in mind in the future.



So my advice is to treassure your party composition and the innocence of the players. If they are unusually adept at crushing things in melee, then just simply double or triple the number of targets for them. Instead of making a tougher boss troll, just send 2 trolls after them. Or one troll and 3-4 ogres.

That's what I usually do, yeah. With action economy, any single melee enemy is going to need absurd stats to stand a chance against them, or something like 5e's Legendary Actions.

[Zanos]

I consider "having fun at the table" more important than "my setting". (And it's not my setting anyway, it's a Pathfinder AP). See rule -1 in my signature. We're just friends playing a game, I'm not going to make the game unfun for my players out of some sacred obligation to "my setting".
Having verisimilitude is part of the fun. Twisting all challenges to circumvent obvious limitations of the party is often very noticeable, and frequently cheapens any feelings of success.

I don't advocate for sending stuff to torture the party specifically, and you should take their level of optimization account, but their role stacking has left them with obvious strengths; they should have obvious weaknesses as well.

[LTwerewolf]

Having verisimilitude is part of the fun. Twisting all challenges to circumvent obvious limitations of the party is often very noticeable, and frequently cheapens any feelings of success.

I don't advocate for sending stuff to torture the party specifically, and you should take their level of optimization account, but their role stacking has left them with obvious strengths; they should have obvious weaknesses as well.

I agree with this very much. If you only throw things at them they are easily able to defeat, any feeling of challenge goes out the window. To me, that gets boring very quickly.

[Wonton]

I agree with this very much. If you only throw things at them they are easily able to defeat, any feeling of challenge goes out the window. To me, that gets boring very quickly.

That's not what I said though, in fact, I very much want the opposite. "Easy" =/= "fun", at least not to me or my players. I don't know why you assumed that. :smallconfused:

I would like all encounters to be appropriately 'tuned' in their difficulty. That's why my OP mentioned that a CR 8 Dire Tiger is as much of a challenge for them as a level 3 Ranger with a Wand of Fly. The point of this thread was that instead of just taking the CR 5-7 encounters in the book as is, my party requires very unique balancing to make fights appropriate. A CR 7 animal may very well need to be buffed to be any semblance of a threat. A CR 7 flying creature with ranged attacks may very well be extremely dangerous.

[lord_khaine]

I would like all encounters to be appropriately 'tuned' in their difficulty. That's why my OP mentioned that a CR 8 Dire Tiger is as much of a challenge for them as a level 3 Ranger with a Wand of Fly. The point of this thread was that instead of just taking the CR 5-7 encounters in the book as is, my party requires very unique balancing to make fights appropriate. A CR 7 animal may very well need to be buffed to be any semblance of a threat. A CR 7 flying creature with ranged attacks may very well be extremely dangerous.

4 ordinary tigers are also a CR 8 fight though. And together they got a bit more HP than a single Dire Tiger. have you looked at sending multiple minor enemies after them instead of a single large mob?
Because you are in a rather unique situation here, where the party dont really seems to have any noteworthy aoe attacks.

[Jay R]

If my party consists of five fighters with weapon focus(greatsword), weapon specialization(greatsword) and 18 str/10 dex on each character, that doesn't delete flying enemies from my setting. It doesn't delete wizards from the setting(although the wizards will probably have magic missile instead of sleep and grease). It doesn't delete traps from the setting, although there's a strong argument traps are dumb to begin with. And there's still going to be flying wyverns on wyvern mountain.

Yes. And if the party consists of first levels, that doesn't eliminate dragons, demons, or high-level wizards from my setting. But I just send goblins after the first level party.

The GM prepares a game for the actual party, not for some theoretical "typical party".


Now if any of them is a little bright they'll stick to adventuring in places where flight isn't a major advantage, like crypts and caves and the like.

Certainly the party ought to try to play smart, and if the first levels decide to go attack the dragons, then they aren't likely to make it to second level.

But it's also the GM's job to provide cool quests that fit the party's actual strength.

