Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

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Gundoggy
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Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

Post by Gundoggy »

I was thinking of new ways of making groups of weak monsters/npc's challenging. By coincidence I was reading Axe of the Dwarvish Lords and noted they had all kinds of neat rules for volley fire, shield walls, spear/pike walls, coordinated attacks. These typically use the concept of having a group of monsters fight as a unit, each additional monster gives +1 to hit, unit has 1 attack with -2 on initiative. Spear walls keep back players, exposing to multiple attacks. Volley arrow fire does automatic damage to people caught in it. I liked what I read, it was actually a lot more deadlier than what I had in mind.

My ideas included:

1. Surrounding PC, negating shield, back attack bonus, allowing additional attackers to give one of their number a bonus to hit.
2. Mob grappling of PC's.
3. Grappling the shield arm...negating shield and giving others a +2 to hit as the PC is impeded in movement.
4. using a form of weapon vs. armor penalties. This would make swinging swords less efficient vs. heavier plate armors, however by using half swording they could poke at chinks in armor, (less penalty but less damage...1d4 or 1d6). This is based on historical accounts. This also makes NPC's in armor a challenge even to high level PC's.
5. Giving grapplers a bonus to strike grappled opponent with daggers.
6. If grappled to ground, attack vs. prone bonus.

The basic aim is to make large mobs able to whittle you down rather than just easy kills that can never hit you. Fighters with multiple attacks, especially at higher levels with shield bash would still mow through the mobs, reducing their attack efficiency before killing them all.

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mmbutter
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Re: Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

Post by mmbutter »

How's about the low level guys hired someone to train them in combat tactics? Having the mob using decent tactics can be devastating for the PC party, even if they're low level.

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Re: Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

Post by Omote »

One way that I make hordes of low-level enemies more powerful is turn them into swarms. I use the Summon Swarm spell as a template. For example, a swarm of kobolds doesn't normally have to roll to hit. If the swarm encounters the party, it could literally surround them inflicting automatic damage every round. Actually, 3E had a neat idea in making a swarm a "template" monster. You just pop in the stats from the creature, modify with the template, and you have a whole new easy way for low-level enemies to swarm the party and actually matter.

The other thing I do is, sometimes I give low-level threats maximum HP, one auto-hit per round, one max damage per round, etc. You can also give your standard orc out of the M&T levels of fighter, wizard, monk, etc. Just use the monster as is in the M&T, and add all of the class benefits as you would to a PC.

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Re: Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

Post by Snoring Rock »

Ok, so you have a dungeon full of goblins? I roll from the M&T and you get 20-200 in a lair. I find I get 170 goblins. It also states I get 1 goblins in ten with better AC and I give them maximum HP.

So now I have 170 goblins hp3 each, ac14, 17 goblins hp6 each, ac16, +2 BtH and then throw in 3 goblin sub-chiefs hp12 each, ac17, +4 BtH and a goblin king hp26, ac18, +5 BtH and a low level +1 weapon.

They get set up in groups per the M&T of 2-12 each. The deeper in the dungeon you go the tougher it gets. Level 1 typical encounter is 4 goblins as above. Level 2: 6 goblins and a leader as above. Level 3: 8 goblins, 2 leaders and a sub-chief as above. Then on level 4: king, 30 goblins and a few sub-chiefs for battle royale...

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Jyrdan Fairblade
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Re: Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

Post by Jyrdan Fairblade »

I think the biggest issue you have to deal with is hitting the PCs, and you’ve got some good ideas there. Another thing to look out for are those big area of effect spells – definitely focus missile fire on casters to disrupt fireballs, or make sure that the close quarters will mean collateral damage to the party.

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Re: Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

Post by serleran »

Ranged attacks, medium attacks that incapacitate (nets, man-catchers, walls of burning oil, etc), and large numbers doing grappling / overbearing.

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Re: Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

Post by Arduin »

Jyrdan Fairblade wrote:I think the biggest issue you have to deal with is hitting the PCs,
You just overbear and swarm when you have 7-8 per PC. At that point there is really nothing the PCs can do except area effect spells or flee.

