Dealing with "optimization"

[Starchild7309]

Ok so this is my first time DMing, we have been playing for about 6 month and I am running the Savage Tide Campaign. It started with 5 players and two dropped out so I picked up a NPC to help with the slack. However, now at around level 10 it seems our Warforged Fighter is impossible to hit, the Cleric/Paladin of Tyranny can't miss and is nigh impossible to hit and I have a Beguiler who, short of true seeing, is impossible to find.

Maybe I am just venting, but something seems amiss. The last major section ending battle was a cake walk for them since most things in the campaign at this level attack at like +12, but given 2 rounds the warforged is up to a 36 AC and the Cleric is right behind him at a 32. They are having a great time and usually I am all for PC's winning. I mean its a game, what fun is it if I kill them constantly? It just seems that the last level or 2 I haven't had anything that made them go...woah, we better be careful here. I did throw in a Spell warped orge who could hit and hard. They dismantled it easily between the beguilers mind affecting spells and the fighter beating it down.

What can I throw at them outside of the story line that will challenge them or what can i do to them within the story line to humble them a bit? Any ideas? Its just not fun any more for me as a DM and one other player (ie 50%) of the group to have no real sense of danger.

Anyone else run into this problem and how have you solved it. They may have just caught up on their WBL, i was stingy in the beginning, but they are not well above it at all.

[Kantolin]

Touch attacks and effects with saves can help with offenses. Simple things like tanglefoot bags can help with that, and then spells with debuffs can help reduce things.

Terrain differences can help. Swamps are good for that, but cliffs, ice, and streams/rivers can also be of use.

Reactive effects can also help - fire shield, for a core example. Walls can split people up. A night battle here or there can also mix things up.

Alternately, have the occasional opponent have an extremely high AC and to hit himself.

Obviously don't overuse any of these things, though.

[Juntao112]

Cast Grease.

[sideswipe]

just up the CR of the creatures.

i once played a campaign where as low to mid optimised characters in a two man party, my ogre fighter and the others dread necromancer with undead leadership were taking on challenges 2 CR's above what a 4 man balanced party should have been taking on at our level. just because me and the other player had great synergy and are tactically minded. if the party is highly optimised, either make the challenges harder by CR and they level faster, that is the quick fix.

the better fix is to make a large majority of the encounters tailored. add class levels, abilities and optimise the monsters better. instead of a bad feat choice make the monster have a better one. use enemies that have immunities to the party specifically. use more humanoids with class levels. a mindblank wizard conjuration specialist with abrupt jaunt and his pet golem vs the party. the wizard is great at avoiding combat, and both are basicly immune to the beguiler.

next a necropoliton dread necromancer/cleric/wizard necromancer (whatever) and his big undead bodyguards.

a pair of vampires with turn resistance upped.

ghosts and other incoporials who use touch AC instead of normal AC. so the two large tanks of AC are less useful. have them drain ability damage.

if you continue to send LVL 10 encounters at them that are just buffed brutes and they rule at killing buffed brutes with low will and easy to hit with few special abilities. then they will continue to rule.

also, hydra's and cats. if you want brute things that are stupid challenges, hydra's and cats......

[Diachronos]

Cast Grease.

Where's a "Like" button when you need it?

[sideswipe]

Where's a "Like" button when you need it?

as much as i hate that "that" is a thing.... i do have to agree i sometimes want one....

[Urpriest]

The problem is, adventure paths are generally at a fairly low (if inconsistently so) level of optimization. Your choices are either rebuilding enemies and encounters to around the PCs' capabilities, or asking the PCs to tone down their characters. If the Warforged is actually a single-classed Fighter, though, then there might not be much toning down to do.

[Elkad]

Ignoring the other stuff like grapple, touch attacks and such.

First off, bump encounters a bit. Give most big monsters a small monster as a flanking buddy.
Give the intelligent monsters masterwork weapons, have them use flanking to get hit bonuses, occasionally put down terrain (Grease) that impedes dex bonus.

