Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Vaval 01-11-05, 05:38 PM	Longer than usualy since last time i needed to come to these boards for advice. I am DMing my group and well they are now at level 9, one problem is that I cannot make an encounter that doesnt boil down to init contests. If the PCs get higher inititives then they can do serious damage to the NPCs to the point some of them need to fall back and heal in some cases. If the NPCs get better initives then they can do similar to the PCs. In my last encounters the PCs fought a level 8 wizard with a level 6 cleric partner. The PCs failed their spot checks not by much, its wasnt that hard a DC and the NPCs had info about the party as they were hired to kill them, the cleric casts dispel magic to surpress the magic of the Fighters +1 Armor of Fire Reistence and then the Wizard set off a Sudden Maximized Fire Ball at them. This badly harmed the party wizard/wayfinder so guess what? "Everyone I'm falling back, get over here so when its my turn we can teleport out" They all join hands and the Warlock hits the enemy caster with his eldric blast but the NPC cleric gets his init before the wayfinders turn so he used the only thing I could think of off hand Summon Monster 3 to summon 1d3 Dretchs with 2 appearing and well they acted agenst the wizard and -6 hes not teleporting anyone anywhere. The Party fighter charges the NPCs and smashed the enemy wizard good with his +2 Warhammer of Construct Bane but not before taking an attack of opertnity from the clerics long spear. At this point the PC Rogue gives the wizard a potion and he want to teleport away without the fighter ut the wizard wount and Banishess the dretchs I think. The rest of the party stays back using ranged weapons firing at the npc cleric then the npc wizards turn comes back up and he uses Phantasmal Killer on the Fighter who missed his AoO and then fails his save and drops dead. Now this part i cant remeber perfectly but the party all out attacks the wizard and he kills him but the NPC cleric managed to hit them all with a fireball from a scroll (one of his domains is Magic, be barly made the roll without it being a backfire) and killed the wizard and rogue. The parties Warlock and War Mage then killed him barly alive themselves, they put the bodies into their bag of holding, put on the best equipment from the others they could use and set of back to town ready to bring them back. This is the 3rd encounter they have had (and by far the worst) that almost tpked them due to high power enemies. I have tryed multipal lower level enemies like 4 level 5 monks or 2 fighters and a cleric and wizard but the PCs kill them way to fast due to low HP. Monsters still work good vs. them but in the current quest they are on monster cant serve as all the enemies since they are dealing with a human orginsation, sure they can have pet monsters but still.
astute1 01-11-05, 05:46 PM	well, I'm not so sure you did everything right - your post is kinda hard to read, so I'm not going to point too much out. However, it sounds like your party did OK - one guy rolled a bad save and died. I will say that Sudden Maximized Fireball is probably a bit much for an 8th level wizard - that's a 6th level spell, and he's only supposed to have 4th level spells. Also, summon monster takes an entire round to cast. It should have been a fairly good fight for your party, the CR is right, so there's probably some mistakes made, or poor rolls that got people killed.
Riznar 01-11-05, 05:56 PM	Are you rolling initiative every round? Generally anything that increases randomness increases the threat to the PCs. Your battle sounds like one of ours, so besides a PC death I can't see anything wrong with it. Party vs party this kind of thing happens, now that I think about it, it isn't that abnormal for someone to go negative at least temporarily at that level. Death effects and maximized/empowered spells and huge sized fighters tend to do that.
Antigone 01-11-05, 05:58 PM	I'm not sure it happens at level 8, but yes, at some point after PCs and their potential enemies get access to death effects (including massively damaging effects), every encounter is potentially lethal. This is why I, as a DM, tend to steer clear of throwing death effects at my players. (I can already hear the criticism -- let's call it personal style and leave it at that, eh?) I'm not going to analyze your combat because, as astute1 already mentioned, it's kind of hard to follow. But if your players aren't learning from their past experiences (by, for example, improving their Spot skills or acquiring initiative-improving feats), especially when they keep almost dying for the same reason, well, maybe they deserve it.
