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Reinboom
2007-10-22, 12:03 PM
I've been trying to redesign my encounters for a rather large party of seven players in a campaign of mine. Currently, everyone is level 4 - uses a stat array + extra stats equivalent to about a 30 Point Buy. The party consists of:

Swordsage 'Monk'. (Secondary Damage)
Knight (Primary Tank)
Barbarian (Primary Damage)
Favored Soul
Bard (Primary Caster... :smalleek: ... but the bard buffs in this party own)
Swashbuckler (slightly modified, has good reflex and eventually starts getting sneak attack- though not yet) ('Skill Monkey' *sweat drop*)
Ranger (Archer)


And I encouraged the use of healing belts for the deprived group.

Well - with a group like this, I'm having difficulties trying to figure out how to adjust encounters.
Any advice? :smalleek:
Oh, and they surprisingly work as a team pretty well, and rather quickly. Also, I'm the sole DM and have no way of really splitting the party.

kenjigoku
2007-10-22, 12:10 PM
Since the encounters are set for 4 players, try doubling the number of creatures per encounter.

For example, at an average party level of 4 try 2 displacer beast instead of just one.

Azerian Kelimon
2007-10-22, 12:12 PM
Create an "anti party" template to have something at the ready for each of them:


Create a hard hitter set with crap BAB that focuses on the knight.

Create an all round melee set of enemies to keep the barb busy.

Create a slightly overpowered critter set for the swordsage. Trust me, if he plays his cards right, he's gonna be the most powerful meleer before long. Heck, he might even end as the most powerful guy period.

Create some kind of... erm, what spells does the Favored Soul have?

Create an all round set of jacks of all trades for the bard. A Factotum would be a nice opponent for him, for example, but he'll probably thrash the bard.


Create a few simple mechanical gizmos and low level minions for the swashbuckler, so as to keep him busy.

Create ambush points and archers who will be the ranger's job. The idea is that they can only be reached in a very difficult way, or that they cannot be reached, period, except for a few arrows.

If you create base sets for enemy encounters, things will usually go much more smoothly. Hope that helps.

Kompera
2007-10-22, 12:16 PM
I've been trying to redesign my encounters for a rather large party of seven players in a campaign of mine. Currently, everyone is level 4 - uses a stat array + extra stats equivalent to about a 30 Point Buy.
[snipped]
Well - with a group like this, I'm having difficulties trying to figure out how to adjust encounters.
Any advice?
You don't need to split the group. You only need to get a good idea of what they are capable of. Then all will again be in balance.

I suggest that you design an encounter which is 3x their CL. Given that any encounter is balanced (um, yeah) for a CL of 4 players, three times that seems appropriate since the players can be expected to play smart and slay a single opponent at a time and move on to the number two foe. If their CL calls for 4 Orcs, use 12.l This should be fair, at least for any given single encounter.

Reinboom
2007-10-22, 12:25 PM
For optimization - each person is at least partially optimized (I encourage a bit of optimization to make sure that nobody lags behind)... and the favored soul I forgot to collect his character sheet from last session so I don't have his spells memorized yet :smallsigh:

The issue really isn't just the number - it's the lack of certain numbers. I'm used to someone pulling a full arcane caster (sorcerer, beguiler, wizard, etc.) and a full 'cleric role' character (Favored Soul,Cleric,Druid sometimes). The cleric roll is covered, but it's only 1 for a group of 7... it's the lack of a full caster and trying to allocate for an insane amount of raw damage that is painful.
Even doubling enemies and raising their power didn't work too well - the whole group just 'swarmed' focused and removed the biggest threat then went down the line.
From the build of this party, even a damned crab won't get far.
On the other hand - generic mass damage (say fireball) would slaughter them. It's rather frustrating.

Nonah_Me
2007-10-22, 12:27 PM
I've done this. I had a group of five in my game yesterday, and I'm expecting about nine on the next sunday. I've thrown about twenty ork mooks at them, plus a few leutenants (3rd level Barbarians or Clerics).

