Preparing for an optimised party

[ramrod]

Have a week to get my bits and bobs together now. Our new improved party is ready to hit the road and reading through the prepared adventure it's clear that they will utterly destroy most things that they come across.

This doesn't really phase me. The excitement of being a dm for me is challenging people and rising to the challenge of stretching people (I'm a teacher by day :) ) it's why I fave them lots of tools to optimise, so I had a new challenge ahead of me. I picked a prepared campaign this time so the story was mostly taken care of.

I'm about to write up my list of quick ways to empower and gimp the party members to make them feel both heroic, but also challenge them to think differently or tackle a combat in a different way (sometimes to straight up gimp them, you can't be great in every scenario.. We all have weaknesses!)

So, my challenge to you guys is help my think up creative ways (or even standard ways) of empowering and limiting the following classes. They can be anything from spells, classes, powers, feats, abilities, environmental conditions etc.

A scout ranger focused on skirmishing, using swift action movements to fire off multiple shots with a splitting bow.

A psion. Super high intelligence, high save dcs. Uses telepathy, blasts and astral constructs, metapsionics and schism to break action economy.

A charger jaronk shield optimised basher/tripper with crusaders dips.

A mailman sorcerer (blaster build, damage focused) typical dragon wrought Kobold cheese.

A warlock healer/buffer/blaster (I don't need to much of this toon as it's actually played by myself and is only really there to keep the party alive... I planned in strengths and weaknesses from the start)

I already have my own list building on them but would love some inspiration from you guys :)

This is what I love about dm ING :)

[ramrod]

Lots of autocorrect errors there :P

[OldTrees1]

Well, it looks like that party is designed for nova and/or first turn win tactics. This tactic is particularly powerful when a majority of the enemies are within range at the beginning of round 1 OR when a miniboss/boss is in the combat.

• Try to engineer situations where all of the enemies can target the PCs but the PCs cannot target all of the enemies.
• Try to give minibosses/bosses evasion contingencies and more importantly recuperative contingencies.

Obviously increasing the encounters per day would peck at the limited reserves. This would not impact all the characters though.

[ramrod]

Limited resources won't really hold them back all of the time unless I put time constraints on them or have ridiculously amounts of anti mobility as they know they can simply port out of the castle and rest up.

Definitely won't be fielding all enemies at the same time, they will need to come in trickles or have good cover to avoid psion energy missiles and sorc aoes.

Other than that, this is why I need a range of bolt on tactics to hold them back and empower them. Mostly feats and spells to counter individuals in alternating encounters. A range so it isn't repetitive :)

[Curbstomp]

I had a high level caster use Greater Scrying, Nerveskitter, Time Stop, and Gate to really mess up a party who tried to run away. Using Greater Scrying he was watching the party attack his allies from the safety of his sanctuary. He cast Time Stop when they attempted to leave using Nerveskitter as an Immediate Action to win Initiative. Then he Gated their primary caster to a room full of minions in his sanctuary. The party's primary caster did not last six seconds and the rest of the PC's were left fighting with no escape mechanic at their beck and call. The party managed to win their fight, but had to pay an NPC to True Resurrection the wizard to find out what had happened to her.

[ramrod]

Yeah I just play tested the psion alone against the first encounter, 8 orcs, a wyvern and a caster and she smashed it by herself... An empowered chaotic surged energy missile finished five orcs off, her swift construct beat half the wyvern health before it took off. She was grappled by the wyvern but still passed a concentration check to augment psionically dominate the wyvern into not dropping her. The pet finished the other off. An intellect fortress shrugged off most of two fireball and it ended with the construct still standing and her having taken 26 damage (thanks to shared pain with her psicrystal)

OUCH.....

[Belial_the_Leveler]

Let's introduce the most common bane of optimized PCs; the optimized monters! Using the monster advancement rules in the DMG, you can build some very interesting stuff. A couple examples;



Tomb Raiders: not to be confused with a certain British adventurer, these CR 7 ghouls have the Shadow Creature template and have been advanced by 20 racial HD. Since they have total concealment in anything other than broad daylight they cannot be targeted by spells and effects. They also have evasion, good saves and fast healing and are wearing mithral full-plate for the AC bonus. Their touch confers a DC 22 paralysis effect. Their favored tactic is to approach tresspassers unseen, paralyze them then coup-de-grace with their thinaun swords, trapping the victims' souls in the process.
An ECL 12 party should face 8 of these as an average challenge.


Aeon Servitor: a huge animated object, made of riverine. CR 5 and indestructible except for disintegration and similar effects. Throw them at unsuspecting parties for fun and profit.
An ECL 12 party should face 16 of these as an average challenge.


