Post/Author/DateTime	Post
sir_dwar 03-01-06, 06:55 PM	Ok, I admit it, there are too many pcs in my campaign... but I'm a bit of a softy... So what level is a good challenge for the, without killing them off...
sir_dwar 03-01-06, 06:59 PM	Little help here? This is my party... :invasion: :invasion: :invasion: :invasion: :invasion: :invasion: :invasion: :invasion: :invasion: :invasion: HELP! :help: :help:
sir_dwar 03-01-06, 07:00 PM	Repeat: HELP!
Zarron 03-01-06, 07:03 PM	Split them up. You've got to have at least one or more people who want to DM in those 15. It'll make everyone's life easier (and rolling the Low Init won't mean you're on snack run duty).
moto 03-01-06, 07:36 PM	Try putting them against a collasal dragon. and tell the ones that die they have to find another group =P.
Swarms 03-01-06, 07:41 PM	A group of 16 15th lvl characters would have no trouble at all with one dragon. Especially if they're reasonably well build. No, I'd go with some kind of Demigod. Or full god. Or both. OH! an ENEMY party, made up ENTIRELY OF COLLOSSAL DRAGONS. Yeah. That'll work.
tharivol266 03-01-06, 07:41 PM	well i personally have a group of 5, a group of 8-10 depending on how many can show, and another group of five(for a little while till my temp. time is up) I'd deff. say split them up.
Krug_the_smasher 03-01-06, 07:48 PM	Id say, that your party level is about 40-45, depending on the breakdown of the classes they take, it could be higher. so, maybe when they all reach level 18, make them fight a Hecatoncheires (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/abomination.htm#hecatoncheires). it is CR 57, and rocks. There is also the Phaethon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/abomination.htm#Phaethon) it is CR 34, and is lmost as good. Its auto swalow thing is pretty cool, and it can summon 10 elder fire elementals per day :P . Hope this helps. But, i would agree with sir_dwar, split them up into 2, or even better, 3 groups.
teclis 03-01-06, 08:23 PM	you have far exeeded the limits of D&D. splitting into 2 groups, each with a DM will leave you will 2 parties of 7, wich is crowded, but workable. \ if this isn't possible (ie: only you want to DM) then I don't know what to tell you, split the PC's up, and bring a couple of consols, because most of the players arn't going to be doing anything most of the time. as for challlenges, when you start exeeding 5 players, you need to increase the number of enemies not their power. the problem is that this slows down combat EVEN MORE so suggest you never have more than 8 players in a single encounter.
Loren Pechtel 03-01-06, 08:50 PM	Ok, I admit it, there are too many pcs in my campaign... but I'm a bit of a softy... So what level is a good challenge for the, without killing them off... Simple solution: 4x the enemies. Otherwise simply add 4 to the CR. Occasionally this will fail badly, though.
sir_dwar 03-01-06, 08:57 PM	you have far exeeded the limits of D&D. splitting into 2 groups, each with a DM will leave you will 2 parties of 7, wich is crowded, but workable. \ if this isn't possible (ie: only you want to DM) then I don't know what to tell you, split the PC's up, and bring a couple of consols, because most of the players arn't going to be doing anything most of the time. as for challlenges, when you start exeeding 5 players, you need to increase the number of enemies not their power. the problem is that this slows down combat EVEN MORE so suggest you never have more than 8 players in a single encounter. Pretty sure i can cut it down to 10 CHARECTERS.... Note.... There are only 5 players, and the only one with any DMing skills is an awful DM...
jedi_unger 03-01-06, 09:07 PM	...16 PC's...1. Puzzles 2. Riddles 3. Meeting each other 4. Killing each other. They resolve the combats. Trying to run a turn-based combat against DM-lead forces with that many is almost impossible. When you do, take 1-3 guys out of the fight immediately, and hand baddies to them so they can run them. And definitely have the PC's fight in two groups.
Raymond_Luxury_Yacht 03-01-06, 09:16 PM	Pretty sure i can cut it down to 10 CHARECTERS.... Note.... There are only 5 players, and the only one with any DMing skills is an awful DM... So why are there so many characters? Each player is supposed to play one character, not three.
WCH 03-01-06, 09:35 PM	Why the hell do you have 3 PCs per player? What possibly could have possessed you to even think of allowing this? Just tell your group that they all have to pick one PC, and those 5 will strike out on their own, leaving the monstrous group to continue on its own mission. Note that your party is Encounter Level 24. That means they'd have an even chance against a CR 24 monster.