I don't know anything about that campaign, but a CR7 hill giant with a masterwork club and an ogre for a flanking buddy is getting +18 to hit in an "easy" encounter for a ECL10 party. He should get a couple hits in.

A hard encounter with a fire giant and couple flanking hellhounds will be getting +24 at least. Trade out some of his feats (great cleave, lol) for something like weapon focus and have him drink a strength potion and it gets even better. Hounds just flank, use their breath weapon when it's available, and "aid another" to help the fire giant hit when it's on cooldown.

[Dornith]

A good way to deal with this is non-conventional combat:

What happens if there's a druid casting entangle on an area and they have mediocre reflex saves?
How about fighting over a pit of X and they have to either take a full round action to do what would normally be a standard action or make a balance check.
Have illusions or shape-shifters attack the party looking like their teammates, and they have to figure out which is which.

There is no practical way a party can prepare for everything, so if you need to make things harder for them, get creative.

[jedipotter]

Anyone else run into this problem and how have you solved it. They may have just caught up on their WBL, i was stingy in the beginning, but they are not well above it at all.

This is a common problem in D&D. If you go by the book, and your players optimize, the game can become a lot like you described.

The answer is to first, optimize back and to increase the encounters, just a bit. Add, say +2 to the CR to account for optimization and see if things balance out. If not, go +3, or +4 or more.

Also optimize at least the same level as the players. Avoid the default monsters, add templates and magic items and such to make them more of a challange. Temporay items like potions work great for this.

Depending on what you want to do, you can find feats, abilities, items and such to plug the holes.

[Cyanide]

One good way to have them squeeze their brains to come out of an encounter is to make them feel what I call "the burden of leveling".
The further up you go in level, as a character, the less "commonplace" you are. Your group is around level 10, it's fairly reasonable, in my opinion, to think they would be at least somewhat known, and as you grow famous, so do your tactics.
The more your tactics are known, the better anyone can prepare in order to nullify them.
In a game I DM'd some time ago, the party came across a particularly nasty demon and the party necromancer absolutely squashed that thing, unleashing a barrage of spells that left it at around 3 in both strength and dexterity, several negative levels and no way to restore them. He escaped, observed their tactics and when he returned he had noted that most of said necromancer's most dangerous spells were ray spells, so he arrived with a Contingent Ray Deflection in store. Needless to say, the entire encounter was significantly more challenging than the preceding one.

As said in earlier posts, things like grease can really screw up anyone without at least 5 ranks in balance (as they'll automatically lose their dex bonus, so welcome sneak attack), and I would add glitterdust to outline the beguiler (first thing I'd do in the fight, to avoid losing the bugger to an invisibility spell later).
Also remember that a creature in a bank of fog treats any creature more than 5ft away as having total concealment; you can't target creatures with total concealment, if I'm not mistaken, and most spells in the beguiler would be therefore useless. Throw your beguiler in a bank of Solid Fog and you've removed him from combat for at least a couple of rounds, in addition to blocking a part of the terrain.

Terrain disadvantages, as pointed out by kantolin, are a good thing to exploit. I'm willing to bet both the warforged and the paladin wouldn't fare too well if thrown in a deep body of water, something that, at least in the warforged fighter's case, I think wouldn't be too hard to accomplish with a well-placed teleport.
Assuming both fighter and paladin are using magic enhancements and/or spells to pump up their AC, have a spellcaster ready with a handful of dispels, which should remove active spells and shut down their items, at least temporarily.

If you're a fan of ambushes, I would suggest some benign transposition shenanigans using trained animals. One moment a group of rats/ducks/any tiny animal is waddling along, scurrying between the party members, the next moment said party members marvel at how the cute and tiny animals have grown tall and are stabbing them in painful places.


