DMs: How do you challenge a PC without shutting him down?

[Callista]

So we've all seen this... You're playing an optimized 3.5 rogue. You're getting really good at landing sneak attacks. And... then you end up fighting constructs, undead, and oozes.

What's happened? The DM decided that he wanted to stop your character from overwhelming his encounters; so s/he used encounters that your character was weak against. Unfortunately, that had the side effect of making your rogue much less effective than he should be.

It's not just rogues. Just about every class can be shut down like that--magic-users against magic-immune and high-SR monsters; melee fighters (at low level) against flying enemies or high DR; ranged fighters against missile-protection spells and Wind Walls.

But you want to do some of that stuff. It's sensible strategy for at least some of your enemies to be deliberately countering some of the stuff the party does--what intelligent opponent, knowing that he's facing an invisible rogue, won't be getting himself some way to pierce the invisibility? What intelligent opponent, knowing he's facing a spellcaster, won't plan to counterspell, distract, or shut down spellcasters with an AMF or a few golems?

However... you don't want to go too far, and make a player feel useless. You want to find the region somewhere in the middle--monsters using intelligent tactics (or at least appropriate for their intelligence), but not to the point that you shut down the PC's capabilities entirely. Those undead without any weak points should have a sneak-attackable cleric leading them; the spell-resistant golems should have a squishy wizard that your spellcaster can counter...etc.

So let's have some tips: How do you create encounters that will be fun for everyone--without either stupid monster tactics or useless PCs? Assuming that people built their PCs intelligently, this should be possible...

[Aemoh87]

I am a long time DM and I came up with a DM strategy I call Gandolfing. Shutting down players is actually really hard, they should be shut down on occasion but it doesn't work for the long term, just a nasty surprise. But if you watch the lord of the ring Gandolf doesn't really fight until he meets something he needs to fight, but until then he lets the small guys do the fighting.

Make your rogue NEED to sneak attack some foe. Or your wizard need to use his spells to give the party a chance (a great example is the wizard holds an army at bay whiles the party dukes it out with the villain or some sort of elite soldiers). Sometimes it's better to distract them with their strengths whiles the party works on something else.

This strategy is even more useful in groups where one player is significantly more talented or playing a much higher tier build. Sometimes you have to hint the party at what to do, but it makes it so no one is left out of the action.

[Lapak]

Two general strategies come to mind. Neither can be used all the time, but they can each be helpful.

- Give the players opposition that their specialty is useful against, but more than they can comfortably handle - the 'army of minions' strategy. Sneak-attackable enemies, but four of them; mind-controllable enemies, but three of them; foes that easily fall to a melee attack, but enough that they can swarm past a defender and attack vulnerable party members. The race to whittle them down will keep them on their toes; no one opponent (or very few) should be strong enough to be an individual threat.

- Put a limitation in place, but make it removable by a clever player. Maybe an encounter takes place in a bare room with a bright lamp and the enemies fight with their back to the wall - this would temporarily render a rogue's Sneak Attack less useful. But if they break the lamp, or have the spellcaster put up some kind of cover to hide in/behind, or get the enemy out of their defensive position, suddenly they're back in business. Fighter vs. Flyers? Put something in the area that the flyers want to defend. If the fighter realizes it and tries to get at it, they'll fly into arm's reach to guard it.

[Sine]

So let's have some tips: How do you create encounters that will be fun for everyone--without either stupid monster tactics or useless PCs? Assuming that people built their PCs intelligently, this should be possible...

My advice to 3.x DMs: Help your players optimize. There are counter-measures for just about every counter-measure that a DM can come up with. Ex: Point rogue players toward that class feature that lets rogues deal half damage against crit-immune critters.

My advice to DMs in general: Play 4e.

[Aemoh87]

Yeah 4E is so much more DM friendly but........ it's so much more a tabletop and so much less a Role Playing game :(

But yeah pathfinder has a great deal of DM friendly print.

[Czin]

My advice to 3.x DMs: Help your players optimize. There are counter-measures for just about every counter-measure that a DM can come up with. Ex: Point rogue players toward that class feature that lets rogues deal half damage against crit-immune critters.

My advice to DMs in general: Play 4e.

Smacks sine silly. I suggest that DMs follow Aemoh's suggestion and undertake Gandolfing.

[Kansaschaser]

I typically give them a challenge rating equal to their party level. If they defeat the enemy too quickly, I'll send in another wave of monsters equal to their challenege rating within a few rounds.

Once my party took out an Iron Golem in one round. So I had a secret door slide open to reveal another duplicate Iron Golem. The party took it down to just a few hit points in the first round, so I had another secret door slide open to reveal yet another Iron Golem. Wash, rinse, repeat...

After about 10 rounds in a row where an Iron Golem kept showing up, they were sufficiently challenged.

