Challenging PC's [Archive] - Wizards Community

Challenging PC's [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Gaudsend
08-09-07, 01:21 AM So I am fairly new to DMing and need some advice. I am currently running a campaign that will hopefully stretch on for many levels. My perdicament is this: throughout the events so far, the PC's have not been overly challenged (they say they are still enjoying it). My question is, what creatures or kinds of creature do you through at 5 level 5 characters?

Thanks for the help.
Rerecros
08-09-07, 01:35 AM The CR system is vague and inacurate at the best of times.
The skill of the players, and how optimized they are throw the system off too.
Throw stuff at the PCs, if they kill it to quick for your liking throw harder stuff at them, if they keep dying tone it down.
Wight_Chocolate
08-09-07, 01:44 AM Ideally, the answer would be "something that has a challenge rating of 5". Unfortunately, when put into practice, that can often fail to work out as much as the DMG would have you believe.

Lower levels are tricky because even an encounter that you think only poses a mild/moderate threat can go horribly wrong and end up wreaking havoc on the characters. It's hard to find a balance between handing out what ends up amounting to aggressive nuggets of deep-fried XP and sentencing the party to a violent death, especially when you're just starting out.

Think less about what to throw at the players and more about how to throw it at them. If you just have a bare room with an encounter plonked in the middle of it, chances are the characters will handle it without much trouble.

Put the party in situations that aren't ideal for fighting back. Force them to use forward planning and in-battle tactics rather than relying on brute force. "Challenge" doesn't necessarily mean walking out of an encounter the worse for wear; the players can feel equally challenged (and that they're accomplishing something as a result) when they are having an easy time of encounters because of clever strategies and resourcefulness, rather than because the encounter itself was too easy.

Also, don't be afraid to let the party take a walloping every now and then. Keep them on their toes by setting an encounter that you know is too tough for them and make sure they'll be able to retreat. Doing this presents an effective "illusion" of challenge, because the players become aware that they aren't going to win every time. Just make sure not to do this too often, or you'll end up with the opposite problem; a group that feels you've set the difficulty higher than they can cope with.
heffroncm
08-09-07, 01:53 AM The fifth character is skewing the way the CR should work. Recommended is to increase the CR of the encounters they are running into by 1, so the average encounter is 1 CR higher than the party. Further considerations, run combats with multiple enemies, which is always more dangerous than a single high CR monster.
wizarddog
08-09-07, 02:00 AM One way to make a CR or lower encounter more challenging is change the environment to the foes advantage.

1) Dark cavern with foes with Darkvison -from 60-120ft or Blind sense.
2) Attackers behind cover on higher ground
3) Attackers ambush from the cover of trees. Hit and run tactics that lead PC's to other ambush's should they follow.
4) Rough terrain that limits movement but foes are not affected. Ice, mud, water, webs, fire. etc.

If the PCs start to get clobbered you can remove the advantage (maybe the foes got cocky) and allow the tide to turn.

But occasionally give the PC's the battle that si no contest so they can show how awesome they are. ;)
Nid_Food
08-09-07, 08:12 AM More often than not, I try to guestimate how a battle will unfold, within reason. I'll average how much damage the baddies will cause and how much the PCs will do, and see in my mind if the foe(s) will be a cake-walk or an unstoppable force. I was able to do this fairly well with 6 PCs at ~ level 17. And lucky die rolls and unlucky ones can skew your results on occasion. Sure, deaths and stuff still happened, those are the variables of course.

What are the 5 PCs? Are they reasonably well made, or are PCs taking alot of basketweaving crafting skills? Do they have reasonable gear for their level?

For a decent level 5 group, probably a handful of Ogres, maybe with a class level or two, should be fairly challenging.
Zenox
08-09-07, 08:43 AM At beginning levels, I like to progress my battles slowly. An example:

Party runs into a group of orcs on the road. One of the orcs flees immediately, and the few remaining fight the PCs. Easy battle.