WunderGoat 01-11-05, 06:44 PM	Right off, I would say that the Sudden Maximize seems a little powerful. I mean, it effectivly lets you cast a spell 3 levels higher than the one you can already cast. Consider house-ruling it so you can only use it on spell soyu copuld maximize anyways. (i.e. you can cast 4th level spells. You can use sudden max to make a magic missile into a maxed magic missile) Your party has a lot of mages in it. This party build is very weak in some respects, but extremely strong in others. For example, the party can easily decimate large numbers of lesser enemies due to splash spells, a moderate number of rather challenging foes with more focused spells, or a single powerful challenge with very focused spells (i.e. death effects). A mage heavy party is also able to do just about anything with ease, like teleporting and buffing. On the flip side, mages get owned by death effects and splash damage (like that fireball). In the end it comes down to tactics. NPCs will be the biggest threat because they can deal with mages with counterspelling, anti-mage buffing/debuffing, and using certain tactics. Your party can coutner with their own tactics. For example, it seems like your party has a fighter, rouge, warlock, warmage, and wizard. The warlock should be all-out blasting things every round. The fighter should either stay back and tank with the mages (assuming melee opponents) or charge enemy mages/casters. The rouge should be near him and get in as many sneak attacks as possible. Warmage should buff the fighter if needed, protect the party with some of the more protective spells of his, and nuke a whole bunch. The wizard should just buff and counterspell. Now, your players will probably not like fighting in this manner, as it puts the emphasis on the warlock and warmage for destroying things and leaves everyone else in a support role, but this system is very efficient and if NPCs use it, the party had better, too. Who knows, perhaps your players will learn to love it. Back in 3.0 I had a fighter who's sole purpose was to protect the mage [recall that in 3.0 a level 1 wizard could get +4 AC mage armor and +7 AC shield, meaning the mage almost always had insane AC, and haste made mages able to dish out incredible amounts of damage in a round (back to back fireballs/bolts every round at level 6 was not uncommon)]. We won most encounters hands down due to the mage's blasting, but the fighter got a fair share of kills, as did the rouge (who the mage always imp. invised.)
evangelion1010 01-11-05, 06:52 PM	Sudden metamagic is a bit overpowered for NPC spellcasters, since it means they can essentially boost a spell well beyond their casting ability 1/day - which is incidently as much as it needs to be used to hurt the party severely. With PCs, its not quite as bad, though still very abuseable. If you use multiple encounters/day, it shouldn't be that bad though. Also, if you rule that you can only apply 1 sudden effect to a spell, it helps. As mentioned before, summon monster Y is a full round action, meaning the spell is only completed on the caster's next iniative - this means you can force concentration checks, and that you should be able to get off a teleport before the guy can finish the spell.
Vaval 01-11-05, 06:53 PM	We rerolled init twice but becuase the PCs wanted to do things that they could not have in combat by the rules. The first was when they all gathered around the Wayfinder rather than on each of there turns do it I 'disolved combat' they all moved together and they reroll init but the npcs dont. Then later when the wayfinder was dropped to negitives he and the rogue 'pulled out' of comabt while still happening so they could do the "my loved one might die' sence and administ the potion, when they reended combat their init wasnt rerolled but delayed to later in the order.
was_fired 01-11-05, 06:56 PM	Problems I can see: 1. Casting a summon monster spell takes one round not one standard action. 2. Sudden Maximize, sudden feats are supposedly balanced for PCs since you can use them only once per day. This is not true for NPCs who only expected to survive one fight. Easy solution is to ban such feats or at least not give them to NPCs. 3. Phantasmal Killer has two saves not just one (one will and one fort). 4. The cleric got an AoO despite casting a spell with a two handed weapon. Summon monster has a somatic and a divine focus component. The somatic component alone means the cleric would have to remove one hand from the spear making it so he couldn't attack.
deadDMwalking 01-11-05, 07:03 PM	You did make some mistakes in adjudicating the combat. First of all, summon monster is a full round action, and the creatures should have appeared the following round. Before the creatures had a chance, the party should have had the opportunity to run, if they so desired. The DC for the fireball should have been base 10, +3 for spell level, +1 for the minimum ability score required to cast (13), for a total DC of 14. The base saving throw for a rogue is +6 at 8th level. If they have a respectable Dexterity (they have had the chance to increase it twice) of 18, they will have total bonus of 10. That requires a successful save of 4 or better for no damage. If they have any other bonuses (cloak of resistance) it lessens the need for a high roll even more. Thus, I must assume the rogue rolled a natural 1 (it happens, but it is rare) or similarly low. If these calculations are not correct, there is a good chance you did something else incorrectly. Combat should contain the risk of danger. It should be potentially lethal. Remember that you should provide a balanced types of encounters. Some should be below the party's level, others should be above. Most should be "beatable" by a clever party. Hope that helps. Good luck in the future.
