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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Orc in the Playground
     
    OrcBarbarianGuy

    Join Date
    Dec 2013
    Location
    Western Spiral Arm
    Gender
    Male

    Question DM Help PaO issues

    SO I'm am running a campaign and the players have just hit 15-17th and are abusing PaO and shapechange to a lesser extent. I already tried to neuter them at the start of the game, (no spells or spell like abilities) but they are still just totally out of hand. On character as a horned devil has a 62 ac and his already insanely good saves are basically in the not a 1 realm now. As of right now I'm tempted to just hit them with disjunction in the next boss fight, but is there perhaps a less over the top way to deal with these spells. In my future games I will just cut the entire polymorph line lesson learned I supose.

  2. - Top - End - #2
    Bugbear in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jul 2014

    Default Re: DM Help PaO issues

    What do you expect at level 15+? There's a lot more than the polymorph line that will make the party crazy powerful.

    Anything that the party uses, the bad guys can use too. Disjunction is an entirely valid option too. It's high level, play high level.

  3. - Top - End - #3
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    Goblin

    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Here
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: DM Help PaO issues

    Quote Originally Posted by Hurnn View Post
    SO I'm am running a campaign and the players have just hit 15-17th and are abusing PaO and shapechange to a lesser extent. I already tried to neuter them at the start of the game, (no spells or spell like abilities) but they are still just totally out of hand. On character as a horned devil has a 62 ac and his already insanely good saves are basically in the not a 1 realm now. As of right now I'm tempted to just hit them with disjunction in the next boss fight, but is there perhaps a less over the top way to deal with these spells. In my future games I will just cut the entire polymorph line lesson learned I supose.
    I have the same problem, although mine's not nearly as bad. I've recently gotten into the habit of calculating their APL according to the Monster Creation Chart. So my level 17 ubercharger's mount has a series of attacks all his own which amount to a CR 25 creature, the Mounts AC is around a Cr 22, and his saves are around a CR 15.
    Cr25+CR22+Cr15 = 32. Divide 32 by 3 and you find out that his basic hyjinx of attacks and defenses are around a CR 20.5 creature.

    (The stats I used to figure it out was "Average HP, AC, Saves, Average Total Damage if all their attacks hit and don't crit, and the DCs of any special abilities they had.

    I've done this to all my players, and their pets. (Yes, I'm including all my pc's pets as part of the APL), after adding it all up and dividing by the total number of players and their pets, the total APL comes out to a CR20.

    So now, I start the +4/-4 APL at 20 for them. If they encounter a really difficult fight, it's a CR 24. if it's a rather easy fight it's between 16-20.

    Before I came up with these statistics, my party was at at most fighting CR21 for their hardest encounters and breezing through them. And that's why - because even though the entire party was all level 17, their "actual" level was far higher. A CR 21 fight was just a +1 CR than an "average" fight for them.

    Prepare all your encounters according to their "actual" level and you'll have no problem.

    If you really wanted to be a sneaky DM - give them XP according to the total number of assets in their party (in other words, treat each pet participating in the battle as though they grabbed XP as well, and give the party the remainder to divide). This will stop them from hyper leveling, since they'd be getting an influx of XP and possibly the game would scale faster than you want it to.
    Last edited by Nibbens; 2015-11-24 at 04:58 PM.
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  4. - Top - End - #4
    Titan in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Lima, Peru
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: DM Help PaO issues

    I ban Polymorph explicitly from my games, because at 7th level a wizard should not be AS abusive as he will be in a few more.

    All other spells, however, are fair game.

    In fact, my party is at the 14-15th level range, with a bunch of clerics and wizards. The conjurer plans to Maze people once he hits the 15th level mark.

    Go nuts, they earned it.

    And as stated above, if the party can use it, so can the NPCs they fight.

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