Along the same road, the PCs are later ambushed by orcs. The orcs use cover, fght from treetop, spring a pit trap. Etc. Easy victory if PCs use tactics.

Later, a group of orc and any surviving orcs from previous battles attack the PCs as they are making camp. They bring along an ogre or two, or maybe a Shaman. Add another layer to this tactic onion.

Than the group finds the dungeon they were looking for, and BBEG is a single CR7 (You said your group was 5, level 5's). monster. Maybe a CR6 and a henchman.

That would conclude the days encounters. Just substitute "Orc" with any simple monster. If the PCs have trouble at any one of the encounters, just take the next one in sequence down a notch or two until you get a feel for your groups difficulty rating. Works everytime.
Saric
08-09-07, 11:59 AM Singing harpys with tower shields and ability focus for their song ability. Place the harpys near a cliffside drawing the characters to their deaths.
Nephlite
08-09-07, 02:14 PM One way to make a CR or lower encounter more challenging is change the environment to the foes advantage.

Challeging terrain raises CR by 1.
So sure.
Downtym
08-09-07, 02:45 PM So I am fairly new to DMing and need some advice. I am currently running a campaign that will hopefully stretch on for many levels. My perdicament is this: throughout the events so far, the PC's have not been overly challenged (they say they are still enjoying it). My question is, what creatures or kinds of creature do you through at 5 level 5 characters?

Thanks for the help.

The most important point of your entire post is where you say "(they say they are still enjoying it)". Given that, why muck with the fun?

I guess the question I would ask is "Why do you think it is not challenging?"
Gaudsend
08-09-07, 04:55 PM I do not think it is challenging enough because the PC's don't take vary much damage and the foes are defeated within a few minutes. Granted, I have thrown a few Dopplegangers at the PC's and the Dopplegangers disguised themselves as the PC's which made them think about tactics; but other than that, it's not been very challenging.

Just for reference, the PC's are currently waiting outside a door to a hidden cave. The door is a portal so if they were to open the door they still could not see into the cave. The bad-guy they will meet in the cave is a Mind Flayer. But he is not any Mind Flayer, he is a Disciple of Thoon (MM5).

To answer Nid Foods' question, the PC's consist of a Swashbuckler, a Bard, a Ranger, a Rouge/sorccerer, and a Cleric of Pelor.
Downtym
08-09-07, 07:19 PM I do not think it is challenging enough because the PC's don't take vary much damage and the foes are defeated within a few minutes. Granted, I have thrown a few Dopplegangers at the PC's and the Dopplegangers disguised themselves as the PC's which made them think about tactics; but other than that, it's not been very challenging.

Observations:

1. Most D&D combats where the PC's and the NPC's are toe-to-toe will end in 3 to 4 rounds. I will assume by "minutes" you mean Real world minutes and not in-game minutes. Because if I was doing 10+ rounds of combat, I would be asleep.

2. Damage may be a poor meter of how well the party is doing especially because it can swing quickly. Take, for example, a character at 5th level with 47 HP's. An ogre - a monster 2 "levels" lower than him - could easily do in the neighborhood of 16 damage to this character (Assuming it hit). So, in about 3 average hits, our PC will be on the ground begging for hit - each hit absorbs about 1/3 of the PC's hps. Of course, this assumes the Ogre hits. At +8 to hit versus a 5th level AC of around 21-26, the Ogre is very unlikely to hit the PC. No push the Ogre's to hit to between 10 and 15. At this point, has a 50% to greater than 50% chance to hit and will definitely be taking some HP's off the character if he gets a swing in. Assume he crits? Well with a Greatclub that does x3 damage, our Ogre has just dropped a 5th level character in one hit. (Ouch.) Of course, the Ogre has to fight not only the one PC, but also the 3 other party members of the PC. Imagine if the wizard or sorcerer hit him with a fireball and the ranger hit him with an arrow before he even got to the party. It's possible the Ogre could be straight up dead before he even gets a swing. So his odds of survival are not very good.