Once your PC is pinned, a 1 HD creature can slit his throat.
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Re: Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

Post by Go0gleplex »

Traps. I nearly TPK'd a party of eight 6th lvl PC's with only 11 kobolds in less than 10 rooms (and associated parallel tunnels with murder holes). Hit and run attacks from prepared positions. Essentially. Run the monsters with the intelligence they're supposed to have.
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Re: Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

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Go0gleplex wrote:Traps. I nearly TPK'd a party of eight 6th lvl PC's with only 11 kobolds in less than 10 rooms (and associated parallel tunnels with murder holes). Hit and run attacks from prepared positions. Essentially. Run the monsters with the intelligence they're supposed to have.
Yep. You can devastate a party with something as simple as 20 orc archers up a very steep wooded hillside overlooking a road. Kill the spell casters while the meat shields struggle to get to you at all.
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Re: Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

Post by Julian Grimm »

Good ideas. I also add in things like veterans, commanders and such to bump them up. In an encounter with 15 orcs I would have three veterans, one commander and a possible warchief to make them tougher. The breakdown looks like this:

10 Normal Orcs as in M&T

3 Veteran orcs with 2HD a +2 to damage and +2 to AC

1 Commander with 3HD a +2 to damage and magical armor or weapons.

1 Warchief of 4+ HD, +3 to damage and magical armor and weapons.

Depending on the party and what is leading the orcs they may have stronger tactics, better morale and other variables to consider.

I like the above idea with the Goblins and would add in Veterans, Commanders and such along with the given chiefs, sub-chiefs and shamans. I would also add in things like support staff in the way of Kobolds bound to serve the goblins, wargs for mounts and giant rats and beetles for food sources. Of course there would be traps guarding key areas, alarms and the varied trick.

With that, a higher level party would have a challenge facing a dungeon that they would use for a base. While it seems basic I have used this before and it works well.
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Re: Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

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Arduin wrote:
Go0gleplex wrote:Traps. I nearly TPK'd a party of eight 6th lvl PC's with only 11 kobolds in less than 10 rooms (and associated parallel tunnels with murder holes). Hit and run attacks from prepared positions. Essentially. Run the monsters with the intelligence they're supposed to have.
Yep. You can devastate a party with something as simple as 20 orc archers up a very steep wooded hillside overlooking a road. Kill the spell casters while the meat shields struggle to get to you at all.

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Re: Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

Post by serleran »

Oh, one other thing... superior tech / magic. Perhaps not all of them, but maybe the weaklings have some kind of drums of war, which when pounded, gives their allies a +X bonus not unlike that a knight can bestow. Plus, they have standards of blood which, while seen, bestow some amount of furor and vitality, making them function temporarily as +Y HD.

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Re: Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

Post by alcyone »

Like any D&D game, the most powerful game mechanic piece is the turn or action. If it was chess, it would be worth a queen or at least a rook. For monsters, that is usually an attack. While there are a few rules that let the PCs get multiple actions or attacks, they don't scale against monsters that outnumber them, especially if they have a fair chance to hit, stun, or otherwise thwart the PCs. So, while it might seem vanilla and lame, every monster you add to an encounter adds an action to the enemy side. Every time you use all of the attacks the monster can use, you are greatly increasing the monster's chances. Any time the monsters can remove an action from the PCs, with attacks to hold or stun the PCs, they are more powerful.

As long as the monsters are capable of affecting the PCs from where they are, actions trump almost anything else. To make the monsters very powerful, make them tie up the cleric so they can't do anything but heal and remove effects so they never get to contribute to the combat and have to spend precious actions trying to get from one end of the battlefield to the other.