WizO_Cat 03-01-06, 09:41 PM	A group of 16 15th lvl characters would have no trouble at all with one dragon. Especially if they're reasonably well build. No, I'd go with some kind of Demigod. Or full god. Or both. OH! an ENEMY party, made up ENTIRELY OF COLLOSSAL DRAGONS. Yeah. That'll work. Heh. I was thinking of a god-hunting party when I first saw it. Probably the best idea is to throw at them (4) CR15 encounters at the same time.
DanjaNinja 03-02-06, 01:13 AM	Pretty sure i can cut it down to 10 CHARECTERS.... Note.... There are only 5 players, and the only one with any DMing skills is an awful DM... I'm sorry, that's just ridiculous. Grow a skeletal system and tell the players they can only have one PC. Or find a game where 3-4 characters per person makes sense. In all seriousness, there's just no way the players are going to be able to effectively play three characters--either all of one player's characters will unrealistically devote themselves to his favorite PC (giving him all their share of the treasure, acting as human shields, etc.), or the player will actually try to play all three characters and fail miserably because he can't give any single one the attention it deserves.
R-man 03-02-06, 04:31 AM	16 players will be very difficult to have any roleplaying happining at all due to the boredom factor. Encourage them to roleplay with each other as much as possible to try and reduce your workload. Plan everything out that you get the players to do as much as possible for you. i.e. they look up rules and if you have a good rules wise player that you trust get him to sit as far from you as possible and make rulings for you. As far as challenge ratings go run them as a normal 16th level party with all encounters increased in size 4x. You cannot just put really high CR creatures in as they will either kill it instantly or get killed instantly due to immunities and resistances. Simply increasing encounter sizes is all that is required and will be easier to run. Think in terms of a storyline allowing large moblike encounters that you can set up for them to have large sprawling battles on and everyone will get to enjoy their characters. Keep roleplaying encounters, group roleplaying encounters with lots of different people talking to each of the players and keep it fast. (No long monologues for DM or players) And most of all strongly consider only running the group as a large group some of the time. Perhaps come up with a mission that requires the party to split up into smaller groups (run seperate nights). The difficulty with seperate groups is that it requires you to be writing up multiple adventures for all the players. However if you can trust them to keep the information back and forth down then you can plan on reusing sections or entire adventures for each group or different groups. i.e. the partys have to make multiple simultaneous raids on different and seperate keeps that were all built by same builder and have same floor plan. All are run by same evil BBEG and have similar denizens inhabiting them. Much easier to write up and run! Hope this helps and incidentally, WOW is that a big group! The most I have ever run was 12 players in a high school lunchhour game, and that was...23 years ago? OK now I am depressed I can't be that old!
Illion the Red 03-02-06, 10:04 AM	OK, the clear solution is to kill off the vast majority of extra characters. Here's (one way anyway) how you can do it... 1. The PC gang tracks the location of Super-Mega-BBEG to his impregnable fortress. 2. The PCs break in because nothing is impregnable for a group like this. 3. They enter his throne room and are greeted by him sitting on his throne with an enormous mirror behind him that spans the entire length and height of the wall. 4. He smiles and speaks the command word for the MIRROR OF OPPOSITION. 5. Everybody fights themselves to the death - many deaths ensue. 6. The soul-trapping feature of the throne become quickly evident - too bad the BBEG got away with the throne and is consuming the souls to sustain his longevity.