What's my point here? My point is that only looking at the damage taken by characters can be a poor meter. It can swing quickly in either direction - a lucky crit or string of good hits will drop the either opponent quickly. What you should look at is the resource usage (Which includes damage taken) as well as the threat level of the monster. If they are out maneuvering and killing equal CR monsters without expending any meaningful resources then I would suggest that maybe you need to crank up the difficulty some. However, if they are burning through spells to patch up the damage they are taking and ending up at the end of the day with very little in reserve, then they're being challenged, trust me.

3. The most challenging fights involve not one equal CR enemy or CR +2 or CR +3 enemy, but a group of enemies that are each CR -2, but together EL +2. If you're keeping count, this means 4 opponents of the same CR each at 2 levels lower than the party. Take, for example, 4 level 3 wizards and throw them at your party. Have all 4 of them fire scorching rays at one of the PC's and I can guarantee you the party will be fully on the run - most likely because there's a 1/2 chance that one of the people in the party is straight up dead.

Why is this party of 4 lower level creatures so much more threatening to a 5th level party than, say, a Hill Giant, Huge Air Elemental, Aboleth, or Medusa? Because of 2 reasons: A) The 4 creatures get up to 4 attacks per round. Possibly, this group gets 8 actions (4 standard, 4 movement) in a single round. That's a lot of maneuverability for the opposing side. B) At least in this example, the 4 lower level creatures all used ranged attacks which means that any opponent that wishes to threaten them must close the distance and attack.

Imagine the situation where 4 level 3 sorcerers come at the party from all four directions. Since they're not bunched up, a fireball will only kill one of them. Assuming they don't have a negative Con score, it's unlikely (About 20%-30% chance) that a ranger will drop one with a single shot from a longbow+1. And the fighter has to close range to attack any of them. So, assume the party manages to 1 shot two of the casters (One dies to a fireball, one is nailed with an arrow but survives, and one eats a greatsword to the skull and dies). Congratulations! The last 2 cast Scorching Ray on...well...let's aim for the Cleric just to be mean. Well, Cleric's Touch AC is probably in the neighborhood of 8-12. So, 50/50 chance he eats a Ray from each of the Sorcerers. Oh, wait, our Sorcerers have Weapon Focus (Ray) and a Dex of 16 (The DM's a jerk). Well, that's a +5 to their attack rolls! If the Cleric's Touch AC is 8, then that's an 90% chance of success for the Sorcerer! If the Cleric's Touch AC is 12, that's a 70% chance of success. Odds of eating 2 Scorching Rays? 81% to 49%. Damage from 2 Scorching Rays? 8d6. Average damage? Around 28. Clerics Hp's at 5th level? 26 without a Con Bonus. With a +1 bonus, 31. With a +2 bonus, 36. Yikes. Gonna need some healing there, Mr. Cleric.

Even worse, assume both Sorcerers target Mr. Wizard. His Hp's at level 5 are 14 on average. We're looking at a good chance to gibb a Wizard already. Hope he's packing a Con Bonus or the dice are with him today.

Now let's assume that the party is ambushed and the 4 Sorcerers get to cast first. That's a total possibility of 16d6 coming 1 target's way - almost completely unsurvivable at 5th level if all of it hits (A barbarian with average HP's and a +3 Con would just barely survive the average damage from 16d6. He'd be at about -9 HP's. A fighter would have to have a +4 Con to survive at -9 HP's. Cleric's, Rogue's, Bard's, Wizard's, and Sorcerer's would almost surely die from that volume of damage unless their Con was in the mid to high 20's). And assuming the party manages to down 2 Sorcerers when it's their go, you might be looking at another 8d6 of possible damage coming someone's way. That's a total possibility of 24d6 over 2 rounds from 4 3rd level Sorcerer's. Yikes. If you don't think that's a massive threat to a theoretical 5th level party, you're wrong.