On a more general note, you mentioned that "in two rounds" the warforged goes up to 36 in AC, I assume through the aforementioned buffs. A good start could be having foes attack in pairs, using one to mainly keep the character occupied and prevent that extensive buffing while the other attacks.

I have the feeling this post is more inarticulate than I thought it was, lack of sleep must be making me dumber -_-

[nedz]

Run a wider variety of encounters and up the CR. Obviously you need to be aware that CR can be quite flawed, things from MM2 seem to be the worst for this.

[Segev]

If you don't feel you have the time or ability to reasonably up the CR of the existing encounters, one thing you could do is let your players know that you're going to suspend EXP for a while. This isn't a punishment, but just to see how far they can get with what they have. When the challenges start being, well, challenging again, you assign exp once more. Assign it as if they were facing level-appropriate encounters, rather than whatever CR they actually are. This is basically a calibration method to avoid having to rewrite the majority of the modules.

If this upsets your players, then discuss with them how they'd like to approach it. They may have suggestions of their own.

[HammeredWharf]

Sounds like you're using pretty straightforward "I hit you hard!" enemies. Mix them up with some other monsters. Use spellcasters, rogues, teleporters, ghosts, monsters with nasty SLAs, etc. For example, an enemy party of a beguiler + a couple of sneaky guys + a crusader with Standstill and tripping feats could be a good challenge.

[Ceaon]

The party is doing well. Good for them! They seem to have figured out that they should target an enemy's weak defense: AC, fort, ref, will, Spell Resistance, etc. Of course, your monsters should too. How high are their saves? Can they fly? How well do they resist a trip, sunder or disarm? Do they have spell resistance? Can they teleport? Do they have the ability to detect traps? Use spells, cover, concealment, magic items, special attacks, difficult terrain, flying enemies, traps that do not affect the enemies, teamwork and minion, and anything else to increase the difficulty until you think it's right.

Also, a CR 10+ enemy with a +12 attack as a primary offensive action? How did that happen?

[Brookshw]

Good luck finding a module that assumes a high level of optimization.

You're a bit better off revamping the encounters. Feel free to toss in extra minions, add class levels, minor gear which also becomes part of their loot, screw with terrain. Smarter tactics! Hit and run against the PCs, ambushes, bait them (bear in mind the int of opponents when deciding their tactics). Maybe 1 out of 5 or 1 out of 10 encounters throw in something specifically that's strong against a common party tactic.

How much time do you have? Can you optimize the encounters to balance the party? If yes, great, get to work! If no, cheat! Yes cheat. You are the DM, go ahead and nudge up the enemies attacks by +2, their hp by +30, toss on a spell like ability, whatever. Do this in advance and bear in mind what the party can handle, this is just to save you time, not an excuse to roflstomp all over them.

[sideswipe]

Good luck finding a module that assumes a high level of optimization.

tomb of horrors.....

[ace rooster]

You say the warforged can get AC up in 2 rounds, how long can he keep it up? Hit and run tactics can easily make 1min/level effects wear off, and so useless. Unless the beguiler is constantly concealed somehow then he cannot always be hiding and will be a target if the party is surprised. Goblins with crossbows riding wolves have a speed of 50ft, free track, and the ability to engage from 800ft. If they are only hitting on a natural 20 anyway they are not going to be much inside that distance if they can avoid it. Fighting monsterous spiders in their own webs basically negates the beguilers ability to hide, as their tremor sense can detect any creatures on the webs (which I would also rule as difficult terrain at best). Their thrown webs are not much of a problem, but they are touch attacks and will limit mobility. They will not hit very often, but even tiny spiders can do str damage, and there will be dozens of them. If all else fails, there is always ...Tuckers...Kobolds . Certainly worth a read for ideas.

[Psyren]

Link it again?
Link it again.

GM's Guide to Creating Challenging Encounters

[Segev]

Link it again?
Link it again.