[If the party decides to go hunt dragons, a forward-thinking GM will insert first level bandits on the way to the dragon lair, of course.]

[Zanos]

Yes. And if the party consists of first levels, that doesn't eliminate dragons, demons, or high-level wizards from my setting. But I just send goblins after the first level party.

The GM prepares a game for the actual party, not for some theoretical "typical party".

If the party goes to Great Wyrm mountain or The Tower of the Very Powerful Wizard and starts kicking stuff, they shouldn't expect goblins to pop out.


Certainly the party ought to try to play smart, and if the first levels decide to go attack the dragons, then they aren't likely to make it to second level.

But it's also the GM's job to provide cool quests that fit the party's actual strength.

[If the party decides to go hunt dragons, a forward-thinking GM will insert first level bandits on the way to the dragon lair, of course.]
I would let the party die hilariously for making a bad decision, because they shouldn't try to hunt dragons at level 1. That's a point, though. Goblins don't generally go first level adventurer hunting, first level adventurers go goblin hunting. The PCs get to determine whether they want to hunt goblins or dragons.

[FreddyNoNose]

If a place has flying monsters then it has flying monsters.

If a place doesn't have flying monsters and the DM wants to add some to make it a challenge for the players then it isn't punishment.

If the DM wants to punish the players with flying monsters because he wants to actually punish them, then it is punishment.

Just because the players think it is punishment, doesn't make it punishment.

[Cisturn]

Definitely don't punish.

Though another issue your party is going to face is a ready supply of healing. I think you're spot on when you say that the ideal is a mix. I think a good idea might be to tiptoe into the more scary encounters. See if your players can think laterally to take out a flying bad guy. They might surprise you!

[tiercel]

Just adjust expectations for EL. After all, even CR is a guideline, but even the DMG talks about ad hoc EL/XP adjustments for terrain and advantage. If you send a pack of shadows against Holy McStandardcleric, who thinks Turn Undead should be optimized for....turning undead... instead of making I Am Better Than You In Every Way last for 24 hours every casting, then the EL shouldn't probably be as hard as the combined CR would indicate; the fight will pretty much last until the cleric's initiative count.

Similarly here, if this party has to deal with primarily airborne foes, the EL should be higher than they might expect. Heck, a hunting party of 8 more-or-less bog-standard ogres or an encounter with a Swarm of any kind might not play out like you'd expect with a more mechanically optimized party (what with little AoE/battlefield control).

This isn't a problem, it's an opportunity. You get The Battle at Helm's Deep with Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas and individual heroics, not with Elminster, Raistlin, and Mordekainen spamming LOLWIN spells. You get the challenges of standard sword-and-sorcery overland travel for an epic quest when Party Member Number 4 doesn't taxicab-teleport the party directly to their destination every time, nor do you have to worry about "scry and die" party tactics when their options are closer to "kick in the door, blaze of gory [sic]" or, occasionally perhaps, "good old-fashioned footwork" as preparation.

Do you have to understand what's easier and harder? Sure. If you want a tough challenge, you don't hand them a optimized-flying-caster boss fight that would "normally" be EL party-level-plus-four, nor a melee-brute boss fight "normally" of that same EL, since the first fight will be more challenging than "normal" for the party, and latter less so. By the same token, maybe you can enjoy using elements of the game that may get bypassed entirely by other parties/at other levels: actual terrain and environmental concerns, hit-and-run battles, and so on. On the flip side, it means you can throw more of a classic strength-vs-strength monster mash encounter as well, without it being ROFLstomped in one shot, e.g. by Ray of Stupidity.

[Mendicant]

Some thoughts:

Just because the world is organic doesn't mean it has to organically include a whole bunch of harpies and gargoyles. Middle Earth feels pretty well-developed and organic, and flying enemies are rare and terrifying dangers. The MM is jam-packed with stuff that can't fly and can't kite.

The soft answer to a lot of melee firepower is more targets and more complex terrain. I think this should be your default.

