Anti-party combo smackdown ideas

[DarcyFinn]

I am DMing for a well established party, who have just reset characters to a lower level to start a new campaign (magic shenanigans were involved in the de-leveling).

As part of the new plot there is going to be a anti-party, not unlike that in the OOtS, called the menagerie. They are going to be:
Tabaxi - pact of tome, goolock
Kenku - assassin rogue
Dragonborn (black dragon origin) - shadow sorcerer
Minotaur - paladin of conquest

I am going to have them built as PCs and not monsters, and they are currently level 3, as are the PCs.

My PCs are pretty good at working together, so I am trying to think of any good combos or lower level magic items that I can have my anti-party use so they can actually be a challenge. I have not had much exp using the skills of these sub-classes, but the fit the plot best. Also I know they are not optimised - that is part of the plot.

I would appreciate the thoughts of others on smart ideas that would match the abilites of the anti-party make up above. Even high level ideas to store for later.

TLDR: what combos could the above party could pull that would mess with PCs?

[tatsuyashiba]

Shadow sorcerer casts darkness that both he and the warlock can see through.

[Kemev]

Low-level PCs are pretty weak on Will saves. Your anti-party has a lot of potential mind-affecting abilities to scatter/control the party. The sorcerer has hold person and phantasmal force; the warlock dissonant whispers or cause fear, the paladin has its channel divinity: conquering presence.

The ideal battle plan might be to have the paladin open with conquering presence and try to scatter the PCs, then have the warlock and sorcerer drop dissonant whispers/hold person on anyone who didn't run away, then have the assassin start sneak attacking a held party member. This works pretty well if you want to capture 1 or more party members instead of killing them; force half the party to run away, capture a survivor, then make the rest of the party stage a rescue.

[Falconcry]

Enemies Abound is another fun spell to toss at your PCs.

Bill: I swing my longsword at Dave?
Dave: What the hobbit dude?

/dave ganks the wizard in the back row with his shortsword. Tim is not impressed.

[Corran]

What are your players' characters?

[Eldariel]

Seems they're a pretty dumb lot so Int-targeting effects (such as Phantasmal Force and Enemies Unbound) could be a lot of fun depending on level. Synaptic Static too. If you wanna mirror each one:

Paladin of Conquest > Paladin of Ancients
Assassin Rogue > Lore Bard
Shadow Sorcerer > Light Cleric
GOOlock > Conjurer Wizard


Then just have 'em hammer their Int saves like their lives depended on it. Especially by forcing division and avoiding the Pally aura.

[cutlery]

Chainlock scouts with invisible imp, four or five archer fighters with decent stealth and sharpshooter open up on the party at 500 yards, and the chainlock backs them up with spell sniper+eldritch spear+agonizing blast eldritch blasts. Maybe lance of lethargy, too, in case any of the party are good at closing the distance.


The problem here is how not to make that a TPK.

[DarcyFinn]

What are your players' characters?

So the players are:
College of law Bard - half elf
Circle of moon druid - Tiefling
Paladin of vengance - human
1 Artificer/2+ divination wizard multiclass - gnome

The party currently have 0 magic items, but they do have pretty good rolls in main stats.

The function of the anti-party is to either get maguffins before the party, interfere with the parties plans - maybe attempt to kill them, but only if they really are a serious threat (at higher levels certianly) .

I suspect once they start to encounter eachother the party will start to adapt tactics, so I think the anti-party is more of a combat problem to solve due to repeat exposure and adjusting tactics to combat them effectively.

[Kurt Kurageous]

The problem here is how not to make that a TPK.

Customizing a death squad seems to point in that direction, doesn't it? The players didn't build to beat a specific group so will be at a significant disadvantage. A fight to the death will likely mean enough of the party irrevocably slain that its as good as a TPK.

Now do you see why you got over 1000 views but less than ten replies? I'd guess almost all DM playgrounders want no part in TPKs unless it's earned. Your party didn't earn it just by coming into being.

[DarcyFinn]

Customizing a death squad seems to point in that direction, doesn't it? The players didn't build to beat a specific group so will be at a significant disadvantage. A fight to the death will likely mean enough of the party irrevocably slain that its as good as a TPK.

Now do you see why you got over 1000 views but less than ten replies? I'd guess almost all DM playgrounders want no part in TPKs unless it's earned. Your party didn't earn it just by coming into being.

Agreed, this is not aiming for a TPK - and it's not a concept I suggested in the original post, or a result I am looking for, or as a DM try to facilitate. This is more making the rivals feel like a threat and have some fun combos to confound the party to begin with, - but also ones that they can learn to play around. No death squads, but certainly the first confrontation would be over a magical maguffin, and the players will probably have their asses handed to them without strong teamwork. However the point is to build up some rivalry early on to make eventual victory sweeter - one of the players is a Paladin of vengance after all.

Basically the anti-party are intended to be a threat on occasional showdowns early on, and then a genuinely pleasing defeat one-day down the line when the party have seen the "sorcerer casts darkness, enamies abound gets fired off, and the Paladin makes them all feel fear" combos and come prepared. Thank you previous posters for replies, very helpful ideas which I will most certainly be using.

P.s. Kurt your comment over replies was not really needed on a pretty welcoming forum. Any amount of friendly suggestions are welcome in my book, especially for a "help me think of specific ideas for my specific game" thread. No harm done - but it really wasn't necessary.

[cutlery]

Agreed, this is not aiming for a TPK - and it's not a concept I suggested in the original post, or a result I am looking for, or as a DM try to facilitate.

I don't meant to imply that you do want it, but there are some relatively easy combos that work (that are technically appropriate CRs) that will heavily tip the scales towards a TPK.


