Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 frostden Jun 25, 2009 6:07:41	My player's next encounter is going to be a prolonged role play/skill challenge encounter. The city that they have grown rather attached to has come under seige. A dome of impenetrable force has encased a big chunk of it, with demons spawn at the periphery. The players are tasked with organising the defences and inspiring the morale of the set upon commoners. The dome slowly contracts, centred on their headquarters. The final battle will be a combat encounter, with the forces that were previously attacking the entire district now focused soley on the players. The citizens, now safe but trapped outside the greatly shrunken dome, are giving epic moral support to their heros, hollaring for them to prevail and giving them The Beatles levels of worship. The players will need it. My first thought was "Well, enemies times two means players times two". If I double their access to second winds, encounter powers, and recharge all dailies, could they make it?" Or should I double damage as well? It's a weird situation: Epic power boost against epic foe. I'm not sure it's able to be balanced with fudging. What would you guys do?
#2 rovin Jun 25, 2009 19:27:28	Why don't you just arrange so that there are several points in the battle where they can get a short rest? Either an actual 5-minute lull in the battle (ending any active 5-minute duration powers) or perhaps rest benefits without actually spending the time to do so (which would allow their end-of-encounter/5 minute powers to keep running) could work. Epic characters can do a lot with encounter powers alone, and if they can keep their encounter-duration daily stuff running through most or all of the fight as well, they should be fine even against ridiculous numbers or quality of opposition. Story-wise, they might trigger a lull by inflicting a demoralizing loss on the enemy that forces the surviving leaders to regroup and rally their troops. "They cut all five of Tiamat's heads off? Uh, Orcus, let's fall back and consider our options, shall we?" "Yeah. Cripes. Yeah, that sounds like a plan, Vecna. Fall back, guys. Five minute break, smoke 'em if you got 'em." Alternately you could give them a takes-no-time pseudo-rest power recharge as a reward for doing something especially impressive in combat or in your ongoing skill challenge. "You cut all five of Tiamat's heads off and they're still coming? This is crazy!" "Yeah, but you know, I think we can handle it. I feel pretty confident all of a sudden." "It's probably all the divine dragon blood you're soaked in. I notice you do seem to be glowing a bit there."
#3 sigil_beguiler Jun 26, 2009 1:23:28	I would do a combo of things: First as suggested above have multiple combats, you can focus it on specific elements: Force a bottleneck here. Stop a sapper there. Defend a group of civilians. Stuff like that. It would also mean more variety in the combat. In the foes they face, the terrain they are using, traps perhaps both for and against. Use plenty of minions they were made for stuff like this. Minions are a easy and balanced means of amping up the number of enemies. Have wins be more then just killing. Have the enemies fall back at times, or fought to a death trap, etc.
#4 ShiningMongoose Jun 26, 2009 2:16:06	I recently did a series of Raid style encounters, against solo mobs with double, or close to double HP totals. The PC's were assisted by a number of NPC, who they had previously met during their time adventuring. A mage who had a 50% chance each round of debuffing the boss, this increased the natural threat range by 2 point (18-20 crits for all, 17-20 for one character) A warlock who placed a curse on the boss allowing for attack rerolls. A warlord who granted a Free use action point to each PC once per battle. A Cleric who allowed them to recharge an encounter power once per battle. Your chanting crowd of cheer leaders could provide simular benfits in the way of morale boosts