How do you award XP when your party manipulates one opponent to defeat another?

[RedWarlock]

In my last session, I introduced a bounty list of dinosaur parts for the party to collect as alchemical reagents. I set the prices based on the CR of the creatures, with the top being 6k gp for a Seismosaurus skull (they're CR 12, I believe? MM2, tho, so accuracy varies.) The party is level 4.


Heart of Tyrannosaurus 4,000 gp
Stomach of Stegosaurus 3,000 gp
Seismosaurus Skull 6,000 gp
Rhamphorhynchus Wings 500 gp/pair
Needletooth lungs 200 gp
Parasaurolophus Gizzard 2,000 gp
Pachycephalosaurus Skull 3,000 gp
Velociraptor Claws 1,000 gp/pair
Ankylosaurus Tail 1,500 gp


They proceeded to use charm animal and Handle Animal to control a T. rex and Stegosaurus to attack a Seismosaurus, using Charm to get them amenable, then Push to make them attack it. These things have hundreds of HP, with the Seismo having more HP than the Rex and Stego altogether. The party themselves contributed negligibly to the damage, while the dinosaurs themselves did most of the damage, with the party's idea being, "either way, we win."

This.. rankles me, as a DM.

After they got the Seismo down below half HP, it gave out a pained bellow that echoed across the canyon valley, leading to an ambush by a small crew of "Preserver" druids who dispelled the charm and scared off the party. The Stego immediately stopped attacking, while the Rex, already in the midst of bloody carnage, would've kept going, but the PCs didn't stick around for it.

When I went to calculate XP afterwards, when I mentioned that I was lowering the effective CR of the dinosaurs (because the party themselves weren't causing the damage, nor were they actually killed), there was outcry across the table. This may be my own sense of "sporting challenge" involved, because aside from spending a bit of resources on the spells to charm (whether by scroll or slot), the party didn't actually suffer much challenge or risk involved.

So, long story short, how do you consider an encounter "beaten"? If a foolproof plan to defeat enemies WELL over party level goes off without a hitch, did they actually learn anything enough to earn that massive amount of XP?

[Endarire]

Did the party overcome the challenge? Aye.

Did the party used a third party to do so? Aye.

Is that what charms and mind control are for? Aye.

Should they get EXP for overcoming said challenge? Aye, but they shouldn't be able to get it again for beating the same challenge another way.

[pabelfly]

Did the party overcome the challenge? Aye.

Did the party used a third party to do so? Aye.

Is that what charms and mind control are for? Aye.

Should they get EXP for overcoming said challenge? Aye, but they shouldn't be able to get it again for beating the same challenge another way.

This seems pretty reasonable to me. Coming up with an unexpected solution deserves exp, IMO, but once you've done it you're not getting much, if any, experience for repeating the same solution against a different foe in similar circumstances.

Separate to that, you could also have a druid or two follow the party around if you think the druids might suspect the party of hurting the dinosaurs. Fits in well with the druid concept. What the druid does when he catches the party harming their next dinosaur I'll leave up to you.

[tiercel]

To be fair, the party presumably took an awful risk by waltzing up into Close range of a T-rex and trying charm animal. At a Will save of +8, T-rex isn’t a total pushover for this spell (presumably only needed to roll a 6 or so to make the save, assuming the spell wasn’t from a scroll), and on a made save the T-rex’s turn probably looks like charge, near-autohit with bite (+22 to hit vs a 4th level party, 23 average damage) and improved grab at grapple check of +yes, next round swallow whole and victim takes ~25 damage a round.

For that matter, sneaking up on a T-rex as a 4th level character is dicey at best, given its Spot and Listen checks (not to mention the PC casting the spell is not necessarily stealth-optimized).

Unless the party was really lucky, or planned really well to prevent even reasonable rolls by the T-rex spelling disaster for them, this “battle” could have easily wound up as “T-rex devours and kills one PC every two rounds.”

From the players’ perspective, they either took an insane risk and it worked, or they planned for the worst and pulled it off anyway, only to have a third party blip in and say “nope” to their win — and then are getting some kind of XP award reduction atop it all.

The problems here include (1) animal CRs can be overrated if you can take advantage of the fact they are, well, animals and (2) from a gaming perspective, if high-CR foes are put on the menu, you have to be philosophically OK with the possibility that PCs will go after them and you are looking at either TPK or windfall.

[jdizzlean]

full xp? maybe not, but definitely a roleplaying bonus for sure.

[Quertus]

In this scenario, the party took insane risks to Charm the T-Rex and Stegosaurus. They deserve both full XP and a "you are ****ing awesome" bonus.

They failed to deal with the Seismosaurus, and so earn no XP for that encounter, but deserve a free "chosen enemy: ****ing Druids" for that ***** job.

EDIT: also, my personal kudos to your players for joining the ranks of "having defeated a T-Rex at level 4"!

[Asmotherion]

You don't lower the CR. The party beat the encounter in a smart way instead of a brutal way.

The other Dino was still part of the encounter and the PC's actions "defeated" it and used it in their advantage. Treat it the same as if they succesfuly cast sleep on it.

You don't need to drop an enemy dead to defeat them. Nor do you need to actively damage them to earn XP from the encounter; just contribute.

Otherwise Bards and other support casters would forever be level 1.

[LordBlades]

As others have said, full XP. Casting Charm/Dominate/whatever at an opponent and then using him to attack his former friends is a valid combat strategy, just as valid as casting Fireball at the same opponent.

Moreover, since these spells last really long, it's also smart to expend no additional resources in that combat if your new friend(s) can handle it.

[Clementx]

If they charmed the trex and stegosaurus, they defeated them at great personal risk and the expenditure of resources. They get full xp for those two.

Now, your post implies the bounty target lived? And in either case, they didn't get the skull they came for. No matter how much the charmed dinos did, they did not defeat it. They get xp for any of the Preservers they incapacitated before fleeing. Any xp for confronting the bounty but failing is discretionary (and would only be a downpayment, subtracting from the reward when they kill it).

Also, adding a bunch of random druids from a monster closet to prevent them from winning sounds like the real seed of dissatisfaction. Was that you being vindictive like with the xp penalty?

[Biggus]

Should they get EXP for overcoming said challenge? Aye, but they shouldn't be able to get it again for beating the same challenge another way.


This seems pretty reasonable to me. Coming up with an unexpected solution deserves exp, IMO, but once you've done it you're not getting much, if any, experience for repeating the same solution against a different foe in similar circumstances.


Agreed, coming up with a cunning plan deserves XP, but it's fair enough to tell them that if they try to do the exact same thing again, they'll get little or none for it.

If they come up with a completely different cunning plan next time they should get full XP again though.

If they're being creative and making intelligent use of their resources, they're playing the game well. But if they make the game boring and predictable by using the same tactic to avoid every challenge, quite the reverse.