Troll Shaman: actually, a phrenic troll were-dire-rhino. It has 23 HD, Spell Resistance 33, 50ish strength, 500 HP, powerful melee attacks, and several psionic powers at manifester level 23. It is only CR 11 and thus an "easy" encounter for an ECL 12 party.

[ramrod]

I was kind if hoping for some bolt ons that I could simply give to monsters to make them more challenging for the the players.giving them feats, spells or abilities that challenges individuals in the party.

[Brookshw]

I was kind if hoping for some bolt ons that I could simply give to monsters to make them more challenging for the the players.giving them feats, spells or abilities that challenges individuals in the party.

For that party just giving the opponents cover would be a start. Rough terrain also could be an issue for them. Grab a few helpful consumables to give the enemies. A few potions of invisibility would go a long way. Some dispels, heroism etc. Tower shield for full cover will add to a challenge. How much to you want to jack up the enemies? Reach weapons to deal with the charger. What's the level we're talking about? There are a number of useful things you could do but I don't want to suggest something that could be overkill. Giving the enemies light fortification would trim down the skirmisher, wings of cover (or friendly fire if you're feeling sadistic).

Honestly when it comes to optimized parties my real question is, how much time do you have? If you don't have much to prep I personally recommend just slapping on what you need to make it interesting and call it a day, a few terrain manipulation abilities, a handful of HP and AC. If you have more time just a few non-associated levels would help out. You can definitely optimize back encounters but it take a good time investment.

[ace rooster]

The loadstone maguffin. A 4ft sphere with huge powers, that is absolutely useless to the PCs (helps plants grow in a wide radius or something. Maybe stabalises a demiplane, which is why it cannot leave the plane it currently resides in). It resists all teleportation effects, as dimensional anchor, and reacts badly to extradimensional spaces, or any spells cast on it. It weighs about 1000lb, but is quite fragile (hardness 5, 50hp). It might be a bit hard to introduce, but changes the situation considerably. The PCs are held in a fight, which opens up the tactics that the attackers can use. Time becomes a factor, with attackers able to just wait out many of the PC's buffs, and range becomes a factor, as the PCs have only limited ability to dictate the terms of a confrontation.

How about a few devils on a moonless night? Most vision is quite short range, but devils can see just fine. At will teleport and ranged attacks require some imagination to deal with. The PCs need a reason to stick around though, as does the devil.

As has been pointed out, the party looks like they would dry up fairly quickly. Time limits might feel arbitrary, but they are a reality unless the party is entirely dictating the situation (at which point they have already won). Opponents that know the PCs are on a clock will try to burn through their resources, so will throw 'threats' at them to bait them into novaing when not required. A scorpion with giant vermin (cl boosted to 20), protection from good, and spell resistance cast on it is not a huge expendature from a mid level cleric, but can scare a party into burning far more resources than it should.

Incidently, protection from ... should be on all monsters lists, to avoid getting dominated.

[Zirconia]

If they are fighting foes at a level where they (the party) can just port out to recover when they want to, there is no reason some of their enemies can't locate them and port IN to attack them when they are resting, shopping in town, etc. If they are generally goodish, and a couple of waves of foes phase in and fireball them in the marketplace, killing dozens of innocents, they will pretty quickly figure out they need to actually finish what they start, not just turn every adventure into a 5 minute workday. That forces them to go through as many encounters as you want, without anything heavy handed like anti-magic zones.

If the party is generally evilish, just have the foes move elsewhere with whatever McGuffin they are looking for if they don't finish the job in one go.

Remember, the foes may have a few custom spells, like a version of Circle Dance (locates people, unlimited distance) that keys on objects, such as loot they take, thus bypassing common scrying protections like Mind Blank.

[Snowbluff]

A warlock healer/buffer/blaster (I don't need to much of this toon as it's actually played by myself and is only really there to keep the party alive... I planned in strengths and weaknesses from the start)

Is it a tsundere, kuudere, or yandere?

This party isn't that crazy. Swiftblades are my lazy option for opponents, because they have scaling miss chances that are hard to get around. The scout is easily tuned downwards with fortification. Chargers can be handled by higher HP amounts, better AC, or immediate action counter.

If you are a real jerk, get Friendly Fire as a spell. The Mailman should kill off your party after that.

[ramrod]

Some really good options that I hadn't considered (fortification... duh?), invisibility potions (nice way to get the casters to use their utility spells).


Always open to more ideas!