So:

- Add more monsters (naturally, this only helps if the monsters are already tough enough to affect a PC in some way. 1000 goblins can't kill a dragon unless they can possibly beat the AC.)
- Use all of the monster's attacks the rules let them have
- Make the monsters take actions away from the PCs
- Make the monsters force the PCs to take actions that don't contribute to the monster side taking a loss
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Re: Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

Post by Julian Grimm »

I played around with creating a good sized tribe of goblins last night and came up with this:

A tribe of 215 total goblins that break down like so*:

187 foot soldiers

21 elites ( 4th level fighters x7, 3rd level fighters x14)

2 Chieftains (3rd level fighters)

1 King ( 6th level fighter)

4 Shamans ( 5th level cleric, 2nd level clerics x3)

1 Assassin (5th level)

10 Wargs

Now that is just off the entry in M&T with some variation. Going from there I would also include my above mentioned food sources (giant rats, beetles and such) to beef up monsters if needed. As far as the lair goes I would have them spread over three levels with the lowest holding the king, one chieftain, the higher level cleric, and the seven elites of 4th level. The assassin, lower shamans and 3rd level elites would be spread over the three levels but stay mostly on the first two. Of course there would be various traps, defensive positions and other things all over the complex. As for weapon and item load out, the special units would have the majority of the masterwork and magical stuff as well as better positions to fight from.

Given the spread and if the party raided the lair while everyone was at home; I don't think I would run this for any less than 4 PCs of 5th level or so. Even then I would expect losses to the party. Tweaking this a bit you could also add a wizard or cleric that is controlling them, ogres for muscle and maybe a squad of elite orcs to help with defense.

If nothing else this was a fun exercise.


* I did not include non-combatants like young, females or slaves given that goblinoids in my game use a more LOTR style breeding scheme. If you did include them I would adjust the number of the whole tribe by 150-200%.
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Re: Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

Post by seskis281 »

Just FYI - Dispel Magic makes a powerful party very vulnerable to a horde of Orcs for several rounds....
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Re: Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

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seskis281 wrote:Just FYI - Dispel Magic makes a powerful party very vulnerable to a horde of Orcs for several rounds....
Depends. After it is cast PC's can cast new spells. So, it will (possibly) suppress magic items in the area of effect. The Int check is against the level of magic user that created the items though...
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Re: Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

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Have a commander or warlock or Shaman be smart enough to know or use a spell to know "who is the cleric and who is the spell caster" 20 archers all aim at the mage first and fire at that character only until they are down, then move to the Cleric as he/she rushes to save the mage. That wall of arrows need not land too many.. try paralysis or sleep poison on them.. also mass fire of arrows does not allow affective arrow by arrow defense.. With the spell caster and cleric down and out the fighters have to think twice about what to do.. same smart leader speaks the party language and says, "You want antidote for deadly poison? You surrender X gold or they die even if you defeat us.. antidote is three part, must be mixed in right two amounts or it poison so you can't just take it". Also, once the PC is out, tape their mouth shut since their PC is out, they cannot ask for help or make suggestions to other players. Sometimes taking out the party "thinker" in the player and giving them the gag rule is enough to swing the whole tide and it gives other the chance to lead...

Green Slime in rough blown glass balls, try lobbing a few of those into the ranks of the fighters. Kobold's are famous glass makers after all and clever little buggers... ;}
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Re: Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

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Brown mold in glass balls suspended in flasks of oil set as moltov cocktails works a nasty trick as well.
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Re: Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

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Shambling mounds being led by electric eel leashes. After casting plant growth.

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Re: Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

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Sword breaker, a fighting pair or individual who work together or alone to attack the sword itself to break it. Not sure how effective, how CnC runs that, but break you're fighter's long sword and the fight changes a bit..
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Re: Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

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Rust Monsters and Intellect Devourers.
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Re: Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

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Captain_K wrote:Not sure how effective, how CnC runs that, but break you're fighter's long sword and the fight changes a bit..
About as effective as it was historically. Not very. The reality is (as anyone who fenced much knows) it is difficult to target a sword blade for two main reasons:
1) it is small and very fast
2) while you are trying to hit that small, very fast target, the swordsman is gutting a MUCH larger and slower target. YOU.
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Re: Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

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Captain_K wrote:Have a commander or warlock or Shaman be smart enough to know or use a spell to know "who is the cleric and who is the spell caster" 20 archers all aim at the mage first and fire at that character only until they are down, then move to the Cleric as he/she rushes to save the mage. That wall of arrows need not land too many.. try paralysis or sleep poison on them.. also mass fire of arrows does not allow affective arrow by arrow defense.. With the spell caster and cleric down and out the fighters have to think twice about what to do.. same smart leader speaks the party language and says, "You want antidote for deadly poison? You surrender X gold or they die even if you defeat us.. antidote is three part, must be mixed in right two amounts or it poison so you can't just take it". Also, once the PC is out, tape their mouth shut since their PC is out, they cannot ask for help or make suggestions to other players. Sometimes taking out the party "thinker" in the player and giving them the gag rule is enough to swing the whole tide and it gives other the chance to lead...