[Crake]

A few things of note.

Firstly, unless the whole party charmed the animals in question, they would have only been friendly to the caster, and continued to angrily attack the other party members for being in their territory/being tasty looking food. Had the whole party managed to charm them, or if the charmer in question managed an opposed charisma check (to make the animal do something it wouldn't normally do), followed by a handle animal push to successfully control them, then they would have had said animal under their control. That encounter isn't necessarily over, since the objective of the encounter was "collect the reagents you need", and they have yet to achieve that goal, not to mention charm animal is only hours per level, and thus the animal is far from permanently subdued, so no XP for that encounter yet.

Secondly, once they got the two dinosaurs together to attack the next one, they have additional characters on their side, thus, were they to succeed in the encounter, they would get xp not for a 4 person party, but a 6 person party, because there are 6 participants. Now, I still wouldn't give any xp, because the party still failed to actually achieve their objective, which is "collect the reagents you need", and from my understanding they have still yet to actually collect any reagents, right?

[Quertus]

Agreed, coming up with a cunning plan deserves XP, but it's fair enough to tell them that if they try to do the exact same thing again, they'll get little or none for it.

If they come up with a completely different cunning plan next time they should get full XP again though.

If they're being creative and making intelligent use of their resources, they're playing the game well. But if they make the game boring and predictable by using the same tactic to avoid every challenge, quite the reverse.

So the Fighter, who just swings his pointy stick, maybe earns XP for the first goblin he kills, but can never earn XP after that?


A few things of note.

Firstly, unless the whole party charmed the animals in question, they would have only been friendly to the caster, and continued to angrily attack the other party members for being in their territory/being tasty looking food. Had the whole party managed to charm them, or if the charmer in question managed an opposed charisma check (to make the animal do something it wouldn't normally do), followed by a handle animal push to successfully control them, then they would have had said animal under their control. That encounter isn't necessarily over, since the objective of the encounter was "collect the reagents you need", and they have yet to achieve that goal, not to mention charm animal is only hours per level, and thus the animal is far from permanently subdued, so no XP for that encounter yet.

Secondly, once they got the two dinosaurs together to attack the next one, they have additional characters on their side, thus, were they to succeed in the encounter, they would get xp not for a 4 person party, but a 6 person party, because there are 6 participants. Now, I still wouldn't give any xp, because the party still failed to actually achieve their objective, which is "collect the reagents you need", and from my understanding they have still yet to actually collect any reagents, right?

You know, you've got a lot of good points, but I'm pretty sure you're wrong on XP division. I've never shared XP with the war horse, summoned monster, fireball, or charm spell. They're all simply representations of PC resources.

[Crake]

So the Fighter, who just swings his pointy stick, maybe earns XP for the first goblin he kills, but can never earn XP after that?



You know, you've got a lot of good points, but I'm pretty sure you're wrong on XP division. I've never shared XP with the war horse, summoned monster fireball, or charm spell. They're all simply representations of PC resources.

The war horse would fall under hireling rules, which i believe don't count toward xp costs, summoned monsters are temporary creatures, that, as you said, fall under PC resources, but you need to draw the line somewhere. So charmed monsters don't count, because they're representations of PC resources? What about dominated creatures? Mindraped followers? Planar bound creatures? Planar allied creatures? How about simply people you convinced to help with diplomacy?

Personally, I draw the line at "Any creature participating that is not a spell effect or direct class feature (such as an animal companion, familiar, or thrallherd thrall) and does not fall under the DMG description of a hireling". So charmed/dominated enemies, planar bound/allied outsiders called in for aid etc, all count toward xp splitting.

[pabelfly]

So the Fighter, who just swings his pointy stick, maybe earns XP for the first goblin he kills, but can never earn XP after that?

I've never heard swinging a pointy stick called "a cunning plan" before outside of a joke though.

[False God]

Well, if you're calculating XP in the old fashioned way, I would have added the CR of the Rex and the Stego to the party calculation. "The party" got help essentially, no different than if they had hired some extra goons or something to help them out. Temporary party members increase the party's average party level and reduce the XP they would get.

Hiring goons or mind-controlling animals may be a great strategy, no argument, but you can't not count that help, especially when the help did 90% of the "heavy lifting" so to speak.

And I suggest this as the answer in part because if the party gets normal XP as though the dinos weren't even there, they'll be inclined to use this solution to a lot of problems, if not ALL their problems. So there needs to be some kind of cost/benefit analysis. If they mind control something too powerful, they may get too little XP to be worth it.

[LordBlades]

The war horse would fall under hireling rules, which i believe don't count toward xp costs, summoned monsters are temporary creatures, that, as you said, fall under PC resources, but you need to draw the line somewhere. So charmed monsters don't count, because they're representations of PC resources? What about dominated creatures? Mindraped followers? Planar bound creatures? Planar allied creatures? How about simply people you convinced to help with diplomacy?

Personally, I draw the line at "Any creature participating that is not a spell effect or direct class feature (such as an animal companion, familiar, or thrallherd thrall) and does not fall under the DMG description of a hireling". So charmed/dominated enemies, planar bound/allied outsiders called in for aid etc, all count toward xp splitting.

That does make stuff like necromancers and any golem/homunculus builder borderline unplayable though as they'd be splitting XP with their minions.

[Quertus]

I've never heard swinging a pointy stick called "a cunning plan" before outside of a joke though.

And that's why it's questionable for the Fighter to earn XP for even his first kill.

If you are only awarding XP for "being clever", the BDF never earns XP. Much better, IMO, to award XP for "overcoming challenges".

"Surviving a T-Rex", at level 4, is a huge challenge, and well worth lots of XP. The party succeeded against that challenge, and deserves the XP.

Unfortunately, this is obfuscated behind two added complications. The first is, the GM has added an additional challenge, "collect components". If anything, the presence of this additional challenge should add the option for additional XP, not subtract from the XP that the party already earned.

The second is a bit more complicated. Because the T-Rex died, the party's plan was a permanent solution. But, because the Stegosaurus lived (due to a GM ***** job, for feeling his party was having BadWrongFun), this was only a temporary solution.

Although Angry is usually wrong about, well, pretty much everything, he is very smart about knowing what *questions* to ask. And he did ask this question: how much XP should *temporarily* overcoming an obstacle be worth?

Angry's answer was half XP; you earn the other half when you create a more permanent solution.

So, to Angry, Charming the T-Rex is worth half XP. Charming the Stegosaurus is worth half XP. Getting the T-Rex killed is worth the other half XP. Charming the Stegosaurus again is worth 0 XP.

As a player, I might not completely agree, but I would find such logic acceptable.


