Semi-optimized party - how can I help my GM?

[Brainpiercing]

In my remaining table group we have one serious problem:

Encounters are either one-shot player killers (or would be without opt-out options), or they are quite often piss easy.

Last fight where a PC died we fought four flying snake things that could quick-cast an about 6D6 Fireball every round for three rounds or so. First round the party wizard failed ALL four DC16 Ref-saves (the wizard player sucks, but that's not the point). The Bard failed two or three of them and was left with 5 HP or so. The Warlock was just about the same. My PC (the BC charger I made another post about) took no damage thanks to evasion. But I can't bloody fly on my own, at least partly due to being way behind WBL (we're just short of Lvl11, and we have just under Lvl 10 WBL). Well, we had an opt-out card, basically every-man's town portal.

We're all Level 10. Our damage output is quite large, thanks to a WoC Bard, my Pouncer, and a Sorceror gish. Our BC means are, well, sort of shitty, because the Illusionist Wizard player sucks, and you can only do so much with a meleer. Plus the DM thinks that encounters should play against the strengths of - most notably - my character.

Most encounters are against few strong opponents. We win initiative, the bard puts out his +10 IC, and then we just kill them. Often one or both of the front-liners, and sometimes others, take lots of damage, but this has been manageable. Unless they win initiative, or get off some mass damage in the surprise round. One of those times my PC died to some minotaur chargers.

The DM said he HAS to put out those fairly strong monsters or else they'll be no danger whatsoever. After talking about it he put out some encounters with several lower CR monsters. But those really were too easy.

I keep telling the DM to diversify the encounters, to put some tactical necessity into the fight, instead of raw firepower, but for some reason we always just meet single monster type encounters. I haven't given up yet, though. What can I tell my DM to allow him to make more challenging encounters that don't result in playing insta-gib? It also may be that he's just too lazy to put different monsters on the battle-field, but I'm hoping that's not the case. Do you guys have any hints that are relatively easy to implement?

[Nachofan99]

Possible Suggestion 1
[spoiler]Whenever this happens I roll out the half-orc death squad.  In your case the half-orc death squad would be 6 5th level half-orc barbarian 2/fighter 2/cleric 1.

Taking into account some variants, ACF's, the Headlong Rush feat and 1 casting of Rhino's Rush before raging, you've got some guys with easy +12's to hit that charge with greatswords for 6d6+15 or so damage.  Sure they'll die, but they only exist to do some damage before going down, and not an insane "instant kill you" amount since you're 10th level.

From there I optimize the group a bit more and take out 1-2 melee guys and add in a full cleric/sorc/druid etc to throw in Haste and Serpent's Swiftness mass.

If you really want to mess with them, add in another couple of fighter levels and give them mounts, with lances and some mounted combat feats.

These are really low level threats, but they're surprisingly effective for evening up the score when you consider the next encounter.  The thing is, they're push-overs at the same time as being *relatively* threatening.  If your party of 4 can 1 shot each of them, that still leaves 2 more for another round - now you're down more HP and/or spells and they have accomplished their task - use up 20% of your resources. [/spoiler]

Possible Suggestion 2
[spoiler]I regularly send out groups to "use up" the party's resources so that I don't have to make my villains *overpoweringly powerful* to survive the first round of combat, and I can throw the party a bone if they used some of their higher level spells/abilities before the main encounter. 

So instead of having 4 flying snake with 6d6 quickened fireballs (24d6 each round for 3 rounds)  I would instead send a couple of ogres loaded with HP (barbarian/crusader/frostragers with improved toughness, diehard, reach weapons, Combat Reflexes+Standstill feat) with a leader type conjuration wizard with empowered cone of colds (or whatever) to destroy 20% of your HP/spells.

You need to "deal with them" in such a way that you don't have to lose an annoying amount of HP.  The ogres more or less easily defend the wizard (given the right setup) from melee and have a ton of HP, and the wizard can cast empowered cones of cold all combat long dealing damage to you and healing his ogres at the same time - so you really want to eliminate the Wizard really fast so that you lose a lot less HP "mopping up" the "damage sponge" ogres, except they are built to cover him. [/spoiler]

I'm not sure if your DM just isn't very good with the CR system.  It definitely rakes a lot of finagling to make it "more or less" work.  I have provided a couple of archetypal examples that I have used to great success.  I also suggest reading and re-reading the DMG as it REALLY has a ton of great suggestions I continue to use.  Every time I re-read it, I get another great idea for a "challenging" encounter that doesn't have to kill the party.