Millennium 03-02-06, 10:50 AM	Frankly, once you're at that point you've gone far beyond anything D&D was designed to accommodate. You might, however, consider picking up Heroes of Battle and having the party act as an elite unit within a larger army. There will be less opportunity for role-playing, but role-playing at all is going to be a problem when you have 15 people trying to do things at once. If some of your players are comfortable with playing an Evil campaign (and if you're comfortable with running one), then you may want to consider splitting the group: the Evil characters play the villains, and the Good characters go up against them. You have to be careful to avoid creating bad blood within the group, so make sure everyone's OK with this idea before going through with it. If they agree, then play the two groups separately at different sessions, as they move to thwart each other, and then bring them together for one massive uber-session when the time comes for the final confrontation. If you're not comfortable with doing Evil campaigns, then you could also have the two parties be opposite sides of some conflict where neither side is clearly Evil. Either way, there are several advantages to the opposing-parties method: Party size is greatly reduced. A group of seven and a group of eight are very crowded, but if you're doing them separately it's manageable. Depending on your setting, you might even be able to split into three groups of 5, 5, and 6. As long as you provide a rich setting (in terms of detail, not necessarily treasure), your plots will practically write themselves. Just watch the actions of the heroes and villains, and keep an eye out for plot hooks that you can use to grab the other side. The "final confrontation" uber-session where the opposing parties finally meet will be awesome, whether they have to fight each other or band together against some common enemy. As long as the earlier sessions went well, it is practically impossible to screw up the uber-session. That said, there are some disadvantages: As long as you provide a rich setting, your plots will practically write themselves. It will be almost impossible to keep control of everything, and no plan will survive first contact with multiple parties. Therefore, you're going to need to get very good at improvisation. You need a really rich setting to pull this off. The more detailed your setting is the better, because you can draw from it to try and maintain some control. Two or three parties will cause you many more headaches than one 15-person party. This is mostly because a 15-person party is almost certain to collapse under its own weight before it can cause too many problems, while a multi-party game actually has a good amount of staying power. The point of a multi-party game isn't to make large groups easier; it's to make them feasible.
Thelandrach 03-02-06, 10:57 AM	There have been a variety of responses here, and I'd like to hear from the people talking about uber-high CR encounters about why they suggested that. Not saying it's wrong, just wondering why the RAW don't work at this level. From what I remember, every 2x the number of monsters or PC's raises the encounter level by 2, so 16x as many PC's should raise the encounter level by 6, or cr 22 (21 if you want to wimp out because there are actually only 15 pc's). This is a bit different from the CR 40-57 suggested above...
gleep 03-02-06, 11:56 AM	Well, if you have 5 players with 3 pcs each, simply split them into 3 different campaigns that are somewhat interrelated. Group2 will hear about things that groups1 and 3 have done, for example, and might even come across signs of their passge (empty dungeon, an angry king, etc). If you swing it right, the players will get to not only play all their characters but will find the results much more rewarding. Alternatively, you can split them up into entirely different campaigns, even in different times or worlds, if that would be easier. Another option is to have each player pick a certain character as their primary and make the others henchmen or cohorts. Pretty soon the primaries will outstrip the others in level (since they earn 1/2 XP) which should encourage the players to focus much more on their primary characters. Though I also like the party of dragons idea.... :D --gleep
starfire311 03-02-06, 12:08 PM	There have been a variety of responses here, and I'd like to hear from the people talking about uber-high CR encounters about why they suggested that. Not saying it's wrong, just wondering why the RAW don't work at this level. From what I remember, every 2x the number of monsters or PC's raises the encounter level by 2, so 16x as many PC's should raise the encounter level by 6, or cr 22 (21 if you want to wimp out because there are actually only 15 pc's). This is a bit different from the CR 40-57 suggested above... Yeah I agree CR 22 would probably be a nice challenge for this group.... But I think many people are thinking a TPK would do wonders for this group.
Illion the Red 03-02-06, 12:11 PM	Yeah I agree CR 22 would probably be a nice challenge for this group.... But I think many people are thinking a TPK would do wonders for this group. TPK? Nah...just a MPK without rez possibilities...
elven warriorXX 03-02-06, 12:16 PM	Can I have some of your players :D It will help out.
Cantankerous 03-02-06, 02:45 PM	Well, you asked for it: x2 (CR*17 ea) Marilith, aided by x3 (CR*15 ea.) Adult Red Dragons and x4 (CR*13 ea) 12 headed CryoHydra. the total EL here is about 21.5... nothing a group this big and bad has any business moaning about---but it's one that should push them nice and hard... Let this start off in a swamp enviroment on an over cast, cold day with low hanging clouds and be sure to throw a few cold using creatures out before hand. Have the hydras rise up out of the swamp and use the water as cover for repositioning themselves...use the terrain... hydras love terrain. Once the masses of high level bozos start really cooking, hit them with the red dragons from out of the clouds... all the while the mariliths are maneuvering themselves to hit the most potent looking Mages first... teleport without error right on them and the next round go postal on those Mages...then teleport out again once the pc's figure out who the real problem boys are. Have each hydra concentrate as many attacks as possible on ONE PC at a time and stay concentrated on them. Sure, there are only 9 combatants here, but all of them can kick out a ton of heavy damage attacks quickly...and when the individual starts to get torn up. EVERYBODY retreats breifly, rinse and repeat as soon as practical. Your hydras should be in the fore front as they'll heal up FAST, your Demonesses should be hitting and running and the dragons should be flying over watch to make sure that no one wants to concentrate forces all in one area. Keep them spread out, use the terrain and play it smash mouth offense and shoot and scoot and don't forget everyones strengths and weaknesses. Play off those. The two demonesses, the Instigators, are geniuses who are suppused to thrive on strategy and tactics... use their ability as the rationale to really play this smart and savvy. Isshia
Chobemaster 03-02-06, 03:02 PM	Effective Party Level = EL of an encounter with a copy of the party -4. but the CR mechanisms are sorely broken at this point, as the synergies of multiple characters, especially of such high level, are too unpredictable.
