Wearing PC's Down

[HMS Invincible]

What's the best way to wear PC's down so that isn't tedious, or cause them to extended rest? I was thinking traps and hazards as they move and combats to deny sleep.

One problem I've had is that combat is pretty tedious. How should I make encounters be hit and runish?

[Temet Nosce]

Time limits? Or preventing them from having the ability to rest.

[FoE]

Electric shocks delivered through the players' chairs.

[Mongoose87]

A relentless barrage of puns.

[Kylarra]

throwing dice at them will eventually wear them down.

[HMS Invincible]

What about diseases and poisons?

[Mongoose87]

Generally, those get you arrested.

[Temet Nosce]

What about diseases and poisons?

They'll just encourage resting. If you want to wear the party down, you need to either provide them with a reason not to rest (like I suggested, a time limit) or stop them from being able to rest.

[FoE]

Forcing them to slow dance at gunpoint?

throwing dice at them will eventually wear them down.

OW! That barely hurt!

Generally, those get you arrested.

So will unlicensed firearms, but that's never stopped me from bringing one to my last D&D game.

[Hallavast]

I'll tell you what usually doesn't work: poorly designed uber monsters that you think the PCs can't defeat and would be stupid to engage in prolonged combat with.

Because every group has either a minmaxxed batman-genius that has the perfect and effective tactic for taking down your superbeast that you didn't think of; or one or more idiots who rush headlong into direct and prolonged combat that shortly ends in a TPK.

Encouraging them to run from an obvious and impending doom rarely works.

[OrangeQuarter]

Steroids or pure Adrenaline.

Or Spicy Foods. It's the same difference anyways...

[Drakefall]

Or Spicy Foods.

Now combine that with some laxative...

[quiet1mi]

I recommend ambushes with things that can see in the Dark or through magical Darkness, Booby trapped treasure will keep their characters on edge...

Heck, a Beguiler could keep them on their toes and waste valuable resources with making traps (Craft), Staging Ambushes and then fleeing or creating illusions of the tell-tale signs of an illusion. Now they waste energy fighting or defending against a single level 1 and 2 Spell.

Interrupting a Mage's sleep for the day prevents him from getting back spells IIRC.

If they try a Rope Trick, Answer with a Dispel Magic... The goal is not to kill them but wear them down with a highly mobile enemy and prevent them from resting. A Single Cross bolt to the chest (no hard for a beguiler that has a high Dexterity) will remind them that resting here will result in a attack, a single D10 even with no bonus to damage begins to add up quickly, especially if it is 10 times a day from a sniper that they cannot find.

A time table works too... Now the mage has to prepare spells for a two day period using a single day's resource. Believe me if the Hp starts to drop, they will burn through the Wand of CLW or vigor quite quickly...

[Kobold-Bard]

Tucker's Kobolds? Never used them, but an endless stream of very minor attacks will drive then to the point of killing you once they run out of healing. And that's when you spring the below CR-appropriate monster at on them that decides whether they've earned their 8 hours sleep or not. After that they'll thank you for throwing an Ancient Red Dragon at them.

[Shademan]

a monster that kills people trough their dreams. you don't wanna sleep then as sleep=death

[Keewatin]

a cragtop archer can accurately attack from like 3000 feet away, just tie little taunting notes to the arrows that keep landing around them or in them.

A magic mouth that screams every 2 hours?

A playful earth elemental swimming in the ground under them and pokeing everytime they stop entertaining it.


Though if your trying to prevent people getting their spells back only a wizard needs to sleep to do it. wizards need to study their book for 1 hour after a good nights rest sorcerers just get them and clerics (and druids) need to pray at a certain time each day specified at character creation and based on their deity/alignment.

Clerics meditate or pray for their spells. Each cleric must choose a time at which he must spend 1 hour each day in quiet contemplation or supplication to regain his daily allotment of spells. Time spent resting has no effect on whether a cleric can prepare spells. A cleric may prepare and cast any spell on the cleric spell list, provided that he can cast spells of that level, but he must choose which spells to prepare during his daily meditation.

Casters should not be getting more then 1 days worth of spells in a 24 hour(or whatever your day cycle is in your world) period. You don't get your spells back because you sat around for 8 hours. Ran out of spells before lunch time? too bad the world does not stop just because you do.

[Johel]

"Summon monster" Trap with an auto reset each round and an Alarm spell as trigger.

By the time they get rid of the trap, they'll have exhausted a good deal of ressources. Of course, they can still rest but it won't mean there won't be any nocturnal attack from the locals after the noise the adventurers made during their last fight.