Well, if you're calculating XP in the old fashioned way, I would have added the CR of the Rex and the Stego to the party calculation. "The party" got help essentially, no different than if they had hired some extra goons or something to help them out. Temporary party members increase the party's average party level and reduce the XP they would get.

Hiring goons or mind-controlling animals may be a great strategy, no argument, but you can't not count that help, especially when the help did 90% of the "heavy lifting" so to speak.

And I suggest this as the answer in part because if the party gets normal XP as though the dinos weren't even there, they'll be inclined to use this solution to a lot of problems, if not ALL their problems. So there needs to be some kind of cost/benefit analysis. If they mind control something too powerful, they may get too little XP to be worth it.

Looking at the metagame, if you set the party up earn partial XP, but full treasure? It guarantees a real munchkin would use charmed animals *always*, so as to be ahead of the WBL curve, so as to make all encounters easier.


That does make stuff like necromancers and any golem/homunculus builder borderline unplayable though as they'd be splitting XP with their minions.

Exactly!

[Crake]

That does make stuff like necromancers and any golem/homunculus builder borderline unplayable though as they'd be splitting XP with their minions.

Things from both those character archetypes fall on either side of the line (general rule being if it's mindless, it can't get xp), but yes, making a tonne of allies to help you with things will indeed reduce your xp. The irony of course being that people on the forums generally accept that minionmancy is incredibly strong to the point of being potentially gamebreaking, but apparently suggesting that a (rather RAW acceptable I might add) downside be introduced to such an archetype seems to induce shock and horror? (:smalltongue: playful hyperbole there, don't take it too seriously)

[Biggus]

So the Fighter, who just swings his pointy stick, maybe earns XP for the first goblin he kills, but can never earn XP after that?


You appear to have missed a key word in what I said: "to avoid every challenge". As I understand it the way the game is meant to be played, and generally is in my experience, is for the players to work as a team to overcome challenges. If one of you just charms your opponents into killing each other every time, the other players might as well not be there, and every combat is the same. If that sounds like fun to you, fair enough, but it doesn't to me. Also, in my experience the "I hit it again" type of warrior is generally played by new players who want to keep it simple while they learn the game, more advanced players tend to use a variety of tactics and maneuvers when playing martial characters.

[Crichton]

You appear to have missed a key word in what I said: "to avoid every challenge". As I understand it the way the game is meant to be played, and generally is in my experience, is for the players to work as a team to overcome challenges. If one of you just charms your opponents into killing each other every time, the other players might as well not be there, and every combat is the same. If that sounds like fun to you, fair enough, but it doesn't to me. Also, in my experience the "I hit it again" type of warrior is generally played by new players who want to keep it simple while they learn the game, more advanced players tend to use a variety of tactics and maneuvers when playing martial characters.

All of that is true, but doesn't really apply to whether the party should get xp for overcoming the encounter. One member wiping out the enemies by themselves still counts as overcoming the encounter, whether it's by one well placed Fireball, or by turning the enemies against one another is irrelevant. They still faced the encounter and defeated the enemies.

[LordBlades]

Things from both those character archetypes fall on either side of the line (general rule being if it's mindless, it can't get xp), but yes, making a tonne of allies to help you with things will indeed reduce your xp. The irony of course being that people on the forums generally accept that minionmancy is incredibly strong to the point of being potentially gamebreaking, but apparently suggesting that a (rather RAW acceptable I might add) downside be introduced to such an archetype seems to induce shock and horror? (:smalltongue: playful hyperbole there, don't take it too seriously)

There's minionmancy and mininomancy and IMO this kind blanket ruling would yield a bunch of false positive and false negatives as well :) For exmaple, your suggestion would penalize a Dread Necromancer who keeps 1-2 intelligent undead on hand (solid tier 3 non-gamebreaking build), but a Druid who turns into a Bear and summons a swarm of Bears every combat while riding his Bear Animal Companion will be absolutely fine.


You appear to have missed a key word in what I said: "to avoid every challenge". As I understand it the way the game is meant to be played, and generally is in my experience, is for the players to work as a team to overcome challenges. If one of you just charms your opponents into killing each other every time, the other players might as well not be there, and every combat is the same. If that sounds like fun to you, fair enough, but it doesn't to me. Also, in my experience the "I hit it again" type of warrior is generally played by new players who want to keep it simple while they learn the game, more advanced players tend to use a variety of tactics and maneuvers when playing martial characters.


If you go by this line of reasoning, shouldn't the same kind of approach be applied to any other method by which a single player effectively 'wins' the encounter before the other can make a meaningful contribution? Stuff like Battlefield Control, lots of damage etc.

[Garktz]

So they take a lot of Risk to charm the t-rex and the stego, then they go and try to beat the other one.
Suddenly, a patrol of dm druids break the encounter and they dont get either full xp or the rewad?

And by full xp i mean xp for the 3 dinos....

I probably would take that as "we are being punished for outsmarting the dm because our plan was better than what he thought ee would do" and if not quit the Game, at least would get really anoyed un the worst way

[Jay R]

Wonderful story! Rather than plodding through, your players came up with a clever, creative plan. Bonus points for all!

I'm serious. This is much better than mere hack'n'slash.

Just make sure that they know the bonus points are for creativity. Doing the same thing again is effective, but not creative.

And the bonus points are necessary because they failed in their mission. The goal of the encounter wasn't to charm or control two dinosaurs for a few minutes, but to procure the heart of Tyrannosaurus, the stomach of Stegosaurus, and/or a Seismosaurus Skull. Unless they have what they went after, they did not succeed in the encounter.

But except for the sudden, seemingly arbitrary appearance of kill-stealing druids to void the players' cleverness and skill, it sounds like a delightful, inventive, superior D&D session.

[Remuko]

If you overcome a challenge (combat or otherwise) you get exp for the CR regardless of how you did so. That's how I run it. Winning doesnt have to be "kill or permanently disable".

[Crake]

Suddenly, a patrol of dm druids break the encounter and they dont get either full xp or the rewad?


But except for the sudden, seemingly arbitrary appearance of kill-stealing druids to void the players' cleverness and skill, it sounds like a delightful, inventive, superior D&D session.

Looking at this from a DM perspective, I can imagine that the DM had already planned that "When a dinosaur reaches half HP, it lets out a wail that attracts the nearby defenders of the forest". There are plenty of examples where modules may foreplan something like this as well, so it's not entirely out of the ordinary. Then, it just so happens that the way the players handled the situation, they basically screwed themselves by having 3 dinosaurs all together, and since the druids (reasonably) had dispel magic prepared, it turned what would previously have been a tough encounter (one dinosaur, and the druids) into an almost impossible encounter (3 dinosaurs and the druids).

To me, that's just unfortunate luck on the PCs behalf, and not at all the DM being vindictive or breaking the encounter. It's what the DMG describes as status quo DMing. What's there is there, the way the players handle it is up to them.