GM's Guide to Creating Challenging Encounters

I can't look at google docs from work, but this looks like an interesting article from the title. I was going to ask if you had a web site you could put it on, but it occurs to me that I do have some web space I keep around just so I can throw things on it. If I remember when I get home, Psyren, would you mind if I c/p'd this and put it on a web page? I'd attribute it appropriately (not sure if you're the author or not since I can't see it yet), and provide you the link for future use.

[Psyren]

I can't look at google docs from work, but this looks like an interesting article from the title. I was going to ask if you had a web site you could put it on, but it occurs to me that I do have some web space I keep around just so I can throw things on it. If I remember when I get home, Psyren, would you mind if I c/p'd this and put it on a web page? I'd attribute it appropriately (not sure if you're the author or not since I can't see it yet), and provide you the link for future use.

The author is Alexander Augunas, one of the two guys who invented the Occultist. I can't speak for him, but on GitP he goes under the handle "Golden-Esque" so you should be able to PM him and ask him yourself :) all I do is plug/schill it!

[Platinum Piece]

Adamantine Clockwork Horror is CR 9

But seriously, there are some monsters that are very powerful for their CR. I find dragons nasty at almost any CR with the right tactics. You could also try to soften the party up with summons before sending on the big bad.

One of my most memorable encounters was against a Druid BBEG who used green bound summoning to encase the party in a box of wall of thorns, we were underground and couldn't fly out. For some reason teleportation didn't work either, so out swordsage ended up throwing the über charger through and he charged the Druid leaving him almost out of it. He then wildshaped into some kind of bird and flew away.

[ezkajii]

You could also consider equipping your monsters with armor of retaliation (+2 bonus, from the Magic Item Compendium). Anytime they take more than 10 damage from an attack, the armor automatically deals 1d6 back to the attacker; if the attack reduces them to 0hp or below, it retaliates with 3d6. Plus since it's sized for an unusual creature, they can't make good use of it themselves after combat is over.

[The Grue]

just up the CR of the creatures.

As a general rule you shouldn't be "just" doing anything. There's not magic button you can press to fix any game balance problem; the only solution is to pay careful attention to what your players are capable of and try to present encounters that they can handle but are still challenging.

Throwing a Balor and a couple of Great Wyrm Red Dragons at the problem is not going to help.

[Starchild7309]

Thank you all for your suggestions. As I said I am Dming for the first time so learning as I go. Working along with everything else life has to offer makes finding time to "customize" every encounter difficult. As it is a "boxed" campaign I figure I can just make a few adjustment, perhaps slow down the exp collection, and in between when I have time I try to throw in custom encounters that are not necessarily part of the campaign, but fit. What I was hoping to find, and some of you did answer this, but if you were running a boxed campaign, what would you do to up its difficulty.

Example...

They are on a ship, its attacked by pirates. Sure there is the big bad pirate captain who is of their level, but everything else on the ship is lvl 2-3 (says so in the adventure). Now what I did what throw in a mid to higher level equivalent of a ships mage....that seemed to make it interesting without putting the group in too much mortal danger.

I am very big on things being in places for a reason. I hate seeing encounters that make no sense, such as there is a chain devil and a hound archon in the cave when you enter...(dm used those cause the CR added up to what he wanted in a previous campaign) If there is a creature there or a challenge I want it there for a logical reason not as a exp pinata.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Psyren
Link it again?
Link it again.

...and thanks for linking it again, since this is the first time I've seen that. Looks handy indeed.

[Urpriest]

For a published campaign, sometimes it can work to tweak feats and spell choices. Lots of monsters and published NPCs have useless feats like Toughness, swapping those for more useful choices is a lot easier than building things from scratch.

[draken50]

I actually agree pretty well with your thought process of "there for a reason" I'm really big on using environmental hazards. Having more enemies can also help even things out. Ultimately, encounter crafting can be a time-consuming process depending on comfortably you are with it.