Bryarr 03-02-06, 03:31 PM	Chobemaster is absolutely right. With this many PCs, at this level, it will be a VERY fine line between TPK and way too easy. Around level 15, CRs become pretty unreliable for an AVERAGE GROUP. For you, I'd say they're approaching worthlessness. At this level, a DM needs to know the abilities of his group very well, and then use the CRs as a guideline. This takes skill. For 16 PCs, it'll take a better DM than I have ever been or known to adequately challenge the group without killing them outright. Suggestion: Introduce a way too powerful monster(s). Kill a lot of PCs. Tadaa! Smaller group! Question: How the heck does your group roleplay with each other? That's gotta be weird. Especially when a player's characters disagree with each other on an issue. Bry
StevenO 03-02-06, 10:54 PM	A party of fifteen 16th level characters should in theoretically be able to handle an EL 23-24 encounter without much trouble. If I figured wrong that would only go down to EL 22 or so. The truth is that is at least twice as many PCs as there should be so any standard encounter breakdown is a guess at best.
rkr1970 03-02-06, 11:40 PM	The problem is that they are an EL 24 group, but a pair of CR 22 monsters, also an EL 24, or 4 CR 20's (again EL 24) wouldn't stand a chance against their 30+ attacks each round, and no single monster would last more than two rounds unless it was well over their power level, say a CR 30. They are a small army, literally! You only have a couple of options here, but I doubt either are going to make your players happy. You need to get back down to only 5 characters, 1 per person. Since you've allowed things to get this far out of control, though, you can't just remove 10 characters. Each player will simply load up their remaining PC with magical goodies from the removed PCs and then stomp whatever CR 18 critters you throw at them. These are your two best options... Option #1 - Develop an adventure that requires 3 different things to be done at almost the same time in three different parts of the world. The party has to split up into groups of about 5 PCs each (one per player). Give the party advance warning that they will have to split their resources, and time to decide who goes in which group. Then you run the game in "chapters", each part of the mission taking 3 or 4 chapters to complete. You play one chapter at a time, switching between groups every chapter. It allows all the PCs to stay active, prevents loading all the magic items on one PC, and rotates through the different PCs so that they all go up in level at the same rate. Option #2 - Bring the campaign to a close. Have the party wipe out the BBEG, his army of minions, and save the world. Ta-da!! They're heroes. They take their spoils and go on a long vacation. You could have them break out the characters every now and then for a reunion mission, but that should be rare. Start a new campaing, in the same world, with all new, unrelated PCs. Allow only one character each! These new PCs could then travel through lands where the old PCs are legendary heroes. Having your old characters become part of the history of the world you play in is cool. You could describe bard songs that revolve around the old group, monuments to them might dot the landscape, and every now and then, you might even bring the old PCs in as NPCs. It would end your headaches and give the players a bit of an ego boost during the next campaign. Personally, I would look at combining both ideas. Use option 1 as the method of closing the campaign, then start a new campaign using option 2. The three separate missions should each tax the party to its limits so that the PCs might reasonably want to retire or at least take a break for a while. Then you can start the new campaign in a world filled with the deeds of the old party. Do you think you can do all of this, though??