Now, of course, if the DM just randomly decided to throw in a bunch of druids to dispel the charms right at that very moment, that's a different story, but I don't suspect that's what happened, it sounds like this was a preplanned part of the region, and the players just happened to come up with a plan that backfired due to circumstances that were beyond their knowledge.

[LordBlades]

Looking at this from a DM perspective, I can imagine that the DM had already planned that "When a dinosaur reaches half HP, it lets out a wail that attracts the nearby defenders of the forest". There are plenty of examples where modules may foreplan something like this as well, so it's not entirely out of the ordinary. Then, it just so happens that the way the players handled the situation, they basically screwed themselves by having 3 dinosaurs all together, and since the druids (reasonably) had dispel magic prepared, it turned what would previously have been a tough encounter (one dinosaur, and the druids) into an almost impossible encounter (3 dinosaurs and the druids).

To me, that's just unfortunate luck on the PCs behalf, and not at all the DM being vindictive or breaking the encounter. It's what the DMG describes as status quo DMing. What's there is there, the way the players handle it is up to them.

Now, of course, if the DM just randomly decided to throw in a bunch of druids to dispel the charms right at that very moment, that's a different story, but I don't suspect that's what happened, it sounds like this was a preplanned part of the region, and the players just happened to come up with a plan that backfired due to circumstances that were beyond their knowledge.

Even one dinosaur at half HP plus several druids (the OP used the plural), one of which is at least 5th level (due to having access to Dispel Magic) is hardly a winnable encounter for a level 4 party IMO.

[Crake]

Even one dinosaur at half HP plus several druids (the OP used the plural), one of which is at least 5th level (due to having access to Dispel Magic) is hardly a winnable encounter for a level 4 party IMO.

Well, I mean, there's also a lot of smaller dinosaurs on that list, and the DM clearly intended for this to arc over at least several levels, but the players seem to have decided to jump straight to the top of the list, going after T-Rexes and Seismosaurs that are likewise far above their CR. It was likely intended for the players to spend a bit of time leveling up against the easier bounties, perhaps having a run in with one or two of the druids at a time, rather than what the DM described as a "small crew". Again, status quo DMing, what's there is there, if you decide to try and run before you can walk, you're probably going to trip and fall. I mean, they gave it a good shot, I'll give 'em that :smalltongue:

[False God]

Looking at the metagame, if you set the party up earn partial XP, but full treasure? It guarantees a real munchkin would use charmed animals *always*, so as to be ahead of the WBL curve, so as to make all encounters easier.

I mean, slower leveling, but more loot, or normal leveling and same loot. It really just depends on the player priorities. As a DM I don't mind it either way, but getting CR 12 monsters to essentially do your fight for you had to have some kind of cost, and using the spell "Charm *whatever*" and a couple good Handle Animal rolls really isn't enough IMO. Especially when you're using Charm as an effective dominate (which makes me get a frowny face).

[Quertus]

Looking at this from a DM perspective, I can imagine that the DM had already planned that "When a dinosaur reaches half HP, it lets out a wail that attracts the nearby defenders of the forest". There are plenty of examples where modules may foreplan something like this as well, so it's not entirely out of the ordinary. Then, it just so happens that the way the players handled the situation, they basically screwed themselves by having 3 dinosaurs all together, and since the druids (reasonably) had dispel magic prepared, it turned what would previously have been a tough encounter (one dinosaur, and the druids) into an almost impossible encounter (3 dinosaurs and the druids).

To me, that's just unfortunate luck on the PCs behalf, and not at all the DM being vindictive or breaking the encounter. It's what the DMG describes as status quo DMing. What's there is there, the way the players handle it is up to them.

Now, of course, if the DM just randomly decided to throw in a bunch of druids to dispel the charms right at that very moment, that's a different story, but I don't suspect that's what happened, it sounds like this was a preplanned part of the region, and the players just happened to come up with a plan that backfired due to circumstances that were beyond their knowledge.

Let's ignore just how utterly ridiculous facing off against a T-Rex - let alone 3 dinosaurs & X level Y Druids - is, especially for a GM who claims to have a sense of a "sporting challenge", and just focus on the notion of the Druids as a pre-planned element.

There's clearly an established pricing structure for dinosaur parts. Now, primarily, it feels Gamist: it's not fair to fight monsters, and get XP, but fall behind WBL. Secondarily, it feels like a hook: the GM wants the PCs to fight dinosaurs, so he wants to give them a *reason* to want to fight dinosaurs. It's not until at least third that it kinda feels like simulation, like a part of the world.

But what part of the world is it? Unless it's, like, a Wizard who just moved into town, one would expect something with a pricing structure to be an established part of the culture. But, then, one would expect an established culture of dinosaur hunting to have pricing for meat, hide, bones, etc, not just one piece of each creature.

But, sure, were could brush that under the rug, and say that, while such things have established value, the list is just the big ticket items, the checklist of "if you just bring one thing back, make sure that it's this".

So, if we stretch out suspension of disbelief that far, we then encounter the Druids.

Even if they were planned, the Druids similarly come off as very Gamist. They come off as an entry on (some? all?) Dinosaurs that reads "when this becomes bloodied, as an immediate action, it summons XdY+Z level N Druids", where N >= 5.

Which, when you're throwing that power on an already CR 12 dinosaur, being faced by a level 4 party? Do you really want to go down the rabbit hole of just what it takes to intentionally prepare such an encounter?

No, that really doesn't sound pre-planned. That sounds like a knee-jerk response.

I mean, sure, one could plan to have Druids protecting Dinosaurs from poachers. But one likely wouldn't do so under these circumstances, if one had a sense of a sporting challenge.

EDIT: further, the party tactics were to use Charm Animal on the Dinosaurs. Now, at least in 3e D&D, to me, that sounds like Druid, Thief, or Bard. And, when you add Handle Animal checks, I'll add Ranger.

Of the core of classes, which ones would be better suited to know about Druids in the area protecting Dinosaurs from poachers than those 4 classes?

Yet the party apparently knew nothing about the Druids until they encountered them.

[Crake]

Let's ignore just how utterly ridiculous facing off against a T-Rex - let alone 3 dinosaurs & X level Y Druids - is, especially for a GM who claims to have a sense of a "sporting challenge", and just focus on the notion of the Druids as a pre-planned element.

There's clearly an established pricing structure for dinosaur parts. Now, primarily, it feels Gamist: it's not fair to fight monsters, and get XP, but fall behind WBL. Secondarily, it feels like a hook: the GM wants the PCs to fight dinosaurs, so he wants to give them a *reason* to want to fight dinosaurs. It's not until at least third that it kinda feels like simulation, like a part of the world.