The other part might just be that you're winning the "rocket tag" type Initiative checks far too often.  As a DM, I regularly *give* my monsters surprise *IF* they are low CR monsters (this of course modifies their CR to make the fight appropriate).  A suggestion here is that the DM needs to understand that the CR system is more an art than a science and if you more or less cost the party 20% of their available resources (mostly spells per day) then the encounter was a success.  Each encounter is NOT supposed to force the party to the brink of death - just expend 20% of their resources.  Also, waves of enemies are great for solving "rocket tag" as your team comes in and 1 shots a bunch of CR1's then the real bad guys show up and so on.

I would offer more but it's mostly on your DM.  I suggest looking at 4th edition for inspiration for the "roles" of the monsters then filling them.  I'm sorry I can't offer more since I just don't know everything about your particular situation.

[Brainpiercing]

Well, those suggestions are basically what I would do, and I've suggested something similar (with less build information). It's just that he keeps just looking up one monster and constructing an EL with it by adding up. He uses the Penpaper&pixel webpage for that. Like taking 6 CR6 monsters or something to make one EL11 encounter. What I'd like is the killer argument that I can give him so that he stops doing that -without having to invest TOO much more time, because I think that's the main deal. It's sort of an improvised campaign, and he doesn't want to spend days planning encounters. I guess waves are a good suggestion, those could add some tactical options, UNLESS we one round each wave.

Is there a resource somewhere where a DM could go to find ready-made semi-optimised encounters, like the ones you posted? DMG enemies are a joke, and monsters have often got really stupid feat selection coupled with one-shot killer abilities.

[Nachofan99]

I can give you a couple more general suggestions.

If he is finding you destroy appropriate level monsters, then he should adjust the encounter by +2 between +4 and see how you do.  If the +4 proves too much, he just has to play the monster "stupidly". (you can substitute "evilly" "boastfully" etc. to fit the monster)

So this way, if he finds the monster is too much, he can "play it down" a notch.  Dragons are tough opponents at every CR, but if they are played POORLY, they're no tougher than any other "big dumb monster".

Your DM just might not be as good of an optimizer as most of the party and is too lazy to BUILD encounters.  If he's going to continue doing that, I suggest he adds starts your party base EL at +2 more and hope that works out.  They shouldn't be oh so much better, but also, they should be slightly more challenging.

[Brainpiercing]

Well, we've been fighting encounter levels of +2 or so consistently. However, it seems he can neither detect monsters who won't survive the first round, neither can he detect monsters that will most definitely kill a PC or more in the first round. He's actually quite good at optimising and frequently reads the Charop forums on crapmax.

Mostly the problem is that those critters with killer first-round damage usually don't come one at a time. If there were just one, and other monsters to increase the threat, we would likely survive.

[PhaedrusXY]

The DM is having a hard time challenging a party full of meleeists?

[Brainpiercing]

The DM is having a hard time challenging a party full of meleeists?

Well, he could kill us easily enough, but that's not the point. The point is that he wants his single monsters to survive longer, and get by without making complex encounters. You're right that it shouldn't be that hard to challenge us.

Also, we're two meleist (me and the DMPC), a Woc Bard (who makes us work), a Warlock (who shoots brightly coloured rays that do about as much damage as one attack from me), and an illusionist wizard, who .. uh.. sucks.

[PhaedrusXY]

Any guy who can fly and use Mirror Image (or something similiar)?

Also, how are your will saves? The occasionally well-placed Confusion/Charm/Dominate could be fun.

[Brainpiercing]

Any guy who can fly and use Mirror Image (or something similiar)?

Also, how are your will saves? The occasionally well-placed Confusion/Charm/Dominate could be fun.

Well, the Warlock can fly, the Wizard can cast it. The bard casts mirror images frequently (which often are all destroyed in one round ).
Now the deal is, with the +10 IC Bard the meleers basically always hit. I can power attack for full, even without using shocktrooper. I've just decided to get Combat Expertise next level because I don't need that much PA and can afford to shift some to hit to AC. Generally very few things survive a pounce from my charger, and the DMPC can use Wraithstrike or do the good old Hydramorph. So melee is really covered, and we can dish out a good deal of damage. But I guess I could suggest him to use flying enemies who strafe us, and who can only be attacked by one of us and the warlock.

As for Will-saves, well... mine are ok-ish,+6 or +7 I think, and I can use Moment of Perfect Mind. The others have rather worse saves. I think it would be fun to dominate the Illusionist .

[pfooti]

The DM is having a hard time challenging a party full of meleeists?

Well, he could kill us easily enough, but that's not the point. The point is that he wants his single monsters to survive longer, and get by without making complex encounters. You're right that it shouldn't be that hard to challenge us.

How is the bard getting +10 inspire courage? As much as I hate midgame nerfing, I think the DM made a mistake in allowing Words of Creation to apply after all modifiers. IMC, it's applied first, before the Badge of Valor and Inspirational Boost and Music of the Heart and all that jazz. Even without WoC, +5 to hit and damage is very strong in a melee-heavy environment.