... ;}
I like that, but I'd use things like that with a pinch of salt. To much will put off the party.

Also, sadly most parties don't use good tactics themselves, so if the monsters use halfway good tactics most of the time you will wallop the part more than you need to.

But I do like the gag idea for the one you take out, I'd go crazy if you did that to me/my paladin !
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Re: Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

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We never really worried about spell casters too much. A simple silence spell on a couple stones which were then thrown around the enemy caster(s) pretty much took care of them since most spells have vocal component requirements. That went for wands and such with command words as well.
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Re: Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

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Psionic flying monkeys.

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Re: Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

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Go0gleplex wrote:We never really worried about spell casters too much. A simple silence spell on a couple stones which were then thrown around the enemy caster(s) pretty much took care of them since most spells have vocal component requirements. That went for wands and such with command words as well.
Why didn't the numbskulls just move out of the area of effect? Would figure that any decently trained spell caster would do that automatically.
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Re: Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

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Arduin wrote:
Go0gleplex wrote:We never really worried about spell casters too much. A simple silence spell on a couple stones which were then thrown around the enemy caster(s) pretty much took care of them since most spells have vocal component requirements. That went for wands and such with command words as well.
Why didn't the numbskulls just move out of the area of effect? Would figure that any decently trained spell caster would do that automatically.
Like I said. We used several stones. And they usually covered most of the area that was available. It wasn't that they weren't trying to move out of the AoE, it was because they couldn't move out of the AoE. We had several military folks in our group so tactics and such were used and enforced. :D
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Re: Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

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Go0gleplex wrote:
Arduin wrote:
Go0gleplex wrote:We never really worried about spell casters too much. A simple silence spell on a couple stones which were then thrown around the enemy caster(s) pretty much took care of them since most spells have vocal component requirements. That went for wands and such with command words as well.
Why didn't the numbskulls just move out of the area of effect? Would figure that any decently trained spell caster would do that automatically.
Like I said. We used several stones. And they usually covered most of the area that was available.
Not in an outdoor setting.
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Re: Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

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Go0gleplex wrote:
Arduin wrote:
Go0gleplex wrote:We never really worried about spell casters too much. A simple silence spell on a couple stones which were then thrown around the enemy caster(s) pretty much took care of them since most spells have vocal component requirements. That went for wands and such with command words as well.
Why didn't the numbskulls just move out of the area of effect? Would figure that any decently trained spell caster would do that automatically.
Like I said. We used several stones. And they usually covered most of the area that was available. It wasn't that they weren't trying to move out of the AoE, it was because they couldn't move out of the AoE. We had several military folks in our group so tactics and such were used and enforced. :D

If I am in full on evil CK mode my higher level casters have things like meat shields, elite bodyguards, items, artifacts and raw spell power ready at the get-go. One of the best things I did was have one bait a party in with them thinking he had a few goblin guards. Then came the higher level monsters, and the discovery he had a lot of magic already in effect. As they thought they broke through the ranks he had a surprise or two in store when he signaled his real bodyguards in while gating in a demon or two. Said demons gated in more demons, spells were thrown, and a disjunction spell or two came out.

Said party retreated never to bother said wizard again. :lol:
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Re: Making weak monsters challenging for high level parties.

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Outdoors we had things like entangle and stone to mud...and could let loose with the heavy artillery stuff without worrying about blow back unless we were in a town....though a couple times we didn't care and took out the town also since the populace was fully corrupted.


I've never been able to go full on evil GM mode. Have a bad enough rep as a killer GM as it is and none of my players have ever been able to handle it. :(
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