I've already put together a standard template that needs to be added to each creature to up their 'survivability'. Next step is to do the bit that I love doing and going through and cherrypicking out encounters to alter.

I like to have 10 or so different classes that I can drop in to occasional encounters. Roughly one special encounter per night where it is something that they have never seen before or forces the party to try a different angle and the rest as standard templated creatures.

Keep em coming :)

[ramrod]

I think one of the main issues I can't seem to find a way around other than providing hideously high saves is the psion's energy missile power (targets up to 5 enemies, no more than 15ft apart, can choose different damage types to alter effects or whether it is a reflex or fort to save).

It's not always easy to position enemies far enough apart and we have already run some basic combats... let's say that energy missile is the go to power...

[Belial_the_Leveler]

Eh, it's damage. Use an enemy with sufficiently high HP.


My favorite mid-level enemy is the Troll Were-Dire-Rhino. It has nearly 500 hp and is only CR 10.

[daremetoidareyo]

I think what you're missing is HEROIC ENEMIES. Throw some barbarian or elemental warrior levels on a few of those orcs and war chief on the one who not only lost a hand in battle but affixed a rust monster antennae whip graft onto the stump and uses a darkwood spear. Orcs buff each other and protect the injured guy who has some kind of 1/day heal dose. Put the smartest orc on the wyvern and make him do these stupid somersaults in the background, with the wyvern looping him in the air and catching him again unharmed. If the PCs make the hard spot check, theyll see that flying somersaulting orc was using a wand of baleful transposition in one hand and a poisoned knife in the other; at the apex of the jump as he is about to plummet back onto the wyvern like a whale trainer (secretly roll dice for the save) at sea world, then poof! and now the crusader is falling at a wyverns mouth while that orc is poison daggering your skirmisher with his war chief buff. That wyvern, if he doesn't land the bite just lets the crusader fall 90 feet to the ground as he then dives directly at the psion. The scariest orcs make excellent INTIMIDATE ROLLS against the weakest looking party members.

The orcs run away, at some point of the battle after poisoning a few pcs with attacks and wyvern stings and THEY SPLIT UP. ORCs are like velociraptors with thumbs and a degree from phoenix college online. They like to fight, so if they survived this long they have to use tactics.

They also made 3 different rondevue points depending on who survived the assault and they sneak and harass the PCs from the treelike a few more times and only directly attack when they have a mother elfin wyvern on their side. A wyvern so full of badassity that they made strap on mane of hair made from scalped dwarf beards. Which wouldn't be too remarkable if they hadn't also took time to draw cheesy fire down its neck with 2 different kinds of bioluminescent fungus like a 1957 chevy roadster

Then make 3 or 4 more custom groups like this and just keep them in your back pocket instead of random encounters. Find a way to weave them in as mercenaries for the module bad guys.

Insane mystic theurge DMM precocious apprentice who can't leave her house in the woods anymore because she made too many permanent greater invisible air breathing flying monstrous sized sharks, who are now swim/flying through your module airspace making bodies explode in torrents of blood.

Twin summoners (alternate class feature, no familiar for augmented summoning,) who each only use celestial & fiendish creatures...except for when they swap who is who. Danger in paradise: one of them just took a level in alienist while the other did not. They both have imbued summoning and they like to use eagles with jaws of the moray, or mirror imaged haboob. A wand of blockade 15 charges. They hang out a whisper knife/dread commando and an earth elemental with an earth weird parrot on his shoulder who can go ethereal at will from being geasd by an ifrit to fulfill an oath of protection on the twins. The twins have learned to cast engulfing horror near the earth elemental body guard, who then uses his hurl ally feat to throw them at the PCs.


The minotaur lion totem barbarian with illithid grafts and a simmering hatred for the drow (and the PCS) and his helm of opposite alignment +5 pixie who deeply loves him and his 2 loyal dire ostriches in masterwork barding made out of tanned drow-skin.

A single, very evil, factotum 6/ chameleon 10. Codename: The swiss knife. Lots of fonts of inspiration unless you have to blow a bunch of feats on earth spell extra spell for contingencies, and craft contingency. Write out all of your contingencies to see if the PCs can ever beat them.

if they are given enough time, let these harassing enemies maybe become friends and combine against the PCS.

If your PCs optimize like this, I would just throw the rules for xp based on combat encounters out the window and go with a standard xp progression. As DM, its best not be a slave to the book rules if the players are. Most PCS don't realize that they are capable of making the game so boring and no fun if they got everything that they want. They want to be challenged, that's why they prepared for everything, so you are left with the challenge of making them as bloody as john mcclane at the end of the first diehard movie.