Low-OP games

[16bearswutIdo]

I realize that there probably are not a lot of low-OP games being run in this forum, but figured I'd give it a shot anyway.

I'm currently DMing a homebrew desert campaign loosely based off the Bhavacakra, with most of civilization centered on the banks of an enormous ever-flowing river. It's very "survival" oriented, and the PCs have essentially become scavenging nomads. The group is all level 4 atm, and very low optimization - there's a human monk/barbarian, a halfling swashbuckler/spellthief, a desert orc knight, and a human fighter/ninja. I know that right around levels 4-6 is when magic starts to really eclipse martials, and am wondering how to keep the party up to speed without any casters. The majority of their enemies so far are either humans or animals, but the deeper they travel into the desert the stranger things become. There are minor house rules in place (ex. monk gets full BAB, Daring Outlaw will work with spellthief instead of rogue, etc) but nothing game-breaking. I've heard of E6, but feel it would be a bit weird to introduce E6 halfway through a campaign.

Being that higher level monsters are based around PCs having access to certain spells this party won't have, how can I keep the game challenging without making it overpowering?

[MisterKaws]

Introducing E6 when you're still below 6 seems like an easy thing to me, but I guess it depends on the party's reaction.

Generally, creatures with too many magical abilities and/or movement types are the ones which require casters. You'll be fine as long as you keep it contained to mostly mundane-ish beasts like dinosaurs and some magical beasts.

[Efrate]

High level encounters have a few benchmark things to be aware of.

Movement modes. Flight, burrow, teleportation and planar travel are hard for mundanes to deal with. Teleport especially at will, and with a long range magic attack at will or fast healing or regeneration means your party can be kited endlessly at no threat. Planar travel is also pretty impossible to work with, and most high level outsiders have one of both.

You a.c. bonus scales much worse than monster to hit, and your grapple pales in comparison. Without FoM around level 10 you will never escape a grapple versus most anything, so when you get hit because their attack bonus is better than your ac, and they will have improved grab, you are mostly out of the fight.

The other big issue is the save or suck spells. At high levels lack of mind blank will cripple you if you face anything with a domination effect, and even at mid levels things like remove curse, stone to flesh, neutralize poison and break enchantment not being available will make some encounters quickly be deadly when they would otherwise be at best inconvenient. And lack of raise dead means character death will be an issue as well.

Also lack of out of combat healing so shorter adventuring days will be the norm.

[Silvercrys]

Since they're all low tier 4/high tier 5, you can probably afford to break wealth by level quite a bit as long as you stick to utility stuff and distribute evenly so no one feels like they have less. Particularly considering that, if they're in a survival situation, they probably don't have a magic mart nearby to sell whatever it is so they're basically entirely dependant on the loot you give them.

Give them a magic stone that can cast Overland Flight on the whole party with a 10 minute activation time around level 6-7.

Let them find a whole cache of Goggles of True Seeing if they need them for the plot.

Give the Spellthief wands of Dispel Magic with a very high caster level. Even a level 1 Spellthief can use wands of the entire sorcerer/wizard list if the spell is an abjuration, divination, enchantment, illusion, or transmutation spell without a Use Magic Device check, so if you want to use a monster that needs one of those spells the Spellthief can probably wand it (higher level spells usually aren't required for monsters, they just bypass the encounter entirely).

If they can't hit stuff, give them better stuff so they can -- the +5 pre epic limit is a guideline for item crafting and it's in the way of your party accomplishing whatever it is you want them to do at level 20. Or secretly nerf the monsters' natural armor so the weapon user with the lowest attack bonus can hit it on an 8 or 9.

Only use monsters they can actually fight, don't just add an Invisible Stalker because it's supposed to be level-appropriate.

Design custom monsters and NPCs to be level-appropriate challenges but without the flying and stuff if you don't want them to have flight. Or make the monster(s) killable with a custom mcguffin so they have to go find the Bow of Ra that can slay the Blue Dragon that guards the oasis in a single blow, and they just have to land one shot with it and run interference on the dragon's minions for 2-3 turns until the Dragon itself shows up. Or they can bypass the Oasis entirely but risk running out of water or whatever.

Let them find an NPC Spellcaster with a huge spell list like an Archivist, who does nothing but (1) use spells and Dark Knowledge to buff them in combat and (2) use wands of Cure Light Wounds.

Really depends on the tone of your game and whether you'd rather give them custom items to shore up their weaknesses or spend time hand building monsters and adjusting encounters for them or use a very in-the-background NPC spellcaster to round out the party.

[LordBlades]

Something else to watch for is ability damage and ability drain. As they lack a divine caster, recovering from that kind of stuff will be problematic.