[Czin]

I typically give them a challenge rating equal to their party level. If they defeat the enemy too quickly, I'll send in another wave of monsters equal to their challenege rating within a few rounds.

Once my party took out an Iron Golem in one round. So I had a secret door slide open to reveal another duplicate Iron Golem. The party took it down to just a few hit points in the first round, so I had another secret door slide open to reveal yet another Iron Golem. Wash, rinse, repeat...

After about 10 rounds in a row where an Iron Golem kept showing up, they were sufficiently challenged.

I....I'm just going to lie down before I make a highly cynical observation that offends the mods.

[Sipex]

While effective, the 'second wave' tactic would soon be discovered under those circumstances.

Either that or your PCs would believe themselves to be in a factory which produces Iron Golems.

I play 4th edition and I can attest that Gandalfing works. For instance, our rogue usually deals a ton of damage and can take out significant threats quickly if he has combat advantage. He was challenged to a duel by his brother in a recent battle which tied him up for 5 turns while the rest of us had to deal with his cronies and this allowed us to shine more.

Well, those of us concerned with killing.

[Aemoh87]

Gandolfing also challenges the skilled player beyond what a normal encounter could. If he doesn't just have to fight a force on his own, but watch the party's back/defend them from it while they have their own challenge you really get the "Gandolf" thinking and playing at an elite level. It allows you to paint a desperate and cinematic combat scenario, which is what memories are made of.

Also on the other hand the party does need to do their job as well so that the Gandolf doesn't get overwhelmed. It quickly balances the unbalanced.

[Kansaschaser]

I....I'm just going to lie down before I make a highly cynical observation that offends the mods.

Hehe, sorry if that came off wrong. I planned for the encounter to be more difficult than downing the Iron Golem in one round.

I failed to take into account that everyone in the party had bought the weapon crystals from the Magic Item Compendium that allowed them to crit constructs. Also, I think the weapon crystals let them do more damage to the constructs as well. This cheap magic item let them take down the Iron Golem too quickly, so I decided to up the challenge rating by adding more of them.

It was totally unplanned on my part, but I dungeon master by the seat of my pants sometimes.

[Czin]

Hehe, sorry if that came off wrong. I planned for the encounter to be more difficult than downing the Iron Golem in one round.

I failed to take into account that everyone in the party had bought the weapon crystals from the Magic Item Compendium that allowed them to crit constructs. Also, I think the weapon crystals let them do more damage to the constructs as well. This cheap magic item let them take down the Iron Golem too quickly, so I decided to up the challenge rating by adding more of them.

It was totally unplanned on my part, but I dungeon master by the seat of my pants sometimes.

I'd love to freeform like you, but as things stand my Co-dms and players would probably unload Ak-47 clips into me if I deviated from our dead last-DM's contingency plans...I probably have to go through another campaign before I'm trusted enough to step out of Volkov Rokossovsky's (name of now dead former DM) shadow.

[valadil]

So we've all seen this... You're playing an optimized 3.5 rogue. You're getting really good at landing sneak attacks. And... then you end up fighting constructs, undead, and oozes...

The problem is that all the enemies were immune to the rogue. This is why the character felt weak. If you gave them a fight with a skeleton and two necromancers controlling them, the rogue will feel awesome when he slips past the skeletons to get to the enemies he can really hurt. Even if he spends 2-3 rounds attacking skellies before he can get to the fleshy enemies, he still won't feel his talents were wasted on the fight.

So to generalize, you want to restrict how often a PC's speciality can be used, not remove it altogether.

[Aemoh87]

I am not a fan of gimmick DM'ing like that. Some parties would get upset if there wasn't a rational reason for what was happening around them. Also parties need to be rewarded for downing an enemy quickly, not punished with another enemy (or rewarded depending on if they are able to farm them). When my party mows over a boss/hard mob it's a good thing, since most encounters should not be set up so if they drag on they can be won.

[Aemoh87]

my last post referring to the iron golems

[true_shinken]

My advice to DMs in general: Play 4e.

So you trade one problem for another. Yay!

[Sipex]

Considering one topic already got locked today for edition wars lets not start this again.

[Kaldrin]

Or, why don't you combine role-playing with the combat mechanics and challenge them with the role-playing side while letting them shine in the combat side of things?

Give them hard choices to make. Let their actions have consequences. Create opportunities for them to flesh out their characters as more than one-dimensional jumbles of stats.

[Kansaschaser]

I am not a fan of gimmick DM'ing like that. Some parties would get upset if there wasn't a rational reason for what was happening around them. Also parties need to be rewarded for downing an enemy quickly, not punished with another enemy (or rewarded depending on if they are able to farm them). When my party mows over a boss/hard mob it's a good thing, since most encounters should not be set up so if they drag on they can be won.