But what part of the world is it? Unless it's, like, a Wizard who just moved into town, one would expect something with a pricing structure to be an established part of the culture. But, then, one would expect an established culture of dinosaur hunting to have pricing for meat, hide, bones, etc, not just one piece of each creature.

But, sure, were could brush that under the rug, and say that, while such things have established value, the list is just the big ticket items, the checklist of "if you just bring one thing back, make sure that it's this".

So, if we stretch out suspension of disbelief that far, we then encounter the Druids.

Even if they were planned, the Druids similarly come off as very Gamist. They come off as an entry on (some? all?) Dinosaurs that reads "when this becomes bloodied, as an immediate action, it summons XdY+Z level N Druids", where N >= 5.

Which, when you're throwing that power on an already CR 12 dinosaur, being faced by a level 4 party? Do you really want to go down the rabbit hole of just what it takes to intentionally prepare such an encounter?

No, that really doesn't sound pre-planned. That sounds like a knee-jerk response.

I mean, sure, one could plan to have Druids protecting Dinosaurs from poachers. But one likely wouldn't do so under these circumstances, if one had a sense of a sporting challenge.

EDIT: further, the party tactics were to use Charm Animal on the Dinosaurs. Now, at least in 3e D&D, to me, that sounds like Druid, Thief, or Bard. And, when you add Handle Animal checks, I'll add Ranger.

Of the core of classes, which ones would be better suited to know about Druids in the area protecting Dinosaurs from poachers than those 4 classes?

Yet the party apparently knew nothing about the Druids until they encountered them.

Did you at all read the aprt of my post where this reads like it was meant to be played as a longer bounty hunting arc, possibly involving exploration and random encounters, rather than a short, session or two fetch quest? If you look at it in the context of a hexcrawler, and consider that once the druids are dealt with, they cease to be an issue, then it suddenly looks very different. I can't speak to the background reason as to why the players are hunting the dinosaurs or these specific parts, and I'm not particularly interested in speculating when we have little to no information, as it's all too easy to veer off into wildly incorrect territory.

As a side note, classes don't have a hivemind, and knowing about a druid group in the area would actually likely be local above anything else.

Anyway, point is, can we stop just automatically assuming the worst about DMs? So often I see complaints about the way people DM when ultimately it can quite easily be chalked up to status quo DMing. Providing a sporting challenge and status quo DMing aren't mutually exclusive, it's up to the players to adapt to the situation, not for the situation to adapt to the players. They chose to go after the biggest target on their list without doing proper reconnisance in the region, and taking big risks in the process, and it didn't work out. Oh well, move on to the next plan.

[Asmotherion]

Agreed, coming up with a cunning plan deserves XP, but it's fair enough to tell them that if they try to do the exact same thing again, they'll get little or none for it.

If they come up with a completely different cunning plan next time they should get full XP again though.

If they're being creative and making intelligent use of their resources, they're playing the game well. But if they make the game boring and predictable by using the same tactic to avoid every challenge, quite the reverse.

Do you penalise the Fighter for using the same weapon on every encounter?

Why penalise the caster who uses his weapon?

if you don't want to see repeated use of the same strategems push them into something that the strategem cannot apply.

[Quertus]

Did you at all read the aprt of my post where this reads like it was meant to be played as a longer bounty hunting arc, possibly involving exploration and random encounters, rather than a short, session or two fetch quest? If you look at it in the context of a hexcrawler, and consider that once the druids are dealt with, they cease to be an issue, then it suddenly looks very different. I can't speak to the background reason as to why the players are hunting the dinosaurs or these specific parts, and I'm not particularly interested in speculating when we have little to no information, as it's all too easy to veer off into wildly incorrect territory.

As a side note, classes don't have a hivemind, and knowing about a druid group in the area would actually likely be local above anything else.

Anyway, point is, can we stop just automatically assuming the worst about DMs? So often I see complaints about the way people DM when ultimately it can quite easily be chalked up to status quo DMing. Providing a sporting challenge and status quo DMing aren't mutually exclusive, it's up to the players to adapt to the situation, not for the situation to adapt to the players. They chose to go after the biggest target on their list without doing proper reconnisance in the region, and taking big risks in the process, and it didn't work out. Oh well, move on to the next plan.

Well, yes, the party's plan* to "start at the top" was pretty nuts, but it's kinda my schtick to focus on blaming the GM.

Even starting at the bottom, what was the lowest CR on the list? And what would that encounter look like when you add how many level 5+ Druids, vs a 4th level party? It's… not exactly what I'm accustomed to seeing as the "bottom rung" when letting players / PCs choose how high up the ladder to climb.

* If it even was a plan, as opposed to, say, improvising with the results of random encounter rolls.

[Crake]

Well, yes, the party's plan* to "start at the top" was pretty nuts, but it's kinda my schtick to focus on blaming the GM.

Even starting at the bottom, what was the lowest CR on the list? And what would that encounter look like when you add how many level 5+ Druids, vs a 4th level party? It's… not exactly what I'm accustomed to seeing as the "bottom rung" when letting players / PCs choose how high up the ladder to climb.

* If it even was a plan, as opposed to, say, improvising with the results of random encounter rolls.

I mean, one would have to assume that the druids wouldn't come to the cries of a lower tier dinosaur, one that is likely naturally prey to something already, as they would more than likely find that it's just being devoured by another dinosaur, at most it would just be a single druid, it would presumably only be the big ticket dinosaurs that the whole crew would show up for.

[Jay R]

It should not be used on the next big encounter because the encounter is different, not because of an arbitrary rule. That's the second half of one of my Rules for DMs:


24. When a PC gets a great new ability, there needs to be an encounter in the next session for which that ability is devastatingly effective. Otherwise it doesn’t exist. There should also be an encounter in the next session in which it is useless. Otherwise, the rest of that character doesn’t exist.

So if Charm Person and Handle Animal led to a brilliant PC move, that's great! But the next encounter should be a high-INT character who will make the Will save.

How else can the PCs be brilliant again?

[Jack_Simth]

This.. rankles me, as a DM.This is the first problem in line, and seems to be the root cause of the others... well, maybe. It's possible the first problem in line was "you did not check the rules and give the critters the rolls to which they were entitled". If you did give the T-Rex and the Triceratops their rolls, then the party won fair & square. They may not have done it the way you expected, so you added more things to the encounter to force them to retreat and deny them the prize.

T-Rex (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dinosaur.htm#tyrannosaurus) has +14 Listen/Spot, Scent, and a +8 Will save. At 4th level, Charm Animal (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/charmAnimal.htm) is hard to land. Assuming that you've got a party Druid in on this, and said Druid has Spell Focus(Enchantment) and Greater Spell Focus(Enchantment), plus Heighten spell, you're likely looking at a base 18 Wis, maybe a +2 Wis item, and using a 2nd level spell slot for DC 10 + 4 + 1 + 2 = 17. Mr. T only needs a 9 to beat the check, and that's a rather focused Druid.