spasheridan 01-11-05, 07:55 PM	The DC for the fireball should have been base 10, +3 for spell level, +1 for the minimum ability score required to cast (13), for a total DC of 14. HUH?? DId I miss somehting and the fireball came out of a wand?? Save DC rules are: 10 + spell level + casters ability mod + feats and such. An 8th level wizard should have at least a 17 int, so we're talking 10 + 3 + 3 for a 16 dc if he has no feats like spell focus. I am DMing my group and well they are now at level 9, one problem is that I cannot make an encounter that doesnt boil down to init contests. If the PCs get higher inititives then they can do serious damage to the NPCs to the point some of them need to fall back and heal in some cases. If the NPCs get better initives then they can do similar to the PCs. THe short answer is YES, as levels go up encounter lethality increases. Save or Die effects start showing up more and more regularly, and the damage dealt goes up as well. It's not that hard to imagine a CR 9 encounter of 6 or 7 5th level wizards .. if you want to play the cheese DM you can give them each spell focus (evocation), sudden empower and sudden maximize. They have a coin with a silence spell on it, the cast invis on themselves. They walk to the party and throw the silence coin and 5 or 6 empowered / maximized fireballs at the party for 5*(30+(5d6/2)) ref 17 for half fire damage to the party. That should kill just about any 8th level party. If they survive then it's 6 or 7 magic missile spells (thats 21d4+21 damage each round) till the survivers drop. Those kind of encounters are mean though. I wouldn't use them if I was a DM. In any event, I find the sudden metamagic and divine metamagic spells to be mostly cheese and overpowered, and it isn't surprising that they can make a dangerous encounter change to deadly.
deadDMwalking 01-11-05, 09:56 PM	but the NPC cleric managed to hit them all with a fireball from a scroll (one of his domains is Magic, be barly made the roll without it being a backfire) and killed the wizard and rogue. The cleric casting from the scroll would use the minimum ability requirements (just as with a wand) and not their own (as with a staff).
PhaedrusXY 01-11-05, 10:35 PM	We rerolled init twice but becuase the PCs wanted to do things that they could not have in combat by the rules. The first was when they all gathered around the Wayfinder rather than on each of there turns do it I 'disolved combat' they all moved together and they reroll init but the npcs dont. You can do this within the rules and within combat. They all move and the wizard delays his action until they've all gone. Then later when the wayfinder was dropped to negitives he and the rogue 'pulled out' of comabt while still happening so they could do the "my loved one might die' sence and administ the potion, when they reended combat their init wasnt rerolled but delayed to later in the order.There is no reason for this to be occuring outside of combat, either. I think pouring a potion down someone else's throat is a full-round action which draws Attacks of Opportunity, and there is no reason why you can't do it while in combat. But yes, as the levels increase so does the potential for deaths in each encounter. This actually is the worst at the extreme high levels, which is why the spell True Ressurection even exists. Once the wizard gets access to Contingency, he can use it to lessen the amount of deaths he takes. But when the party is facing intelligent NPCs, it is very smart of them to target the wizard/sorcerer first. He is probably the most dangerous enemy, and also probably the easiest one to kill.
penchant 01-12-05, 12:53 AM	Umm. short answer: Yes, encounters are more lethal the higher level you go. That's why there are not many 20th level people around. They died between 5th and 10th level. In your example, the party got ambushed lost initiative and had bad saves yet some survived to have the rest of their friends either raised or buried. That's a good game.