Now, would I condone this? God no. Throwing 4 prepared spellcasters at your party in an ambush situation where they can go first is likely to result in one, two, maybe 3 dead PC's. That's not a lot of fun.

My point is that if you want to an encounter to be "challenging", you don't have to just keep cranking up the CR's until something breaks. Sometimes, throwing a handful of lower level enemies at the party is more than enough to make the party work. Especially since more enemies means the party has significantly less control over the situation. I would suggest that you avoid bunching or crowding the enemies so as to minimize the effect of cones, AE's, or other spells that affect tightly grouped opponents. Also, make sure that any enemies you throw at the party should have a meaningful ability to hit the PC's. If you throw 4 enemies at the party, they should have about a 30 to 50% chance to hit the PC's depending on how much damage they can do. If you throw 2 enemies, probably 40 to 60% depending on amount of damage. 1? He should probably have a 50 to 70% chance to hit anyone in the party and do a fairly sizeable amount of damage to a single target.
Magnarda
08-10-07, 02:55 PM Something that hasn't been mentioned yet is the ability of the NPC.

Downtym mentions multiple lower level characters, and in his example gives differing versions of what could happen. What if the sorceror was flying? That poor greatsword is going to go hungry.

That means its up to the ranger to attack it because of his range. Now start to think of ways that all of the different character types are challenged. What this will do is give the group a sense of place and they can all work out there own tactics, which gives the players the confidence to take them on and also the after effect three months later when "do you remember when we fought those sorcerors?"

But remember to base the tactics of the NPC's on there int/wis/cha scores. Orcs wouldn't use the most complex chess like tactics would they? They generally think only a few moves ahead. A wizard on the other hand will have contingency if things go wrong (which is why they make great reoccuring villians (and there ego (charisma) may be there downfall) and orcs the meat and padding of the campaign).

Try to use the NPC's as if they were your PC but then tone it down a notch (you dont want to kill them all)