I don't know as much about higher level optimized builds, but while the warforged and the cleric have high AC... what would a bunch of dudes with crossbows end up with if they targeted the beguiler? Often times the number of enemies the pc can handle per round can be a good factor (Action economy), and if I had a ranged weapon I'd be aiming more a the squishy looking dude in the back than the badass armor thing. See if you can break up their normal tactics but having the enemies do things they'd rather they didn't.

[LudicSavant]

Ok so this is my first time DMing, we have been playing for about 6 month and I am running the Savage Tide Campaign. It started with 5 players and two dropped out so I picked up a NPC to help with the slack. However, now at around level 10 it seems our Warforged Fighter is impossible to hit, the Cleric/Paladin of Tyranny can't miss and is nigh impossible to hit and I have a Beguiler who, short of true seeing, is impossible to find.

None of those things sound overly worrying to me. Give me the specific builds and I can give you half a dozen challenges they'll never forget using little more than standard monsters, some basic thematically appropriate terrain, and fundamental tactics.

I must emphasize that you need to provide the specific builds of your players if you want to get more useful feedback on what level of things will challenge them without simply stomping their faces in.

I mean, I could easily just say something like "Oh hey look it's a pretty standard Sorcerer with a Mindbender 1 dip and +25 will save (thanks Force of Personality feat!) that automatically detects the location of everything within 100 feet (thanks Mindsight feat!) and slams them with multiple high DC save or dies (thanks rudimentary understanding of spell mechanics and Cha-boosting gear!) and a horde of minions (thanks Dominate, Animate Dead, or Summoning!) who can't be hit by a mere attack bonus (thanks Greater Mirror Image / Flight / Displacement!)" but that seems like it would be too easy.

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Why yes, that is a 0% ASF Feycraft Twilight Mithral breastplate.

Anyone else run into this problem and how have you solved it.

A little bit of tactics goes a long way in providing challenges. Kobolds, played intelligently, can give people nightmares forever, and that includes optimizers.

Let's give a few examples of how you can ramp up essentially the same encounter (Drow that revere Vulkoor that use vision tricks against a level 3 or 4 party):

Easier: "Okay, in the room there are a bunch of generic stat block drow, and a Medium Monstrous scorpion, no doubt a spawn of Vulkoor. They cast Darkness on you and fire hand crossbows at you!"

e.g. the DM is not using the monsters right, and the monsters aren't very strong. The drow are actually giving you concealment against their ranged attacks, while you can still hit them just fine. Also, they're only using hand crossbows... why are they using hand crossbows if they're not infiltrating or something? Just because the default drow entry said they use hand crossbows, that's why!

This actually happens a lot. It makes encounters a pushover for anyone with a modicum of strategic awareness and a basic understanding of the rules (in fact, a smart player can probably breeze through a campaign like this with an NPC class). Expect this in games where you hear DMs raving about how Tome of Battle is "obviously overpowered" and that "Fighters are just as good as Wizards" or otherwise demonstrate a basic lack of understanding of mechanics or strategic awareness. I've also seen players do this a lot... including cases where players do significantly more damage to themselves than the actual enemies do!

Easy: "Okay, in the room there are a bunch of generic stat block drow, and a Large Monstrous Scorpion, no doubt a spawn of Vulkoor. They use Darkness for cover, hide, and fire their hand crossbows at you! They hold their swords in their off hand, ready to follow up on their initial volley with blades."

e.g. the DM just kinda threw together a few random unmodified entries from the MM and didn't think too much about how they could be used to their tactical potential. Still, a large monstrous scorpion can hurt you, and he's not using Darkness wrong, and even though they're still using hand crossbows for some reason, at least they're taking advantage of the fact that it can be used one-handed with no penalty now.

This is a common case when the DM understands the basics of the rules, but isn't interested in giving the players a real challenge. They will often have the mindset that players should not actually ever die (facing only the illusion of threat), and / or they will dislike the idea of customizing creatures or having monsters act strategically and leave them with silly things like Toughness and just march them at you. These players just want to enjoy the story and /or hit punching bags, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but some will crave something more as well.