A lack of fliers at this point can be a blessing, because you can make your battlefields more tactically interesting.

Opportunities to use their non-flying movement abilities like tumble or climb should arise outside of combat too. "Magic means that high, dangerous cliffs become an obsolete problem just as your climb skill makes it possible to scale them" is poor design.

Don't overestimate the danger posed by fliers. A single level 3 ranger with a wand of Fly would get killed super dead pretty easily by this group if they have even fairly basic ranged weaponry. A dire tiger would go down pretty quick, but if it gets the jump on them that pounce is no joke. Your rogue or witch could easily get torn up pretty badly.

An encounter with a small number of melee brutes and a single flying buffer/healer could be interesting and signal a weakness to fliers. If the buffer (reasonably) retreats once her ground troops are beaten, the party still has all the tools to win that fight without having the tools to trivialize it. Just make sure the brutes have the defenses and HP to stay on the board long enough to get healed back up.

[Wonton]

Definitely don't punish.

Though another issue your party is going to face is a ready supply of healing. I think you're spot on when you say that the ideal is a mix. I think a good idea might be to tiptoe into the more scary encounters. See if your players can think laterally to take out a flying bad guy. They might surprise you!

I wasn't 100% honest, the Monk is technically a Monk/Sacred Fist, so he can heal a little bit. But for all intents and purposes, he's a monk that occasionally casts CLW / Sacred Shield.


Similarly here, if this party has to deal with primarily airborne foes, the EL should be higher than they might expect. Heck, a hunting party of 8 more-or-less bog-standard ogres or an encounter with a Swarm of any kind might not play out like you'd expect with a more mechanically optimized party (what with little AoE/battlefield control).

This isn't a problem, it's an opportunity. You get The Battle at Helm's Deep with Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas and individual heroics, not with Elminster, Raistlin, and Mordekainen spamming LOLWIN spells. You get the challenges of standard sword-and-sorcery overland travel for an epic quest when Party Member Number 4 doesn't taxicab-teleport the party directly to their destination every time, nor do you have to worry about "scry and die" party tactics when their options are closer to "kick in the door, blaze of gory [sic]" or, occasionally perhaps, "good old-fashioned footwork" as preparation.


The soft answer to a lot of melee firepower is more targets and more complex terrain. I think this should be your default.

Yeah, I never really saw it that way until now. Lack of AoE is another big weakness of theirs. A fight with 8 monsters vs 4 is a much harder time for my party since they have to hack-and-slash everything one at a time. While for a "normal" party, it might just mean the Wizard has to aim his Stinking Cloud (or hell, even his Fireball) better.

I always tried to add extra monsters to encounters whenever possible, but I think from now on I will focus on it even more. Thank you!

[Jay R]

Question.: The players have a party different from how I would build it. Should I try to make the game fun and challenging for them, or fun and challenging for the party I think they should be running?

Answer: You should try to make the game fun and challenging for your actual players, with their actual characters.

Why is this hard to understand?

[Glorthindel]

Beat them mercilessly, but give them an escape route so they can drag their battered asses out of the fire, and regroup and learn from the situation (such as a cramped cave that any flier that persued them in to would be forced in to range).

Basically, don't TPK them the first time they discover this weakness (but if they don't address it, tough luck), but likewise don't shy away from exploiting such a massive glaring weakness, and teaching them a lesson.

If you only play to their strengths you are incentivising a narrow focus, since it is safer for them to completely ignore a type of threat safe in the knowledge you wont then use it, than to cover all bases and then get hit by something they could theoretically handle, but not perfectly and with ease.

[Dagroth]

This isn't much different from the parties I usually end up DMing with my regular group.

We have, usually, only one player who plays a caster of any type, and he almost always ends up as a Gish anyway... though another of my players is totally enamored with the Duskblade class. Sometimes someone will take a couple levels of Cleric so that there's at least some healing available.

In the end, I generally just keep the flying to a minimum... or focus on dungeon crawls.