As for the "über monster that fails", take a stalker-type monster. Something like the xenomorph of "Alien I", the kind of beast that can rip a lone PC open, hide in the dark and make hit-and-run attacks. Bonus if it regenerates.

A horde of Half-troll cats ?
Don't thing to much about how it was born.

[bosssmiley]

Wandering monster checks. 1-in-6 chance, every 2 turns (a turn being a room exploration, a combat, a talky scene, etc.).

The constant ticking of the game clock keeps the PCs under the gun, because wasted time equalled added risk and wasted resources. Now add time critical plot points...

(old D&D != stupid D&D )

[JeenLeen]

Though if your trying to prevent people getting their spells back only a wizard needs to sleep to do it. wizards need to study their book for 1 hour after a good nights rest sorcerers just get them and clerics (and druids) need to pray at a certain time each day specified at character creation and based on their deity/alignment.

Clerics meditate or pray for their spells. Each cleric must choose a time at which he must spend 1 hour each day in quiet contemplation or supplication to regain his daily allotment of spells. Time spent resting has no effect on whether a cleric can prepare spells. A cleric may prepare and cast any spell on the cleric spell list, provided that he can cast spells of that level, but he must choose which spells to prepare during his daily meditation.

Casters should not be getting more then 1 days worth of spells in a 24 hour(or whatever your day cycle is in your world) period. You don't get your spells back because you sat around for 8 hours. Ran out of spells before lunch time? too bad the world does not stop just because you do.

Our party fought a plant-type monster that emitted an Aura of Despair and had a cry that caused everyone to be compelled to come it, not stopping to eat, drink, or rest. I can't recall the name, but it was Monster Manual I, II, or III.
The aura is large enough to be a couple days away. It caught two of our members, and the other two kept walking with them to keep up. So even the cleric--who made his Will save--didn't get to recharge spells since he couldn't stop to meditate.
Another biggee was that the person who killed it was afflicted with a curse that made them have nightmares when they sleep. It specifically states that such nightmares prevent being able to rest to prepare arcane spells. (DM houseruled it still messed up the elf sorcerer who killed it.)

[jiriku]

+1 to time limits.

Surprise attacks in the middle of the night must be handled with care. Because the players don't anticipate that the attacks will occur, casters may blow their entire set of daily spells before attempting a (failed) rest. In this case the ambushed doesn't wear the party down- it renders the casters useless while having little-to-no impact on non-casters, disrupting the group dynamic.

An alternative might be to warn the players that they'll have to go x days without a proper rest. Something like, "beware adventurers, once you step through this portal to the Abyss, demons will assault you day and night until you complete your quest and return to safety. You'll have no chance to rest or recover spells, so conserve your resources carefully." This gives the PCs a heads-up not to blow all their spells on the first encounter, and they won't be surprised when they're attacked so often that they can't gain the benefits of rest.

[Another_Poet]

A brigade of Shadows. Give two of them a level of Cleric and a wand of Inflict Light Wounds. This brigade can hit-and-run your PCs time and time again with almost no losses.

Alternately, a brigade of just about any humanoid creature with instructions to fight for 2 rounds and then run away, preferably leaving caltrops or other obstacles to hamper movement. The brigade then meets up with their healer before repeating the tactic.

ap

[SartheKobold]

Environmental Damage over time might work. If they're medium enough level, permenant Acid Fog in the entire area would force them to make timed runs with limited coverable area, or spend the resources to risk trying to rest in the acid... Which isn't impossible with the right spells and items...

Are you trying to make them earn their rest and replenishment, or are you just wanting them weakened before a 'boss'? I'm imagining this is stemming from a scenario where as soon as the Wiz drops his 1 or 2 highest level spells, the entire party halts, sets up camp and gets them back...

Brainstorm:
Damage Over Time
Permenant Acid Fog
Extreme Heat (1d6 Fire Damage/Minute)
Extreme Cold (1d6 Cold Damage/Minute)
Aleternating Heat and Cold
Negative Levels that add up in the area.
Kobolds... Thousands of them...
Incorporeal attackers in a cramped-space maze. No way are they going to sleep any time soon...
Threat of disaster should they linger, like a cracked dam or a failing generator that powers the magic keep-monster-out-ifier...
Roving patrols of unfriendlies to harass them but not attack them outright...
Cover the floor in a Summon Swarm spell...
Cover the floor in an illusory Summon Swarm spell...
BoVD: Addict one or more of the PCs to some kind of stimulant that prevents them from sleeping...
I wonder what happens when an Outsider casts Planar Ally from their home plane. Can PCs be Planar Allies? It would suck to be pestered by a good-intending celestial that keeps ringing the party cleric for some help...
A Bard that Fascinates the party while they try to rest...
Nightmare