Charm Animal inherits Charm Person's range of Close. At 4th, that's just 35 feet. A -3 penalty to Spot / Listen while the Druid is sneaking up (and at 4th, no Wildshape yet to help out), and if the Druid accidentally gets within 30 feet, Mr. T knows he's there, no roll required. And Mr. T has a move of 40.

So the Druid (or ranger) had to sneak very close (even with the -1 per 10 feet of distance penalty, it's tough to beat that +14 at 4th) with both Hide and Move Silently, land a spell with a less than 50% success chance, and if he failed at any of the three, he's a snack (charge + bite + grab + swallow whole = "Game Over" for a 4th level Ranger / Druid - no use of somatic components in a grapple, and once battle's engaged, Mr. T get a +4 Bonus on saves vs. Charm).

Suppose the Druid managed a +11 on both Hide and Move silently... somehow. He's passing three different > 50% failure checks to get Mr. T under his thumb. Even after that, Handle Animal's Push DC is 25. In order to have a 50% chance on that, the PC needs a +14 modifier on Handle Animal. At 4th, on a character that's not Charisma-based. That modifier is unlikely.

So...
1) I suspect you didn't look up the actual mechanics, and just assumed that Charm Animal would simply work, then didn't give the beast it's sense rolls to tell that a hostile was coming. I'm counting four different steps that individually had a below 50% likelihood of success (although the last one permits retries). This may be the root problem.
2) Assuming you did give the critters all of their rolls... well, sometimes the dice roll that way. That plan had a significantly less than 1/16th chance of working, with the other (more than) 15/16th chunk being "at least one party member dies while the others run" or "Dino-lunch TPK". If they did beat the odds, they deserve the reward.

[RedWarlock]

Yeah, not so much. They had high ground. This was a jungle-filled canyon, after all, filled with giant trees and high rocky outcroppings. They found positions above the Rex's reach. No stealth needed, just be within casting range from above. (Plus, even then, it's only a standard action to cast. A single character gets into range with a Move, then casts on Standard. Rest of the party is out of reach, non-threatening, but nearby.)

So the only point of possible failure was the save. One roll, and done. Even with scrolls, it's a first level spell, not THAT expensive, they could've retried a few times.

Handle Animal has Retry: Yes on the Push action, so he was able to roll until he got it. Effectively a non-obstacle.

[rel]

Full xp for defeating the T. rex and stegasaur, less if the terrain or something made it easier than normal.

No XP for defeating the seismosaur / druid mafia combined encounter because the party didn't actually win and had to run for it.

Although given the huge disparity in power between the party and said dinosaur and its druid herd, I think granting some xp just for managing to successfully get away is valid.


Either way it sounds like the party has a new quest; eliminate the meddling druids who seem to think they run the dinosaur racket around here...

[Psychoalpha]

Anyway, point is, can we stop just automatically assuming the worst about DMs?

If I tell you my players did X and I did not like them doing it and then I tell you that a Wizard showed up to stop that thing I didn't like, you could probably be forgiven for assuming I was being a jerk instead of a clever encounter planner. :p

To me, the original post reads as if the DM both came up with the Druids on the spot, and just flat out doesn't want to award them XP because he doesn't approve of how they went about the encounter, and I don't feel either of those things should be encouraged.

If the Druids were totally part of the larger set of challenges all along, and would have showed up when that dinosaur reached half HP no matter when it happened, cool. But the entire 'less xp because the party themselves weren't causing the damage' is still just nonsense. If, as a DM, I stage a fight near a volcano and a fighter manages to bull rush an enemy into said volcano, which proceeds to kill that enemy in all the ways a volcano can, do I seriously dock the party XP because they didn't do the damage/kill the creature themselves? Pffft. Of course not.

[tiercel]

Yeah, not so much. They had high ground. This was a jungle-filled canyon, after all, filled with giant trees and high rocky outcroppings. They found positions above the Rex's reach. No stealth needed, just be within casting range from above. (Plus, even then, it's only a standard action to cast. A single character gets into range with a Move, then casts on Standard. Rest of the party is out of reach, non-threatening, but nearby.)

So the only point of possible failure was the save. One roll, and done. Even with scrolls, it's a first level spell, not THAT expensive, they could've retried a few times.

Handle Animal has Retry: Yes on the Push action, so he was able to roll until he got it. Effectively a non-obstacle.

If the jungle is dense, it’s not that hard to just break line of sight/line of effect (as the animal instinctually tries to get away from the hostile tingle), preventing further spellcasting. For a more aggressive response, rocky outcroppings are Climb DC 10 and a T-rex has Climb +9.

If the jungle is less dense, well with a running start a T-rex has Jump +13 and a 32ft vertical reach. (Yes, OK, T-rexes have those smaller arms whatever, but....)

It’s fair to reduce the T-rex’s XP reward if it was encountered in a tactical situation that put it at a severe disadvantage, but given that the PCs were at absolute most 35ft away from the T-rex (25ft using scrolls) when casting, they really, really shouldn’t have been utterly safe from becoming Jurassic Park extras.

[Crake]

Even with scrolls, it's a first level spell, not THAT expensive, they could've retried a few times.

Were they rolling concentration checks for the shaky AF tree? You know, the one the T-Rex was bashing about to try and get it's morsel of food to drop into it's mouth? Might've needed climb checks to stop from falling off too.

[Jack_Simth]

Yeah, not so much. They had high ground. This was a jungle-filled canyon, after all, filled with giant trees and high rocky outcroppings. They found positions above the Rex's reach. No stealth needed, just be within casting range from above.
Check tiercel's calculations on the T-Rex's Climb and Jump modifiers. Mr. T can likely climb as well as the PC's can (probably better, other than spells like Spider Climb, because few folks invest ranks in Climb knowing that they'll be getting Flight spells / items eventually). Both are usable untrained.

(Plus, even then, it's only a standard action to cast. A single character gets into range with a Move, then casts on Standard. Rest of the party is out of reach, non-threatening, but nearby.)

And gets detected as a snack, especially if the PC's aren't even trying to be stealthy. Mr. T's move is greater than the range on the Charm. And yes, he can go vertical.


So the only point of possible failure was the save. One roll, and done. Even with scrolls, it's a first level spell, not THAT expensive, they could've retried a few times.

You are mistaken here. And that's at least part of the problem.


Handle Animal has Retry: Yes on the Push action, so he was able to roll until he got it. Effectively a non-obstacle.
Note that Charm Animal only makes the animal regard the caster as friendly. And Mr. T will know where the rest of the party is, too, most likely. I'm pretty sure a wild animal doesn't know "down" either.