Medium: "As you enter the room, you come face to face with the drow priestess riding a Large Monstrous Scorpion, who with a shout commands her swarm of vermin to attack! When you try to hit her, your sword passes through the illusion harmlessly... and your movement left you vulnerable to her counterattack!"

e.g. enemies are a bit more interesting and clever and/or have better stats. Also, things aren't being given ridiculous feats like "Toughness" all the time. Players are at genuine risk if they don't think through their actions. A common case for more experienced groups. This may well be all you need to challenge your PCs, though I haven't seen the specific builds yet.

Scary: "Chasing after your charmed comrade who was suggested to join her new friend on venturing deeper into the dungeon, you rush through the corridor hoping to get to her before she has a chance to come to harm. Before you, there is a dragonborn drow priestess / bard. As soon as they come into sight, you hear the heavy clank of a lever and the turning of gears, and an iron guillotine smashes through the corridor masonry, cutting you off from your companions with a wall of iron (CR1 DMGII trap). The priestess begins a hymn about the doom of all those who would oppose drowkind, and her weapons come alight with dragonfire. She caresses your charmed comrade, and raises a flaming knife behind her back. Charging in to help, you immediately find yourself running straight onto the point of a spear... 3 Vulkoor-spawned mutant berserkers (functionally level 1 barbarians), with weapons of draconic fire, hiding behind a silent image! You find yourself alone, poisoned, battered from attacks of opportunity, surrounded, and prone, and they raise their weapons with sadistic grins on their deformed faces."

e.g. enemies are smart and are built well. This (or the category after this) is the kind of game that will come up when people who would fit the "Brilliant Planner" player incentive type in the DMG II come together, or might show up in games that usually have "Medium" encounters as a boss fight or wham episode. A common case for groups that understand optimization and appreciate strategy more complex than "I kick in the door and roll initiative!" and are comfortable with the potential for losing.

Scarier: As Scary, but "The drow priestess is also riding a Large Monstrous Scorpion again (with barding and Tunnel Fighting), in addition to having the berserkers in the room, and she's wielding a lance and heavy steel shield now. Is that a Rhino Rush spell she's got there?

Dismissing the silent image that lured you to your death, a changeling mercenary sorcerer takes on your appearance and prepares to rejoin your comrades when they come through the wall, and the drow play dead or vanished with another illusion. She strips you of your possessions, handing out the choice bits of equipment to the appropriate allies, who happily drink your potions and read your scrolls in preparation for the rest of your allies."

e.g. enemies are devious, use teamwork, and have good stats, and have about as much respect for your plot armor as the cast of A Game of Thrones. At this level, basic kobolds will send weak-willed players fleeing in sheer unbridled terror.

This is what you get when you have a creative, experienced DM that understands practical optimization and strong players that are thrilled by the idea of a real challenge or their eyes sparkle at the idea of matching wits with a character like Tywin Lannister.

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Additional difficulty cases (mentioned simply for the sake of completeness):

Arbitrary: You live or die more by the DM's fiat than by the value of anyone's tactical choices. You succeed when the DM lets you succeed, and you fail when the DM lets you fail. Rolls are commonly fudged.

This is a perhaps worryingly common case, and is often a result of inexperienced or incompetent DMs. However, sometimes it isn't. In these cases, this difficulty is applied subtly, often with intentions similar to those in "Easy," save that death sometimes occurs for "dramatic" reasons. In this case, the players might never actually notice that their rolls don't matter. Even if they do, they might happily accept or even support it, if they're the kind of player that doesn't care much about the tactical side of the game.

Impossibru: The DM decides you will die, and therefore you do. Game over.

This is a common case when people piss off a DM sufficiently and things are not resolved through more mature means. Bleh.

[Irk]

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I like you.