Vaval 01-12-05, 07:15 AM	First I would like to say I had never ever played with a DM who had Summon Monster take a full round, its always been house ruled to a standerd action with the monsters acting right after you cast it, becuase I alwyas played like that I used the houe rule too otherwise my PCs would never take the spells (they said themselves it made it more viable for anything other than magical traps). The Rogue failed his save when the cleric used the scroll, it was sad, he would have passed with one higher but oh well. As far as sudden metamagic goes I dont make high level NPCs as rank in file types becuase they are rare in my world and as far as I am concered dont only exist to challenge the PCs, these two were adventurers as well and I dont draw a line between PCs and NPCs in that respect. I also planned on using them again but the PCs got 3 attacks on the NPC wizard before he could teleport away. As far as the not neededing to pull out of combat goes that doesnt make for a very cinematic gaming experence and since I was never a fan of "you all act at the same time but take turns doing it" I dont mind bending the rules in that regards, just like I allow PCs and NPC to all take the same init sometimes. I think that I'm going to try to come up with a system where everything is declared then we do the rolling to see what happens all that the same time.
olshanski_home 01-12-05, 09:50 AM	Vavel, you've never played with me or any of my friends. We generally play by the rules: one of them is that summon spells take an entire round, with the summoned ally appearing on the round after the spell was cast. Frankly, I don't know any DM that house-rules away the full-round requirement, and I would be extremely leery of any DM who does. This is pretty important... a druid with the improved summoning feat can summon some pretty tough foes... the only thing that comes close to balancing it is making the spells take a full round... and the other important rule is that you dictate where the summoned creatures will appear on the round that the spell is cast. It is possible that foes might move during the round and your summoned creatures will not be in the best position. The summoning spells are both viable and still regularly taken. As you have it, I'd simply summon creatures to appear next to an opposing mage, and then have all of the summoned creatures ready an action to attack the mage when he begins casting a spell. I'll also say that your strange method of going in and out of combat seems to be a lack of understanding of how combat works. I don't buy the excuse of "its not cinematic". Following proper procedure (initiative, taking turns, etc) prevents abuse by the players and the DM. As far as the original question: I find that many combats after level 5 have a very good chance of player death. A basalisk that gets a suprise round can stone half a party before anyone can react to avert thier eyes. At higher levels you have bodaks, gorgons, and many other creatures that are easily capable of wiping out people in a single round. The previous posts made some good points about sudden metamagic spells being unbalancing for opponents. I personally don't like having one set of rules for the PCs and one set of rules for the opponents. It smacks of favoritism. The players should be on a level playing field with thier opponents. For this and other reason, I generally avoid everything but the core rules.
was_fired 01-12-05, 01:45 PM	As far as sudden metamagic goes I dont make high level NPCs as rank in file types becuase they are rare in my world and as far as I am concered dont only exist to challenge the PCs, these two were adventurers as well and I dont draw a line between PCs and NPCs in that respect. How very nice, now did you adjust the EL while taking this fact into mind because CR is a measure of the amount of party resources which an encounter should consume, and these feats drasticly increase it. Lets consider a 10th level wizard with sudden maximize and empower spell. His first act of combat ends up being firing off a sudden maximized, empowered fireball for 35 + 5d6 (52.5) damage. The average 10th level wizard has 36.5hp if he has 12 con. The average cleric has 58.5hp if he has 12 con. The average fighter will survive this. The average rogue has evasion so they get to look at their scorched allies and laugh a bit, but if they fail their 12 cons 47.5hp won't find this very amusing. Now did you notice something about this encounter? This guy should only consume 20% of the parties resources, but he has the potential to kill 75% of them in one round. This means that this encounter was not a CR 10. If a single feat can mess with CR that much something is wrong with it.
olshanski_home 01-12-05, 02:27 PM	Lets consider a 10th level wizard with sudden maximize and empower spell. His first act of combat ends up being firing off a sudden maximized, empowered fireball for 35 + 5d6 (52.5) damage. I think a 10th level wizard casting a sudden maximized, empowered fireball does 60+5d6 (77.5) damage. This doesn't change the rest of your analysis, other than the fact that a 10th level wizard with a 12 con dies even if he makes his save.
Ut-Napishtim 01-12-05, 03:28 PM	I have to agree on the summoning thing. I'm actually playing a Wizard in a game ATM and I reminded the DM that they take a full round to cast. The various summonings have the advantage that you can always select the right tool for the job. Making them a standard action is unneccesary IMHO.