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Gaudsend 08-09-07, 01:21 AM	So I am fairly new to DMing and need some advice. I am currently running a campaign that will hopefully stretch on for many levels. My perdicament is this: throughout the events so far, the PC's have not been overly challenged (they say they are still enjoying it). My question is, what creatures or kinds of creature do you through at 5 level 5 characters? Thanks for the help.
Rerecros 08-09-07, 01:35 AM	The CR system is vague and inacurate at the best of times. The skill of the players, and how optimized they are throw the system off too. Throw stuff at the PCs, if they kill it to quick for your liking throw harder stuff at them, if they keep dying tone it down.
Wight_Chocolate 08-09-07, 01:44 AM	Ideally, the answer would be "something that has a challenge rating of 5". Unfortunately, when put into practice, that can often fail to work out as much as the DMG would have you believe. Lower levels are tricky because even an encounter that you think only poses a mild/moderate threat can go horribly wrong and end up wreaking havoc on the characters. It's hard to find a balance between handing out what ends up amounting to aggressive nuggets of deep-fried XP and sentencing the party to a violent death, especially when you're just starting out. Think less about what to throw at the players and more about how to throw it at them. If you just have a bare room with an encounter plonked in the middle of it, chances are the characters will handle it without much trouble. Put the party in situations that aren't ideal for fighting back. Force them to use forward planning and in-battle tactics rather than relying on brute force. "Challenge" doesn't necessarily mean walking out of an encounter the worse for wear; the players can feel equally challenged (and that they're accomplishing something as a result) when they are having an easy time of encounters because of clever strategies and resourcefulness, rather than because the encounter itself was too easy. Also, don't be afraid to let the party take a walloping every now and then. Keep them on their toes by setting an encounter that you know is too tough for them and make sure they'll be able to retreat. Doing this presents an effective "illusion" of challenge, because the players become aware that they aren't going to win every time. Just make sure not to do this too often, or you'll end up with the opposite problem; a group that feels you've set the difficulty higher than they can cope with.
heffroncm 08-09-07, 01:53 AM	The fifth character is skewing the way the CR should work. Recommended is to increase the CR of the encounters they are running into by 1, so the average encounter is 1 CR higher than the party. Further considerations, run combats with multiple enemies, which is always more dangerous than a single high CR monster.
wizarddog 08-09-07, 02:00 AM	One way to make a CR or lower encounter more challenging is change the environment to the foes advantage. 1) Dark cavern with foes with Darkvison -from 60-120ft or Blind sense. 2) Attackers behind cover on higher ground 3) Attackers ambush from the cover of trees. Hit and run tactics that lead PC's to other ambush's should they follow. 4) Rough terrain that limits movement but foes are not affected. Ice, mud, water, webs, fire. etc. If the PCs start to get clobbered you can remove the advantage (maybe the foes got cocky) and allow the tide to turn. But occasionally give the PC's the battle that si no contest so they can show how awesome they are. ;)
Nid_Food 08-09-07, 08:12 AM	More often than not, I try to guestimate how a battle will unfold, within reason. I'll average how much damage the baddies will cause and how much the PCs will do, and see in my mind if the foe(s) will be a cake-walk or an unstoppable force. I was able to do this fairly well with 6 PCs at ~ level 17. And lucky die rolls and unlucky ones can skew your results on occasion. Sure, deaths and stuff still happened, those are the variables of course. What are the 5 PCs? Are they reasonably well made, or are PCs taking alot of basketweaving crafting skills? Do they have reasonable gear for their level? For a decent level 5 group, probably a handful of Ogres, maybe with a class level or two, should be fairly challenging.
Zenox 08-09-07, 08:43 AM	At beginning levels, I like to progress my battles slowly. An example: Party runs into a group of orcs on the road. One of the orcs flees immediately, and the few remaining fight the PCs. Easy battle. Along the same road, the PCs are later ambushed by orcs. The orcs use cover, fght from treetop, spring a pit trap. Etc. Easy victory if PCs use tactics. Later, a group of orc and any surviving orcs from previous battles attack the PCs as they are making camp. They bring along an ogre or two, or maybe a Shaman. Add another layer to this tactic onion. Than the group finds the dungeon they were looking for, and BBEG is a single CR7 (You said your group was 5, level 5's). monster. Maybe a CR6 and a henchman. That would conclude the days encounters. Just substitute "Orc" with any simple monster. If the PCs have trouble at any one of the encounters, just take the next one in sequence down a notch or two until you get a feel for your groups difficulty rating. Works everytime.