One alternative might be a single sniper, or a sniper team of two. Several rounds while the party is trying to figure out what is going on, then several more rounds while they try to close the distance. The sniper team can either bug out or wait to die.

If you have any DMPCs, this would be an opportune moment to remove them, too.

Some form of divination and/or scouting (the invisible chainlock imp is great for this, and the warlock themselves can contribute well to the sniping damage).

I think for any encounter like this there either needs to be a way the players can succeed (that isn't far-fetched) or some narrative reason that their attackers won't go for the kill.

[DarcyFinn]

I think for any encounter like this there either needs to be a way the players can succeed (that isn't far-fetched) or some narrative reason that their attackers won't go for the kill.

I totally agree, I think the first is covered by good team work by the party , and the second is that I don't intend to play the rivals as a super kill team, just as a party with some good team work with an opposing agenda.

I think that going for the kill is not their motivation mainly because the longer combat goes on for the longer there is a chance if one of them being killed also. If they have accomplished what they want to do, or have been prevented from doing so then it makes more sense (IMO) to get out of there than fight to the death every time. That is not to say they might try to kill one member of the party if the opertunity arrises down the line once a true rivalry has developed and the party is more of a legitimate threat. But by that point bringing people back to life is less of an issue in the game .

Mainly I think they will look to get away with their goals, be it inciting political unrest, getting their hands on a magical item, or denying an ally to the party. But agreed- no TPK, but yes to building rivalry and being a threat (hence asking for badass combos) but not a insurmountable one.

[Corran]

and the players will probably have their asses handed to them without strong teamwork.
That's going to be tough for the anti-party to do. Especially at low levels, where moon druids are so strong and there's no easy access to stuff that can shut them down (nor would it be easy, with all of bardic inspiration, portent and the paladin's aura in play). The bard is the party's weak link (as even the wizard has boosted their AC), and ideally you want to focus on him first (both to minimize the impact of his save or suck spells, combined with the diviner's portent, but also to minimize the amount of yo-yo healing done via healing word -as lay on hands uses an action and moon druid cannot cast in beast form; if you can tempt the moon druid to burn through wildshape(s) just to heal the unconscious bard -by having the paladin locked down for example, that would be dandy). Far from enough for winning you the fight (ie putting pressure on the bard), but it will help a bit.

One thing you should be mindful of, is combining darkness (presumably from the sorcerer) with the paladin's conquering presence. For example, you want your casters inside the darkness spell. You want that for better defense (disadvantage and straight up immunity to spells that require seeing the target) and attack (advantage), but you also want it from being able to counterspell the party's two(!) casters with impunity. This is the anti-party's answer to the pc's healing word advantage, ie that you can potentially shut their spellcasting down. To do that though, you have to constantly be within 60' of them, which is tough, cause you are taking the risk of getting your caster's close to the paladin and the druid (who both hit hard in these levels). Moreover, if your paladin activates conquering presence, that's another very strong incentive for the pc's to go after your casters inside that sphere of darkness, so that they can cancel possible disadvantage from the frighten condition.

In fact, what I'd be very tempted to do, would be to have the sorcerer cast darkness on something the rogue is holding (eg his rapier), have the rogue rush into melee with the enemies alone (no sneak attack unfortunately, though there is that possibility if you go swashbuckler instead of assassin), counting on cunning action hide solely for defense, with the aim of just delaying them (perhaps causing some concentration checks along the way; add poison to weapon for more concentration checks if you stick with assassin), breaking the line of sight of their casters, while the warlock and the sorcerer try to kill them (bard first) with ranged attacks (potentially with advantage, assuming initiative cooperates). Meanwhile, the warlock and the sorcerer try to blast from afar and try to keep their distance (meaning, if the pc's advance towards them, they fall back). The paladin is at the back too, with the two casters (pick protection fighting style). You use his conquering presence to stall the advancement of the pc's (cause you want them to go after your rogue who can hide and become untargetable if successful). Throw in a command spell or two (flee) if necessary, for wasting their turns and winning some distance, and possibly have the warlock change target from the bard to any of the melee pc's if they get too close (repelling blast). With a few lucky rolls, this may be a winning strategy. There are easy enough ways for the pc's to counter this, but hopefully they wont think about them on the fly.

If you want other generally applicable combos (that not necessarily play well with a winning strategy, (cause lets face it, in a fair fight where the anti-party does not have a tactical advantage, they cannot win, and that's cause the pc's have a lot more hp, they have less fragile members, they have yo-yo healing, they have protection against save-or-suck spells in various forms, they have portent, they they they...), well, anything that provokes opportunity attacks (like dissonant whispers, and depending on how you rule on it, command) could be good with a (melee) rogue in the party, cause a rogue's sneak attacks hurt at low levels. Plus, wasting enemies' turns is a big benefit on its own. Hold person is also generally good against humanoids (so against pc's), and even with inspiration and aura of protection against you, you might still want to give it a shot with the crit potential of both a paladin and a rogue on your side (from a higher level slot naturally, so you can target lots of them) if initiative cooperates (ie paly and rogue go before the enemies you are trying to paralyze). Any spells that requires skill checks (on top of some save most likely; eg wrathful smite, web, or a goolock's black tentacles, etc) combine well with the frighten condition that a conquest paly can impose (cause being frightened imposes disadvantage on said ability checks; same with hex, but honestly hex might just not be worth it in this fight). Frigtening melee specialists (like for example a low level moon druid) can be a good way to kill them easily (keep them in a distance and slowly kill them with ranged attacks, assuming of course you have not much else to worry about, so keep that in mind if you are winning, in which case the moon druid will most likely be the one left standing; obviously, you dont want to try and kill the moon druid with hp damage while his allies are fighting).