The action economy makes this pretty hard. No matter how you slice it, if the Bad Guy just gets 1 action to the party's 5, they're usually hosed, even if the party isn't all that optimized. It comes down to intelligent monster tactics (as mentioned above), which is one of the parts of DMing that's pretty hard to just kind of patch up with a boost to CR.

If the Bad Guy can invalidate various options that the party has (silencing the bard is a good start, flying or being otherwise difficult to charge is another thing), he's a lot more likely to survive. In a straight up smackfest, 5 guys beats 1 every time.

[PhaedrusXY]

I meant an enemy with flight and/or Mirror Image (and maybe Blur/Displacement/Invisibility) should be able to withstand a round or two from you guys, at least. Tack on the ability to confuse/dominate/charm some of your party to turn them on the rest of you, and that should make a decent encounter.

What is your ability to heal like? Combatants that wage guerrilla style warfare on you might work, also. Hit and run tactics, to wear down your daily resources, and some way to prevent you from just holing up for the day to rest.

These don't necessarily have to just be on human(oid) NPCs, either. He could tack sorcerer or wizard levels onto "monsters", too, and that might work better. A few buffs can make an amazing difference, and casting classes often only add 1/2 CR per level onto most things.

Also encounters that "soften you up" by inflicting some kinds of penalties, doing ability damage/drain, negative levels, etc, might work well. How would your party hold up against an ambush by a bunch of shadows or allips coming out of the floor, for example? And then what happens when the "BBEG" steps out of the shadows while you're softened up from his minions?


I don't really see why it would be particularly difficult to challenge you guys, if the DM uses something besides things that just try to stand there and withstand your most effective tactics. He should be hitting your weak spots, and using enemies that deny your ability to full attack them effectively.

[Brainpiercing]

I don't really see why it would be particularly difficult to challenge you guys, if the DM uses something besides things that just try to stand there and withstand your most effective tactics. He should be hitting your weak spots, and using enemies that deny your ability to full attack them effectively.

I'm not sure I entirely agree with this. I mean people build characters to have them do stuff that works. The point is, that it's been all or nothing basically all the time, which is a bit of a turn-off. I do think, however, that shutting down individual characters now and then is a thing he should think about. The bard, for one, although if it happens to often the player will just cry foul. Me, I guess, I've been complaining all along that everything I built my character for doesn't work, except for raw damage. He HAS been building encounter to counter some strengths, though mostly only mine. And early on we had some interesting fights. Admittedly, being the glass cannon, I usually also went down in those, but not the point where I don't get back up.

Wearing us out might work with ability damage. Although the trouble is, in this campaign we can at any time hop back into town to heal up. We can even do it in the middle of combat. If we were hurt badly enough to endanger our progress in the next fight we would just do that.

Hmm, I'm thinking it just boils down to him being lazy, but how do I convince him not to be? Should I say, HEY, let ME do just one or two encounters for you? The risk being that I totally botch it, too, because all I do is PbPs, where I have basically a crapload of time to prepare. I can adlib fights in stuff like Shadowrun 3, but D&D is just too bloody complicated.

[McPoyo]

I take the route that the designers of modules and pre-fab adventures do: I write down each guy's tactics, per round, and just go with that. It's easy to adjust or improvise, but if you do not have to, it makes it quick and easy to run.

[PhaedrusXY]

Wearing us out might work with ability damage. Although the trouble is, in this campaign we can at any time hop back into town to heal up. We can even do it in the middle of combat. If we were hurt badly enough to endanger our progress in the next fight we would just do that.

Well that sounds like a major flaw that would take the real fun out of it, right there. Of course he can't really challenge you without just insta-killing someone. If you guys start to get worried/challenged, you can just hop back to safety. Really... who thought this was a good idea?

[Brainpiercing]

Wearing us out might work with ability damage. Although the trouble is, in this campaign we can at any time hop back into town to heal up. We can even do it in the middle of combat. If we were hurt badly enough to endanger our progress in the next fight we would just do that.

Well that sounds like a major flaw that would take the real fun out of it, right there. Of course he can't really challenge you without just insta-killing someone. If you guys start to get worried/challenged, you can just hop back to safety. Really... who thought this was a good idea?

It's really just like having Teleport pre-teleport level, and without having to be adjacent. Hmm, whoever wrote wizards into the game? It IS a Fullround-action to do, too, and should most  likely provoke.

Well, to do ourselves justice, so far we have only used this tactic once in combat, and that was where the illusionist died and everybody but me was badly hurt to the point they would have most definitely all died next round. Previously, when one guy died, the rest finished off the monsters to get the cash and XP. We HAVE also had really tight fights where I had to basically gamble on the average damage of the critter and heal myself with Martial stance for just enough to not get into -CON range and really die. But that has been RARE.