[Heliomance]

Full XP for everything they defeated. Being a DM involves coming to terms with the fact that the players will think of things you didn't, they will solve problems in ways you didn't anticipate, and sometimes they will kill someone important and force you to rewrite the entire campaign (https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=780). To be a good DM, you need to learn to roll with that.

You now know that Charm Animal is something in their arsenal. That's good - knowing your players' favoured tactics lets you plan around them. If you hadn't planned the druids before the encounter, you shouldn't have thrown them in - let them take the win, let them feel good. Then throw them in some encounters where Charm spells won't work - maybe someone has Protection from Evil, maybe they have high will saves. But also give them some more where it does help! Let the players use their abilities now and then and feel good about it!

Heck, turnaround is fair play - maybe they face an encounter with creatures someone else has Charmed, and if they realise that, can dispel the Charm themselves to get an advantage.

D&D is not the GM vs the players. It's the GM working with the players for everyone to tell a story and have a good time together. Charming the dinos was a smart move, it shows good planning, it's something to be encouraged. Don't punish creative play.

[AnimeTheCat]

Did the party overcome the challenge? Aye.

Did the party used a third party to do so? Aye.

Is that what charms and mind control are for? Aye.

Should they get EXP for overcoming said challenge? Aye, but they shouldn't be able to get it again for beating the same challenge another way.

What challenge (or challenges) did the party overcome? Was it the proposed challenge of harvesting the reagents? Was the the challenge of defeating the creatures?


A few things of note.
...That encounter isn't necessarily over, since the objective of the encounter was "collect the reagents you need", and they have yet to achieve that goal, not to mention charm animal is only hours per level, and thus the animal is far from permanently subdued, so no XP for that encounter yet.

...because the party still failed to actually achieve their objective, which is "collect the reagents you need", and from my understanding they have still yet to actually collect any reagents, right?

This is more in line with how I feel. The party hasn't accomplished anything of note. While they did succeed in charming two dinosaurs, they still haven't attained any noteworthy achievements and I can't really agree that they've even overcome any significant challenges.


Full XP for everything they defeated.

I agree, they should get full XP for everything they defeated. The only problem is they haven't actually defeated anything. If the players were supposed to stop wolves from plaguing a local farm, then charmed the wolves, would they get XP? they haven't defeated the wolves, only held them off for one night. The problem persists. This is slightly different (they weren't tasked with defeateing the dinosaurs, only collecting the reagents, which they haven't even done).


D&D is not the GM vs the players. It's the GM working with the players for everyone to tell a story and have a good time together. Charming the dinos was a smart move, it shows good planning, it's something to be encouraged. Don't punish creative play.

I agree that creative play shouldn't be punished and that the game is, in fact, anything but GM vs Players, but the players haven't actually accomplished anything. They haven't defeated any creatures, they haven't collected any reagents, they haven't done anything that would be of any note for anyone involved. Charming the dinosaurs is indeed smart, and had their plan come to fruition they would have 100% gotten bonus points for defeating the seismosaurus (or however you spell it). But their plan didn't come to fruition. Perhaps the party didn't do any (or simply enough) research to find out that these dinosaurs are under the protection of a circle of druids. That indicates a failure in planning. I'm not a fan of encouraging or discouraging behaviors in players, unless those behaviors are disruptive to the group, in which case I handle that out of game as it is an out of game issue.

[Psychoalpha]

Note that Charm Animal only makes the animal regard the caster as friendly. And Mr. T will know where the rest of the party is, too, most likely. I'm pretty sure a wild animal doesn't know "down" either.

This is splitting some pretty pedantic hairs. I'm reasonably certain that interpreting Charm Animal as something that can only ever be used by a solo character is just another **** move as a DM. :p

Animals aren't incapable of observing social dynamics, and generally speaking our assumption is that if someone has an 'animal friend' that animal isn't going to just attack the obvious allies of its 'friend' without provocation. Whether that friendship is the result of a class feature, skill checks over time, or temporary due to magic, shouldn't really matter.


but the players haven't actually accomplished anything.

Why is that again? Oh, right, because the DM didn't like how they were going about accomplishing things and put a stop to it via sudden encounter escalation. My eyes are going to roll right out of my head at this rate.

[RedWarlock]

The druids WERE definitely planned at some point, and I'm not just going to nix my players' clever ideas. (They already have quite a few of those I've let run.)

I probably let me real-creature knowledge dominate the encounters. By strict mechanics, Tyrannosaurus can jump and Seismosaurus can run, but my heavier paleontological background countered some of those things. I probably should have rebuilt the Seismosaurus to be a more interesting creature encounter, but honestly I wasn't expecting them to go after it in such a serious fashion. The Tyrannosaurus wasn't hungry when they encountered it.

On the other hand, I think it would help to explain WHAT my party consists of, so you guys understand where some of this is coming from.

Human Dread Necromancer 4
Succubus Racial Class (https://docs.google.com/document/d/19sb-J8_fJHgJ_gdinoNeVTXUP6KK36RnCg21ShcnDGw/edit?usp=sharing) 4
Lesser Aasimar Ghoul 2/Druid (Hunter variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#druid)) 2
Halfling Ninja 1/Spirit Shaman 3

(Ghoul is from Libris Mortis, but with the levels compressed a little to match the LA adjust thread's estimated ECL. I ruled that monster classes could be alternated up to half with other class levels, but the Succubus's player wants to finish the class out. I had to frontload it a little in edits because the first couple levels or so wasn't giving the character anything interesting to do.)

The party is playing "evil", and the Druids are intended as a "goody-two-shoes" opponent they can face.

[AnimeTheCat]

This is splitting some pretty pedantic hairs. I'm reasonably certain that interpreting Charm Animal as something that can only ever be used by a solo character is just another **** move as a DM. :p

Animals aren't incapable of observing social dynamics, and generally speaking our assumption is that if someone has an 'animal friend' that animal isn't going to just attack the obvious allies of its 'friend' without provocation. Whether that friendship is the result of a class feature, skill checks over time, or temporary due to magic, shouldn't really matter.

Animals may not be incapable of observing social dynamics, but let's consider action-reaction. Social interactions that a tyrannosaurus has observed probably are things standing in front of it and things running away from it. In the case of things standing in front of it, what can be happening; they are hurting it or they are cowering from it. Cowering is obviously not what's happening so they must be getting ready to hurt it. Unless the whole party had "Speak with Animals" they can't meaningfully communicate. The druid would need to push the animal to Heel which might work, but anything, a sudden movement, a loud noise, etc, could set off the T-Rex to snap. It is specifically not a trained animal so it has absolutely no discipline. The Druid would basically need to devote his/her full atttention to keeping the animal at bay, meaning consecutive full-round actions. I'm not arguing that the animal wouldn't attack the druid, but rather the animal isn't trained, in any capacity, so without constant guidance, the animal would revert back to instinct. That instinct could be drivin by many things. If the druid made it a point to slowly introduce the other players in a non-confrontational way, then there should be a reduced chance of this happening, especially if the T-Rex is being communicated with via speak with animals.