Vaval 01-12-05, 06:12 PM	About the full round summoning thing, I still dont have it as a standerd action, it takes up the casters entire turn: 6 seconds, if it appears on your next turn how much time has passed 6 seconds either way if its right at your init. No differnt in 'real time' so its a logic over balence thing and I think in the past I have made my position known when it comes to that.
deadDMwalking 01-12-05, 06:48 PM	Vaval - I don't want to offend you. Over the course of the thread you've sounded a little "defensive". I don't know if youhave fragile feelings, but I'd like to explain something from my perspective. You posted on this board because you thought you had a problem. You indicated that a combat seemed too lethal. Those of us on the boards are very interested in helping people with problems. However, we can only refer to the rules as they exist, or the rules we use in our own games. There is a good chance that if your games seem too lethal, it is because of changes you've made to the rules. Sometimes when you make changes it can have unintended consequences. Now, after you've accepted your responsibility for contributing to a more lethal game you can begin asking for solutions. If you want solutions that don't include following the rules, try to make that clear. We'll still try to help you, even though using the rules is the best thing you can do.
spasheridan 01-12-05, 07:06 PM	Well, let's stop harping on details.. it's not really the point of the thread. I think that Vaval understands by now that the way he runs the game can make it more or less lethal. THe important thing is not if he made the changes but if the changes are consistant. An important feature to the rules is that they are fair and impartial, so if the PCs can ubersmack their foes with a combo their foes can ubersmack them back with it. As long as the rules that are changed are announced at the start of the campaign then fair is fair. I will say though that letting a summon spell take a 1 round action instead of a full round denies the other side time to react.. either to get the heck out of the way or to disable / distract the caster to avoid the spell. WHen my druid casts a summon spell I get targeted with ranged attacks that force conentration checks and the like to try and stop me... (why am I still harping on this... sorry!) High level play is tough, and when played smartly it's usually lethal. If the PCs have a hard time dealing then it's probably a sign that either: A - The game is too high level for the players. Start over a level 1 again and see if they can do a little better with some more practice. B - The DM is a little to tough. Tone everything down a smidge. Keep HP at average. Use standard arrays or elite arrays to create NPCs. Lower the CRs of the monsters you choose to use by 1. Avoid save or die events.
devinmdp 01-12-05, 10:49 PM	Comments: 1. If you find that the high level encounters you are using are too hard, then tone them down. YOU are the DM. You can design whatever encounters you like. 2. Yes, initiative is very important. And not necessarily only at higher levels. At 1st level init can mean life or death as well. 3. The precursor to init is surprise. Gaining surprise is a great thing. Being surprised is deadly. The PCs, by 8th level, should be taking steps to alleviate 2 and 3. This means maturing enough as players to realize that often that silly little spell that gives you a +10 to Spot checks is much more valueable than taking an extra fireball spell. Too many players, especially wizards, seem to live to dish out damage but don't give much though to defending the party or using "utility" spells to aid the party in other ways. There are a great many spells that can be used to give the party Init bonuses. There are some feats that do as well. Not only Improved Initiative. Also Combat Reflexes help. Danger Sense is nice. Etc. A character can invest in 2 feats (Improved Init and Blooded) and get a +6 to his Init. No plan is foolproof. But if you look hard enough you can mitigate 90% of the surprise rounds and a good deal of blown initiative rolls if you are willing to sacrifice in other areas. Devin
alecthemad 01-12-05, 11:09 PM	Comments: 1. If you find that the high level encounters you are using are too hard, then tone them down. YOU are the DM. You can design whatever encounters you like. 2. Yes, initiative is very important. And not necessarily only at higher levels. At 1st level init can mean life or death as well. 3. The precursor to init is surprise. Gaining surprise is a great thing. Being surprised is deadly. The PCs, by 8th level, should be taking steps to alleviate 2 and 3. This means maturing enough as players to realize that often that silly little spell that gives you a +10 to Spot checks is much more valueable than taking an extra fireball spell. Too many players, especially wizards, seem to live to dish out damage but don't give much though to defending the party or using "utility" spells to aid the party in other ways. Devin This is a key point. Too many players walk around ready to dish out a load of damage but not ready to mitigate damage. They don't use creatures or spells to scout ahead, they don't use protective spells to secure their camps or homes. Players