Does the Spellthief have UMD? If so, throwing a few items his way and then once he can reliably hit DC 20 give them a few Wands of what they need would solve a lot of the potential problems.

[Gnaeus]

Best answer: run test combats away from game with the monsters you expect them to fight. Using the tactics you plan to use. If it steamrolls them, don’t use it, or nerf it first.

Easier way: just don’t use things they can’t hit and figure they are functioning below actual party level (probably by 1 level now, more later) due to suboptimal choices. Make sure drops contain healing stuff.

The fact that they are all suboptimized actually should make your life easier not harder. No one will break things by accident or suddenly bust your game open.

[Quertus]

So, you have several options. Let's use a basilisk / Medusa / etc, that can turn characters to stone, as a sample threat.

You can say, "huh, my party can't handle that", and custom tailor your encounters to not include such creatures.

Or you can say, "huh, my party can't handle that", and then give them things (items, NPCs, etc) as booster seats to let them be "this tall to ride".

My personal favorite method is to say, "it's your problem". Give them access to Magic Item Walmart, and, if they don't pack a scroll of Stone to Flesh (or just 1, and that character gets petrified) before they encounter a Stoner, then that's their problem.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by 16bearswutIdo
I'm currently DMing a homebrew desert campaign loosely based off the Bhavacakra, with most of civilization centered on the banks of an enormous ever-flowing river. It's very "survival" oriented, and the PCs have essentially become scavenging nomads.

This sounds extremely cool. Do you have a campaign journal? I’d love to see more of the world and how civilization works there.

Is this based on the Nile, or Mesopotamia, or the Indus River Valley culture? Or a fusion of them all?

[16bearswutIdo]

Thanks for the solid advice here, folks.

1. I'd prefer to avoid using an NPC spellcaster to act as follower/buffer for them. There are obviously casters in this world, but it would be on the PCs to gain a favorable relationship with them and convince them to help them out. OFC, it'd take away XP/Wealth as the guy isn't just gonna follow without reward.

2. I hadn't thought of test-running the encounters without them. That's pretty clever. This thread has made me realize that most of their quests they've picked up so far, they've cleverly avoided combat through using terrain. (Ex. to get a golden pig statue back from the den of kobolds that stole it, they hunted for an ankheg who had dug tunnels nearby and used its tunnel to sneak in and out of the back of the den while creating a lever/pulley system to hoist the pig out with them). This session will be their first real combat challenge, a Barghest who had the opportunity to feed enough to raise his HD by 2 (because the party got lost in a small Fey portal oasis for a few days) as a result of eating captives a goblin tribe took.

3. The Spellthief started putting points into UMD this level to shore up their weaknesses, so I can definitely afford to shove a few wands/scrolls this way. They do know of a magical item shop, but its expensive and in a rough part of the land whose dominant church is looking for them.

4. I like the idea of giving them a few general purpose wands, but I think if I were to include monsters with stuff like Stone I'd just highlight in advance that they might need a wand of stone for that creature.


This sounds extremely cool. Do you have a campaign journal? I’d love to see more of the world and how civilization works there.

Is this based on the Nile, or Mesopotamia, or the Indus River Valley culture? Or a fusion of them all?

No journal, but I can give you the bullet points as I'm away from my notes.

The great river which most civilization bases itself around is known as the Sun Kosi. The Sun Kosi has taken on a mystical status, in no small part due to its seemingly unending nature. Many major religions have various tales related to the Sun Kosi (ex. it is said by the worshippers of Olidammara that he sprung forth from the river). The world is an enormous, mostly uncharted desert. Attempts at mapping the land has resulted in a great deal of confusion amongst pre-eminent cartologists, as many of their maps seem to contradict each other. Where one man has marked down an eastward bend in the Great Sun Kosi, another marks it continues traveling north, while yet another remarks of a westward bend. The further one travels from the banks of the Sun Kosi, the stranger the desert becomes. Danger and treasure hides in the dunes for those brave enough to seek it.

River travel is quite common, though at times the Sun Kosi seems to randomly shift its flow.

Many towns have strong religious presences. At the site of Olidammara's emergence, a loose anarchist town formed based around worship of Olidammara. A heavily defended religious city to the North only allows those in it deems pure of heart. A pirate port to the south espouses an "anything goes if you can get away with it" mentality, and is largely dominated by the Church of Hextor enforcing its own set of rules and morality.

[Rongar]

I would suggest not changing your area or world because the group didn't want to play any spellcasters. They will find out the hard way how useful spellcasters are. Maybe even have them hire on an NPC or two to cover their lack of insight. Considering all or almost all of them multiclassed and still didn't take a caster class, says they aren't worried or don't care.