Saric 08-09-07, 11:59 AM	Singing harpys with tower shields and ability focus for their song ability. Place the harpys near a cliffside drawing the characters to their deaths.
Nephlite 08-09-07, 02:14 PM	One way to make a CR or lower encounter more challenging is change the environment to the foes advantage. Challeging terrain raises CR by 1. So sure.
Downtym 08-09-07, 02:45 PM	So I am fairly new to DMing and need some advice. I am currently running a campaign that will hopefully stretch on for many levels. My perdicament is this: throughout the events so far, the PC's have not been overly challenged (they say they are still enjoying it). My question is, what creatures or kinds of creature do you through at 5 level 5 characters? Thanks for the help. The most important point of your entire post is where you say "(they say they are still enjoying it)". Given that, why muck with the fun? I guess the question I would ask is "Why do you think it is not challenging?"
Gaudsend 08-09-07, 04:55 PM	I do not think it is challenging enough because the PC's don't take vary much damage and the foes are defeated within a few minutes. Granted, I have thrown a few Dopplegangers at the PC's and the Dopplegangers disguised themselves as the PC's which made them think about tactics; but other than that, it's not been very challenging. Just for reference, the PC's are currently waiting outside a door to a hidden cave. The door is a portal so if they were to open the door they still could not see into the cave. The bad-guy they will meet in the cave is a Mind Flayer. But he is not any Mind Flayer, he is a Disciple of Thoon (MM5). To answer Nid Foods' question, the PC's consist of a Swashbuckler, a Bard, a Ranger, a Rouge/sorccerer, and a Cleric of Pelor.
Downtym 08-09-07, 07:19 PM	I do not think it is challenging enough because the PC's don't take vary much damage and the foes are defeated within a few minutes. Granted, I have thrown a few Dopplegangers at the PC's and the Dopplegangers disguised themselves as the PC's which made them think about tactics; but other than that, it's not been very challenging. Observations: 1. Most D&D combats where the PC's and the NPC's are toe-to-toe will end in 3 to 4 rounds. I will assume by "minutes" you mean Real world minutes and not in-game minutes. Because if I was doing 10+ rounds of combat, I would be asleep. 2. Damage may be a poor meter of how well the party is doing especially because it can swing quickly. Take, for example, a character at 5th level with 47 HP's. An ogre - a monster 2 "levels" lower than him - could easily do in the neighborhood of 16 damage to this character (Assuming it hit). So, in about 3 average hits, our PC will be on the ground begging for hit - each hit absorbs about 1/3 of the PC's hps. Of course, this assumes the Ogre hits. At +8 to hit versus a 5th level AC of around 21-26, the Ogre is very unlikely to hit the PC. No push the Ogre's to hit to between 10 and 15. At this point, has a 50% to greater than 50% chance to hit and will definitely be taking some HP's off the character if he gets a swing in. Assume he crits? Well with a Greatclub that does x3 damage, our Ogre has just dropped a 5th level character in one hit. (Ouch.) Of course, the Ogre has to fight not only the one PC, but also the 3 other party members of the PC. Imagine if the wizard or sorcerer hit him with a fireball and the ranger hit him with an arrow before he even got to the party. It's possible the Ogre could be straight up dead before he even gets a swing. So his odds of survival are not very good. What's my point here? My point is that only looking at the damage taken by characters can be a poor meter. It can swing quickly in either direction - a lucky crit or string of good hits will drop the either opponent quickly. What you should look at is the resource usage (Which includes damage taken) as well as the threat level of the monster. If they are out maneuvering and killing equal CR monsters without expending any meaningful resources then I would suggest that maybe you need to crank up the difficulty some. However, if they are burning through spells to patch up the damage they are taking and ending up at the end of the day with very little in reserve, then they're being challenged, trust me. 3. The most challenging fights involve not one equal CR enemy or CR +2 or CR +3 enemy, but a group of enemies that are each CR -2, but together EL +2. If you're keeping count, this means 4 opponents of the same CR each at 2 levels lower than the party. Take, for example, 4 level 3 wizards and throw them at your party. Have all 4 of them fire scorching rays at one of the PC's and I can guarantee you the party will be fully on the run - most likely because there's a 1/2 chance that one of the people in the party is straight up dead. Why is this party of 4 lower level creatures so much more threatening to a 5th level party than, say, a Hill Giant, Huge Air