Fodder for a campaign

Magrus · Post by **Magrus** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 8:39 am

I'm curious, do you prefer hordes of low level creatures to deal with, or small groups of challenging opponents in and encounter? Why if there's a reason?

Oskatat · Post by **Oskatat** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 9:05 am

umm, both

By 'tweaking' a horde of goblins, giving them a real plan instead of just rushing in and getting slaughtered they are far more challenging, and interesting!
On the other hand, a small band of hardened adventurers , or even just one, can make a nice surprise by using unique and creative strategies or just by being brute strength

Magrus · Post by **Magrus** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 9:13 am

*nods* I like having to face off against an equal and see who's better.

Also, while there's always the satisfaction of being able to wipe out a horde of lesser beings without breaking a sweat, it can become interesting when that horde ends up prepared for you and turns the tables on you.

I'm trying to reason out how to work out the encounter's in my campaign since it's being done in pieces because of timing. So far, I just break off those involved with the encounter and go by section, but that's far from realistic.

I set it up so that the encounter's I've made were planned to include a party working together, not half of the party at a time. I'm torn between weakening the enemies, or detracting number's of enemies at the moment in general to make it so there will be more encounter's just in case someone's playing and decides to clear out an encounter while everyone else is gone and move the party along into a new one.

Either way works, but I've no true DM experience, and this isn't working out to be a "party" on most occasion's. It's more of individual one-on-group situation's with the occasional group effort which calls for revising the campaign to make things more balanced I'm thinking.

Rob-hin · Post by **Rob-hin** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 9:23 am

Do one, or the other and rotate them.

What I do is this; I pick an idea for an combat and work on that.
I'll take an example out of the quest I'm preparing.

Spolier for my players, so stop reading here!

In my quest, they will go after a bad of robbers.
First, they will fight a small army of these low level critters. It wouldn't be a cool gang if there were more in this context. After they have done this, they will fight the boss of the opperation in another combat not to much later, we will just have 1 other high level guardian.

So there I worked in both idea's, many low levels and few high levels, but in different fights.

Trouble with just a few high level enemies is the fact that they can easily kill 1 of the characters since he will be likely to do high amounts of damage. Low level character are more easily spreaded around all characters and thus spreading the damage around.

Magrus · Post by **Magrus** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 9:29 am

[QUOTE=Rob-hin]Trouble with just a few high level enemies is the fact that they can easily kill 1 of the characters since he will be likely to do high amounts of damage.[/QUOTE]

I noticed that one, the way I have it now, if the player's don't use everything they have in an intelligent, crafty manner they've gotten hurt pretty badly with one encounter of creatures close to their level. If they play things smart and apply their strengths and prepare, they defeat them fairly easily with a bit of effort and time.

Any thoughts on what to do with the situation of having a party that never gets to truly work as a group, but ends up working as individuals? I've considering changing things with the plot, but then if the group gets together to play, the plot might keep them apart so they won't be together anyways.

Ripe · Post by **Ripe** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 9:54 am

By giving goblins (or kobolds) a swarmfighting feat you can stuff four of them into same 5' space (becase they are small creatures) and each one of them would get +3 morale bonus on attack so they could actualy do some damage.

Like Rob-Hin and Magrus have said having a lot of higher level oponents can cause death of 1, or if they do something stupid (like casting age creature spell on a dragon), even more characters so I had to be carefull in mixing both types of encounter.

Magrus · Post by **Magrus** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 9:59 am

*laughs* Oh, I don't know what I'd do if a player aged one of my dragon's on me. That calls for the dragon to be amused and toy with them I think.

Hmm, I'll have to adjust the campaign and the enemies goals and ideals a bit to accomodate some changes I think. Won't be too hard I don't believe, simply an alteration and pulling up some stats. That's a good idea with the kobolds/goblins.

Mr.Waesel · Post by **Mr.Waesel** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 8:29 am

Lots of small ones are easier than a few big ones. So lots of small ones.