[PhaedrusXY]

It's really just like having Teleport pre-teleport level, and without having to be adjacent. Hmm, whoever wrote wizards into the game? It IS a Fullround-action to do, too, and should most  likely provoke.

Yes, but there are ways to counter Teleport by the time you can access it. I guess if this requires a FRA and provokes, it could also be countered, but it just sounded kind of crazy. It reminds me of playing Diablo. "Oh god, quick throw up a town portal!" 

[Brainpiercing]

It's really just like having Teleport pre-teleport level, and without having to be adjacent. Hmm, whoever wrote wizards into the game? It IS a Fullround-action to do, too, and should most  likely provoke.

Yes, but there are ways to counter Teleport by the time you can access it. I guess if this requires a FRA and provokes, it could also be countered, but it just sounded kind of crazy. It reminds me of playing Diablo. "Oh god, quick throw up a town portal!" 

Oh, it certainly IS like Town Portal, because everyone can use it, just like that. It's a card. Move action to get it out, standard action to use. It does provoke, but it's probably not interruptable like a spell, so the critters would have to try a disarm or dispel, or whatever. And in that fight, they didn't even threaten.

[SwordDisciple]

I meant an enemy with flight and/or Mirror Image (and maybe Blur/Displacement/Invisibility) should be able to withstand a round or two from you guys, at least. Tack on the ability to confuse/dominate/charm some of your party to turn them on the rest of you, and that should make a decent encounter.

What is your ability to heal like? Combatants that wage guerrilla style warfare on you might work, also. Hit and run tactics, to wear down your daily resources, and some way to prevent you from just holing up for the day to rest.

These don't necessarily have to just be on human(oid) NPCs, either. He could tack sorcerer or wizard levels onto "monsters", too, and that might work better. A few buffs can make an amazing difference, and casting classes often only add 1/2 CR per level onto most things.

Also encounters that "soften you up" by inflicting some kinds of penalties, doing ability damage/drain, negative levels, etc, might work well. How would your party hold up against an ambush by a bunch of shadows or allips coming out of the floor, for example? And then what happens when the "BBEG" steps out of the shadows while you're softened up from his minions?


I don't really see why it would be particularly difficult to challenge you guys, if the DM uses something besides things that just try to stand there and withstand your most effective tactics. He should be hitting your weak spots, and using enemies that deny your ability to full attack them effectively.

I did something like this once.. I had a group of lower level NPC's hunting and distracting the PC's while they were searching for a needed artifact in a forest.. The forest had a permanent Dimensional Lock on it to take away the "get out of jail free" card (read Wizard with Teleport) and they had no healers in the party.

The NPC party involved:

• A combat Trapsmith who prepared the path that the PC's were going to take and eventually the battlefield where they confronted the PC's. Small annoying traps mostly but it wasted healing spells.
• A enemy Wizard that used Earthbound Spell Feat to do much of what the Combat Trapsmith was doing - simple low level spells to cause damage, reduce strength or temporarily cause stupidity.
• A Monk/Ranger/Bloodhound who shadowed/tracked the party and relayed where they appeared to be heading to his party mates.
• A twisted Druid Summoner who kept the party occupied with unfriendly beasts while..
• 3 Dread Commando/Wildrunners exploded from the shadows to rush through the party, pouncing upon the weaker looking party members using Wounding weapons & Axiomatic Strikes to make the characters bleed profusely (approx 5hp bleeding per round which was amusing to see them try to heal once they realised the bleeding wasn't going to stop). They would then run off into the shadows and disappear (hide)

This group actually stalked the PC's for two adventures, causing troubles for them until they stumbled upon the battlefield which was well prepared beforehand.

There were explosive parts of ground (Fireburst & Melfs Acid Arrow) prepared by the Wizard. Pits dug (by the Combat Trapsmith) in random places on the earth and in front of the Dread Commandos and Combat Trapsmith who used bows to harass the fighters in the group. The Druid Summoner kept a few meat shields around to entertain the blaster in the PC group and the NPC Wizard effectively debuffed the PC's haste etc.

There was one stupidly powerful FB who could pulverise most enemies, who I made the Bloodhound to battle against. He had good mischance on him via Invisibility and also had Mirror Image up for when he attack and lost invisibility. He got a free round of attacks against the FB, and due to being readied to strike, got another round of attacks against him before the FB launched a single attack - this resulted in a -12 Str penalty to the FB before a single response was thrown.

Needless to say it was a tough battle for them, but it was fun and they enjoyed having their resources stretched.

Just an idea for your DM