Elemental, Aboleth, or Medusa? Because of 2 reasons: A) The 4 creatures get up to 4 attacks per round. Possibly, this group gets 8 actions (4 standard, 4 movement) in a single round. That's a lot of maneuverability for the opposing side. B) At least in this example, the 4 lower level creatures all used ranged attacks which means that any opponent that wishes to threaten them must close the distance and attack. Imagine the situation where 4 level 3 sorcerers come at the party from all four directions. Since they're not bunched up, a fireball will only kill one of them. Assuming they don't have a negative Con score, it's unlikely (About 20%-30% chance) that a ranger will drop one with a single shot from a longbow+1. And the fighter has to close range to attack any of them. So, assume the party manages to 1 shot two of the casters (One dies to a fireball, one is nailed with an arrow but survives, and one eats a greatsword to the skull and dies). Congratulations! The last 2 cast Scorching Ray on...well...let's aim for the Cleric just to be mean. Well, Cleric's Touch AC is probably in the neighborhood of 8-12. So, 50/50 chance he eats a Ray from each of the Sorcerers. Oh, wait, our Sorcerers have Weapon Focus (Ray) and a Dex of 16 (The DM's a jerk). Well, that's a +5 to their attack rolls! If the Cleric's Touch AC is 8, then that's an 90% chance of success for the Sorcerer! If the Cleric's Touch AC is 12, that's a 70% chance of success. Odds of eating 2 Scorching Rays? 81% to 49%. Damage from 2 Scorching Rays? 8d6. Average damage? Around 28. Clerics Hp's at 5th level? 26 without a Con Bonus. With a +1 bonus, 31. With a +2 bonus, 36. Yikes. Gonna need some healing there, Mr. Cleric. Even worse, assume both Sorcerers target Mr. Wizard. His Hp's at level 5 are 14 on average. We're looking at a good chance to gibb a Wizard already. Hope he's packing a Con Bonus or the dice are with him today. Now let's assume that the party is ambushed and the 4 Sorcerers get to cast first. That's a total possibility of 16d6 coming 1 target's way - almost completely unsurvivable at 5th level if all of it hits (A barbarian with average HP's and a +3 Con would just barely survive the average damage from 16d6. He'd be at about -9 HP's. A fighter would have to have a +4 Con to survive at -9 HP's. Cleric's, Rogue's, Bard's, Wizard's, and Sorcerer's would almost surely die from that volume of damage unless their Con was in the mid to high 20's). And assuming the party manages to down 2 Sorcerers when it's their go, you might be looking at another 8d6 of possible damage coming someone's way. That's a total possibility of 24d6 over 2 rounds from 4 3rd level Sorcerer's. Yikes. If you don't think that's a massive threat to a theoretical 5th level party, you're wrong. Now, would I condone this? God no. Throwing 4 prepared spellcasters at your party in an ambush situation where they can go first is likely to result in one, two, maybe 3 dead PC's. That's not a lot of fun. My point is that if you want to an encounter to be "challenging", you don't have to just keep cranking up the CR's until something breaks. Sometimes, throwing a handful of lower level enemies at the party is more than enough to make the party work. Especially since more enemies means the party has significantly less control over the situation. I would suggest that you avoid bunching or crowding the enemies so as to minimize the effect of cones, AE's, or other spells that affect tightly grouped opponents. Also, make sure that any enemies you throw at the party should have a meaningful ability to hit the PC's. If you throw 4 enemies at the party, they should have about a 30 to 50% chance to hit the PC's depending on how much damage they can do. If you throw 2 enemies, probably 40 to 60% depending on amount of damage. 1? He should probably have a 50 to 70% chance to hit anyone in the party and do a fairly sizeable amount of damage to a single target.
Magnarda 08-10-07, 02:55 PM	Something that hasn't been mentioned yet is the ability of the NPC. Downtym mentions multiple lower level characters, and in his example gives differing versions of what could happen. What if the sorceror was flying? That poor greatsword is going to go hungry. That means its up to the ranger to attack it because of his range. Now start to think of ways that all of the different character types are challenged. What this will do is give the group a sense of place and they can all work out there own tactics, which gives the players the confidence to take them on and also the after effect three months later when "do you remember when we fought those sorcerors?" But remember to base the tactics of the NPC's on there int/wis/cha scores. Orcs wouldn't use the most complex chess like tactics would they? They generally think only a few moves ahead. A wizard on the other hand will have contingency if things go wrong (which is why they make great reoccuring villians (and there ego (charisma) may be there downfall) and orcs the meat and padding of the campaign). Try to use the NPC's as if they were your PC but then tone it down a notch (you dont want to kill them all)