Oskatat · Post by **Oskatat** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 10:29 am

who says so? 1 big guy more difficult? Have you ever encountered a swarm of stirges?
They are hard to spot, so area spells will affect allies too. swatting one gives you 2 more flying in, and you can only swat one (or a few more) at a time. Finally, they dont do much damage, they suck blood.
Consider them grappling all the time => penalty to anyone else but you who attacks them. One hitting on you aint that bad, but 4 to 5 drain you dry, however strong you are.
Further, if its 1 opponent, crittical hit is not likely. But a group of 20 will almost certainly have one.
So a lot of CR 1/2 critters hit pretty hard.

AarronIkarus · Post by **AarronIkarus** » Fri Jun 17, 2005 7:18 am

Many years ago, there was an article in the Dragon Magazine that asked the question, "What's more difficult, one 1000HD monster or a thousand 1HD monster?" The two people discussing it decided to find out. Oddly enough, it turned out to be a fairly even match. If it weren't for a bad decision by the smaller critters, they would have won.

Cuchulain82 · Post by **Cuchulain82** » Fri Jun 17, 2005 7:53 am

IMO, it depends alot about the situation, but a similar argument can always be made for PCs. I think of it in the context of BGII. On the off chance that everyone here doesn't know BGII, it uses 2nd ed rules for up to 6 characters in a party. Obviously, the fewer character you have, the faster you level each character. So, some people prefer having 2 or 3 characters of higher level.

However, at a certain point, I think that the sheer volume of attacks that multiple characters/enemies generate can be more dangerous than a few attacks by a very skilled attacker.

Mr.Waesel · Post by **Mr.Waesel** » Fri Jun 17, 2005 2:44 pm

[QUOTE=Oskatat]who says so? 1 big guy more difficult? Have you ever encountered a swarm of stirges?[/QUOTE]

Yeah, Stirges are an exception because of that nasty con drain. However, no amount of war1 orcs will ever be a CR 20 encounter.

AarronIkarus: That article is a load of horsecrap. Unless the 1HD monster all had triple-digit ability score, or the DM is being very liberal with the aid another rules, they can't even hit anything.

Oskatat · Post by **Oskatat** » Fri Jun 17, 2005 2:57 pm

in 1000 attacks, an average of 50 are hits (rolling 20), 2.5 of which are crittical. 1 hit of 50d8 or 50 times 1d8, whats the difference?

Also, keep in mind wasted damage. a 1000hd creature hit by a fighter for 30 damage takes it all. A 1 hd creature will splatter, but 35 of the damage has been quite uselesslyspilled

AarronIkarus · Post by **AarronIkarus** » Sun Jun 19, 2005 8:17 am

Keep in mind, Mr. Waesel, they were also using 1st ed rules. Things may have been different then. Also, Oskatat brings up a good point. A 1000HD monster, unles he is by some fluke very small, will be subjected to multiple attacks, whereas his thousand 1HD opponents will be subject to five at most. Just by sheer attrition I think the smaller creatures would win. Particularly if they were intelligent creatures like orcs ofr some other humanoid type.

Rob-hin · Post by **Rob-hin** » Sun Jun 19, 2005 1:02 pm

Larger CR monsters can have multiple attacks, area of affect attacks and other feats like that.
Say a dragon does a tail swepp, he knows down many attackers. Also, damage reduction can make all the difference.

Oskatat · Post by **Oskatat** » Sun Jun 19, 2005 1:24 pm

So, in the end, it balances pretty good. Just need enough of the critters

Rudar Dimble · Post by **Rudar Dimble** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 1:58 am

I prefer to use about 5 to 6 low CR critters to take away some resources of the PC's. The higher CR creatures are safely waiting to join the fight the moment the PC's are low on resources.

This is off course when the baddies expect the PC's, otherwise this tactic wouldn't be very credible.

Oskatat · Post by **Oskatat** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 3:43 am

Kobolds are excelent defensive critters, as they surround their layr with traps. Killing the Kobolds may be easy, but those inventive traps (responsibility of DM) make it a hell of a job to get there

Trap idea: second trap encountered: make a silly trap (search and disarm around 10-15). Make the real trap be triggered by disarming the first (High DC, some damage). It is possible you know