Evengar 03-03-06, 01:13 AM	CR/EL 64 The 4:1 rule 4 Lv. 1 charachters are a good mach for 1 CR 1 monster. therefore 1 Lv. 4 character = 1 CR 1 monster therefore 15 Lv 16 characters = EL 64 Have fun :D
NinjaHedge 03-03-06, 01:30 AM	The problem is that they are an EL 24 group, but a pair of CR 22 monsters, also an EL 24, or 4 CR 20's (again EL 24) wouldn't stand a chance against their 30+ attacks each round, and no single monster would last more than two rounds unless it was well over their power level, say a CR 30. They are a small army, literally! Wait....how would any of those encounters be taken down in 2 rounds? Most CR 20 creatures aren't just that high because of huge HP and BAB. Most of them wouldn't even be able to be damaged by the players, and not all the players would be able to reach them at one time to deliver said 30+ attacks per round. The issue wouldn't be with the ease of the enounter, the problem would be that there would be player death in any CR that would get them experience, not only because, regardless of the size of the party, probably only a few could fight it at a time, therefore you would be fighting it in waves as your companions died, but also as is the growing problem with larger and larger parties, it takes less and less relative damage to down a PC. And especially at the higher CRs, your party just won't have the equipment neccisary to get anywhere. 15 characters that can each deal zero damage is hardly a threat. 4 CR 20s? Imagine 4 tarrasques. You would have to cast wish 4 times to keep them dead. I don't care if you have 30,000 level 15 characters, they're good as dead. 3 Titans? They can each cast gate once a day.
Cantankerous 03-03-06, 02:16 AM	This would be a pain in the butt, but doable, if the creatures are played smart, ably and tacticly used (which is why the two bosses for my set are marilith) and don't just stand and do idiot toe to toe actions. If two of those Hydras concentrate on one character for one round, which moving under cover they may be able to accomplish if the set up here is good, he's in a world of hurt. 24 attacks between the TWO opponents on a single character in this case spells an attack possibility of 48d8+144, without crits. Yoink the Toughness Feat on these beasties, replace it with Improved Natural Attack and you add an additional 12d8 damage potential per beast at the cost of 3 hit points. The above double team would then carry a non critical potential of 72d8+144 or an average of over 460 points of damage. Hell, just singling up the AVG 230 points to non tanks is lethal, even at that level. And the hydras themselves are the smallest component of this attack...and the most recoverable. Simply diving back down after an attack and hanging out a few rounds will zip their HP total back through the roof. Now, the Fire and Ice connection between the CyroHydras and the Red Dragons negates the easiest answers for bypassing THAT damage without cost multiple spells to protect against the least onerous of their attack types.... and a dragon fifteen feet off the ground that suddenly just folds it's wings and falls on an opponent is no light matter even for the tanks to manage. The Mari's with Blade Barriers and Projected Images and hit and run nastiness are wonderful. They never need to stick around long enough to be greatly endangered if they're smart. This is the thing though, even though hit and run let's the PCs heal up, the smash and run, if this is done in a deep swamp, or better yet, crossing a large lake on a overcast day, puts the terrain squarely in the favor of the monsters. The dragons can appear and disappear out of the clouds, wing overing to avoid presenting targets and instead of targeting pcs with those fire gouts, target their boats..., the Marilith provide constant chaos and the hyper fast healing hydras do the bulk of the hit and run physicly, maybe even also atacking indirectly with those breath weapons once the boats are burned up. Now yes, 15 extreme level PCs will have the answers to this. But this isn't meant to TPK the bunch of them, simply PUSH them hard to respond, just as the OP requested.
Chobemaster 03-03-06, 08:39 AM	CR/EL 64 The 4:1 rule 4 Lv. 1 charachters are a good mach for 1 CR 1 monster. therefore 1 Lv. 4 character = 1 CR 1 monster therefore 15 Lv 16 characters = EL 64 Have fun :D No. "good match" doesn't mean "equal strength." 1 lv 4 char = 1 CR 4 monster.
TheGrouchUT 03-03-06, 09:03 AM	Just kill them all. In one big AOE fireball. Then demand that they each roll only one character. It sounds to me like you got peer pressured into a game where they would basically do whatever pleased them due to the large size of there group. 16 PCs? That's not D&D anymore, thats a wargame.
Loren Pechtel 03-04-06, 12:54 AM	There have been a variety of responses here, and I'd like to hear from the people talking about uber-high CR encounters about why they suggested that. Not saying it's wrong, just wondering why the RAW don't work at this level. From what I remember, every 2x the number of monsters or PC's raises the encounter level by 2, so 16x as many PC's should raise the encounter level by 6, or cr 22 (21 if you want to wimp out because there are actually only 15 pc's). This is a bit different from the CR 40-57 suggested above... 16x as many PC's???? He's got 15 PC's. That's 3.75x as many as normal.