Why is that again? Oh, right, because the DM didn't like how they were going about accomplishing things and put a stop to it via sudden encounter escalation. My eyes are going to roll right out of my head at this rate.

You're assuming the DM chose those things in a knee-jerk and punitive capacity, rather than having the planned from the beginning and the having those characters within the world react as they should based on stimuli in the world. The DM (RedWarlock) specifically stated right after you commented this that the Druids were always planned, and that the intent wasn't to nix a player's clevar ideas. It seems as though the DM accurately played a group of forest protectors, and that's hardly something to roll your eyes at. That's immersive world building with real-time cause and effect. I'm willing to bet that the players could have discovered the presence of potential adversaries and prepared for them had they researched thoroughly, or slowly made their way up through less difficult to more difficult bounties, or even found a way to paralyze/silence the creatures as they attempted this.

What's more, the player haven't done anything yet. They're probably going to dust themselves off and try again, now knowing that they might need to fight druids, and plan accordingly, at which point they should be rewarded XP based off of how they overcome the challenge they're presented with. The druids are now a different challenge that they can take on at the same time, after, or before, they attempt to collect the reagents. However they overcome those challenges will determine the XP reward. The fact still remains that they haven't actually overcome any challenges at this time, for one reason or other.

[Crake]

This is splitting some pretty pedantic hairs. I'm reasonably certain that interpreting Charm Animal as something that can only ever be used by a solo character is just another **** move as a DM. :p

Animals aren't incapable of observing social dynamics, and generally speaking our assumption is that if someone has an 'animal friend' that animal isn't going to just attack the obvious allies of its 'friend' without provocation. Whether that friendship is the result of a class feature, skill checks over time, or temporary due to magic, shouldn't really matter.

This isn't pedantic at all, and is in fact the entire reason why the charisma check exists to make an animal do something it wouldn't normally do. An untrained T-Rex almost certainly would need a successful charisma check prior to a down handle animal push, and unfortunately for the caster, the charisma check is a once only attempt, if you fail, you need to re-charm before you can try again. If you were to play it the way you're suggesting it should be played, then you're pushing charm more and more into dominate territory.

Also, solitary predators like a T-Rex likely won't care about your social dynamics, if they even have the capability to understand them at all.


The druids WERE definitely planned at some point, and I'm not just going to nix my players' clever ideas. (They already have quite a few of those I've let run.)

I probably let me real-creature knowledge dominate the encounters. By strict mechanics, Tyrannosaurus can jump and Seismosaurus can run, but my heavier paleontological background countered some of those things. I probably should have rebuilt the Seismosaurus to be a more interesting creature encounter, but honestly I wasn't expecting them to go after it in such a serious fashion. The Tyrannosaurus wasn't hungry when they encountered it.

On the other hand, I think it would help to explain WHAT my party consists of, so you guys understand where some of this is coming from.

Human Dread Necromancer 4
Succubus Racial Class (https://docs.google.com/document/d/19sb-J8_fJHgJ_gdinoNeVTXUP6KK36RnCg21ShcnDGw/edit?usp=sharing) 4
Lesser Aasimar Ghoul 2/Druid (Hunter variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#druid)) 2
Halfling Ninja 1/Spirit Shaman 3

(Ghoul is from Libris Mortis, but with the levels compressed a little to match the LA adjust thread's estimated ECL. I ruled that monster classes could be alternated up to half with other class levels, but the Succubus's player wants to finish the class out. I had to frontload it a little in edits because the first couple levels or so wasn't giving the character anything interesting to do.)

The party is playing "evil", and the Druids are intended as a "goody-two-shoes" opponent they can face.

Oh, so was this the druid, or the succubus that was charming? Both would have merits, and the succubus would have a much more reasonable DC, likely close to, if not over 20. Still, it sounds like the party has plenty up their sleeve that they can proceed with going forward, so I would say no xp for the encounters up until now, but they have much more information they can use to begin to formulate a plan. If I were them, I would start by finding and kidnapping one of the druids and using the succubus to assume their form and infiltrate to get some more information, and maybe kill one or two of them in their sleep, but that's just me.

[Quertus]

It should not be used on the next big encounter because the encounter is different, not because of an arbitrary rule. That's the second half of one of my Rules for DMs:


24. When a PC gets a great new ability, there needs to be an encounter in the next session for which that ability is devastatingly effective. Otherwise it doesn’t exist. There should also be an encounter in the next session in which it is useless. Otherwise, the rest of that character doesn’t exist.

So if Charm Person and Handle Animal led to a brilliant PC move, that's great! But the next encounter should be a high-INT character who will make the Will save.

How else can the PCs be brilliant again?


You now know that Charm Animal is something in their arsenal. That's good - knowing your players' favoured tactics lets you plan around them. If you hadn't planned the druids before the encounter, you shouldn't have thrown them in - let them take the win, let them feel good. Then throw them in some encounters where Charm spells won't work - maybe someone has Protection from Evil, maybe they have high will saves. But also give them some more where it does help! Let the players use their abilities now and then and feel good about it!

Heck, turnaround is fair play - maybe they face an encounter with creatures someone else has Charmed, and if they realise that, can dispel the Charm themselves to get an advantage.

Although this is all really good advice, and I don't want people to think that I'm saying otherwise, I feel that fixing encounters should be considered a fail state, and the goal should be to design encounters with the inherent variety that, if the PCs pick up a new schtick, you've already got encounters slated against which that power will be strong, weak, and neutral.

I mean, if, for the first 11 levels, everything was neutral or weak against Fire, but, as soon as I pick up a Fire power, suddenly we start running into creatures that are strong against Fire, I'm calling shenanigans.

Similarly, if we never encounter CR appropriate animals until my Archivist picks up Charm Animal / Animal Friendship, it's going to feel contrived.

Lastly, if every time I play an X, the GM includes it, too, my X is usually not going to feel as special.

Know your players.

Know what types of Gamist contrivances will make the game better for your players, and which will make the game worse for your players. Build your game and your GM skills accordingly. But the best experience, IMO, will be if you build the GM skills to the point where you just use these techniques as a check, and rarely if ever have to change your encounters in order to provide variety.

… unless. Unless your players actually require that immediate same-session feedback. Unless your players get off on encountering other X. Unless the theme or the nature of the game specifically call for lower diversity.

So, again, I think that this sentiment puts y'all head and shoulders above the crowd. I really do. But that doesn't keep me from looking for ways to make things even better.