I did end up saying that it was a golem foundry, but it ran out of raw material after the 10th golem. I did have non-combat robots come out and try to recover the raw materials in order to keep the foundry going. They quickly dispatched thoes robots so they wouldn't have to keep fighting golems.

They were rewarded appropriatly. I didn't skimp on the experience or anything.

[Aemoh87]

Edition wars is pointless. Even though I have heard there is a 5E rules and mechanics floating around wotc. Purely rumor though. But that would bring a one step closer to 8E:Balance by attrition.

[Hyudra]

So Gandalfing an optimized rogue...

Party against a cleric atop a raised altar, surrounded by his undead thralls? A pentagram protects the cleric from spells coming from outside the perimeter?

A cat and mouse fight against an assassin, who has hired a team of mercenaries to keep the rest of the party busy?

What routes would one take?

[Aemoh87]

Also another beef I have of the Golem idea is, my players can be very intelligent when they want to be and idk if I wanna hand them a Golem foundry. It sends chills down my spine, I have made similar mistakes before.

Me ~ "You need to be evil to use that item and you don't wanna loses a level to change alignment do you?"
Them ~ "Oh will I will just have the rogue use a scroll to change my alignment"
Me ~ "Ugh..."

[Aemoh87]

Hyruda:

The rogue would have to use his skills to sneak to the cleric who seemingly can keep his undead horde going forever whiles the party distracts the horde and hopefully the cleric.

The party will engage combat right away, the rogue will analyze then approach the cleric which no doubt will include sneaking/climbing/jumping/hiding/moving silently which slows him down alot. Then when he reaches the cleric he has a showdown just before the party is overwhelmed.

[Amphetryon]

Hyruda:

The rogue would have to use his skills to sneak to the cleric who seemingly can keep his undead horde going forever whiles the party distracts the horde and hopefully the cleric.

The party will engage combat right away, the rogue will analyze then approach the cleric which no doubt will include sneaking/climbing/jumping/hiding/moving silently which slows him down alot. Then when he reaches the cleric he has a showdown just before the party is overwhelmed.

Or....
The party's Druid - in 12-headed Cryohydra form thanks to Frozen Wildshape - summons an appropriately nasty Huge Air Elemental behind the Cleric, who is immediately sucked into the whirlwind unless said Cleric makes a DC 22 Reflex save (which is almost certainly the Cleric's worst save), then starts freezing and crushing the zombie horde; the Wizard uses Quicken Spell to force the Cleric to make 2 DC 37 Fort saves or die...
and the party Warblade and Factotum stand and wave pom-poms.

[Sine]

Considering one topic already got locked today for edition wars lets not start this again.

Eh, Callista will have gotten more tips than she knows what to do with by the time the thread gets locked for nerdrage overload.

[Hyudra]

Hyruda:

The rogue would have to use his skills to sneak to the cleric who seemingly can keep his undead horde going forever whiles the party distracts the horde and hopefully the cleric.

The party will engage combat right away, the rogue will analyze then approach the cleric which no doubt will include sneaking/climbing/jumping/hiding/moving silently which slows him down alot. Then when he reaches the cleric he has a showdown just before the party is overwhelmed.

No, no. I meant, like, what other ideas could there be? How would you go about Gandalfing, and doing it often enough, with varied battles? I feel I'd run out of ideas fairly quickly.

[Czin]

No, no. I meant, like, what other ideas could there be? How would you go about Gandalfing, and doing it often enough, with varied battles? I feel I'd run out of ideas fairly quickly.

Well for starters, you can be unoriginal and use a 41+ Hit Dice Balor and blatantly rip off the bridge of khazad-dum scene in LOTR.

[nedz]

Gandalfing is really just a specific case of what I try to do.

I try to keep things varied, both within encounters and between encounters.
OK - If I'm running a plot sequence that has a lot of some monster of type X, then fine; but I won't use type X monsters again for some time.

If you Ring the Changes and cycle through just about every thing in the book, then you will achieve the same result without any contrivance.

I also dislike Deo Est Machina, which Gandalfing appears to be. Its Metagaming if you like.

[Dust]

So Gandalfing an optimized rogue...

What routes would one take?

Evil Wizard controlling an undead army. No one has been able to stop him due to his mastery of prophecy magic and his army/magic destroys anyone who comes close. A crowd attracts his attention. The only hope is for the heroes to distract his attention by wading into battle against the army, suffering the rain of fire the wizard is sure to rain down upon them, and last long enough for one rogue to put a knife through his shoulderblades.

[Aemoh87]

Well one major part of gandolfing is knowing the party. If it's a druid build the encounter so he can't do it all. But also build the encounter so he uses his strengths to overcome his unique obstacles. It requires some good dm'ing but if your playing with good players you should been a good dm.