charge into battles even when surprised. Now you need to make it clear to your players that they need to do these things. Tell them before the next game to be ready for more surprise attacks by prepared enemies, that running and coming back when the PC's have prepared is sometimes the best reaction. After all, the enemy has shown up at your doorstep with all his protections up and ready to go. Why should they fight them when they are ready? Let them change their loadouts, maybe buy/make a few magic items based upon this info. Then start the game with an easy fight. A bunch of low level (kobolds, goblins) chumps getting ready to raze some innocent village. Make them feel good about themselves, the village celebrates them and a local singer writes a song about the heros of (village name) At 8th-9th level the PCs are much more powerful than you were at 1st. Next encounter, the bosses of these chumps come for revenge on the great heros. But first they have to find them. Use real methods to find them. Let the fighter save against the scry. Have the enemies ask questions. Maybe the rogue or ranger spots some shady fellow following him around. Give them a few hints. Finally, the attack. The bad bosses teleport in all buffed up, with back up "Hey look we have a fighter too." Or at 9th level might as well summon your creatures before you teleport in the fight won't last that long. Give the bad guys a surprise action. See if they take you warnings to heart. If not then have no mercy, kill all that you can, coup de grace, shatter weapons, attack characters with spells that target their weak save (these guys have done their home work). If they try to run then let them, if they can.
Finarin Panjoro 01-13-05, 11:40 AM	Some excellent points have been raised in this thread. Here's my take on them and making combat less lethal at high levels. I'm not sure it happens at level 8, but yes, at some point after PCs and their potential enemies get access to death effects (including massively damaging effects), every encounter is potentially lethal. This is why I, as a DM, tend to steer clear of throwing death effects at my players. (I can already hear the criticism -- let's call it personal style and leave it at that, eh?) I agree. That's why I houseruled that any death effect or death attack reduces you to dying rather than dead; dying is more interesting than dead. You drop to negative hit points equal to the amount by which you failed your save. If you failed your save by 10 then you really are dead. This makes the combats less 'Save or Die' heavy, and increases tension because now the PCs have to try and save their dying comrades. I've been considering adding Monte Cook's houserule that you don't die at -10, but die at -Con score and you're disabled at 0 to -Con modifier. This let's tougher people stay alive longer and increases the range at which you can be disabled, thus forcing interesting tactical choices. 2. Sudden Maximize, sudden feats are supposedly balanced for PCs since you can use them only once per day. This is not true for NPCs who only expected to survive one fight. Easy solution is to ban such feats or at least not give them to NPCs. Another excellent point. I tend to ban these abilities or come up with a system that determines randomly if they've already been used by the NPCs before they encounter the party that day. I recommend a 5% chance per level (so an 8th level wizard has a 40% chance of already having been forced to use his sudden ability that day). If they are intentionally saving the ability for use against the PCs I'd half the chance (but remove something else like a high level spell that the wizard used instead). 2. Yes, initiative is very important. And not necessarily only at higher levels. At 1st level init can mean life or death as well. 3. The precursor to init is surprise. Gaining surprise is a great thing. Being surprised is deadly. The PCs, by 8th level, should be taking steps to alleviate 2 and 3. This means maturing enough as players to realize that often that silly little spell that gives you a +10 to Spot checks is much more valueable than taking an extra fireball spell. Too many players, especially wizards, seem to live to dish out damage but don't give much though to defending the party or using "utility" spells to aid the party in other ways. This is absolutely true. I'm actually planning to have a chat with my players because I've noticed that they tend to charge into combat no matter how bad the situation is for them tactically. They've only just started doing small retreats during combat (withdraw, drink healing potion, get back into the fight kinda stuff), but sometimes its better to run and fight another day. I've also tried to emphasize how lethal surprise and initiative can be. They're starting to catch on. A point that I'm considering making to them is that if you're attacked by assassins, the assassins plan is to kill you. If you escape you have defeated their plan, so you get full XP for the encounter. If you escape, but they killed some of you, no xp (you didn't defeat their plan). If you beat them even if they kill some of you then full xp. Obviously if they TPK then xp is irrelevant. Lots of good points made in this thread, kudos to the participants!