They've been cleaving through them with ease. So now I'm going to ratchet up the encounters, A gauth here, Two Ogres and a few classed orcs there. See what happens.

Azerian Kelimon
2007-10-22, 12:34 PM
That's why I suggested cherrypicking monsters and traps for the party. A party this big needs to have each member unable to give big help to the others. Thus, the idea of setting a specifically chosen foe for each of the party members.

And BTW, in regards to the need for a full caster, you could use a DMPC.

Solo
2007-10-22, 12:37 PM
I've been trying to redesign my encounters for a rather large party of seven players in a campaign of mine. Currently, everyone is level 4 - uses a stat array + extra stats equivalent to about a 30 Point Buy. The party consists of:

Swordsage 'Monk'. (Secondary Damage)
Knight (Primary Tank)
Barbarian (Primary Damage)
Favored Soul
Bard (Primary Caster... :smalleek: ... but the bard buffs in this party own)
Swashbuckler (slightly modified, has good reflex and eventually starts getting sneak attack- though not yet) ('Skill Monkey' *sweat drop*)
Ranger (Archer)


And I encouraged the use of healing belts for the deprived group.

Well - with a group like this, I'm having difficulties trying to figure out how to adjust encounters.
Any advice? :smalleek:
Oh, and they surprisingly work as a team pretty well, and rather quickly. Also, I'm the sole DM and have no way of really splitting the party.

A wizard who casts Fly and Protection from Arrows should do it:smalltongue:

Person_Man
2007-10-22, 01:02 PM
Gah! DMing for 7 players is quite a tough job. I like the anti-party idea. Whatever you do, try and limit the number of enemies on the board. While it makes mathmatical sense to just add more monsters, it really bogs down combat, since players will spend most of the time just sitting there. Instead, use a smaller number of more powerful enemies - perhaps using the CR = player's ECL, but with maximum hit points and a few extra class levels.

I would also institute an "action clock" - giving each player a maximum of 1 minute to resolve their action during any given round. A chess clock works quite well for this.

AslanCross
2007-10-22, 04:41 PM
And I thought six players was hard. X_x (down to 5 now)
You can just raise the EL by adding more monsters. (My APL 5 party could take down an EL 10 even if they were beginners) Making individual monsters really tough is totally dependent on what you build the monster to be. If it's still built to take out individuals, you're going to have a hard time if you can't sustain the tactic of funneling them down to one person at a time.

Not sure if others agree with this, but I find that the best way to raise the CR of intelligent monsters is to give class levels, and not to advance them by hit dice alone. Some monsters need 4 HD to get up 1 CR, and sometimes this bloats their HP and BAB by an insane amount. Class levels are powerful, yes, but I find that their scaling of HP and BAB is a lot saner.

Raum
2007-10-22, 07:03 PM
I've been trying to redesign my encounters for a rather large party of seven players in a campaign of mine. From experience as a player (our group varies between 6-9 players), you'll need to concentrate on larger numbers of opponents rather than more powerful opponents. Use terrain to limit mobbing of single opponents where possible, in fact use terrain as another opponent - water, rough terrain, traps, narrow halls / tunnels, etc will all help you either break the party up into smaller groups or limit the number of PCs who can gang up on a single opponent. Have your opponents coordinate attacks when it makes sense - and whether it makes sense depends on culture or instincts as much as intelligence. For example, wolves will work as a pack to cut out a single prey from a group.

Avoid overly powerful single opponents. Either the party will take it down in a single round because of the shear number of attacks or the opponent will kill a PC in a single round because of higher damage output.

Chronos
2007-10-22, 07:19 PM
I believe that the rule of thumb is that for every doubling of numbers, the CR goes up by 2. Your party is a little less than double 4, and the classes leave a bit to be desired (no wizard, only one divine caster, a monk), so that's maybe just a +1 (depending on how well they work together). So throw monsters at them with a CR 1 or 2 higher than you otherwise would.