Veeky Forums I fucked up...
My players have kicked every encounter I've thrown at them in the teeth, and despite my efforts to 'beef up' any monsters, I have hit a wall when it comes to making more monsters.
I don't know what to do to instill a little threat in them without killing them all off and ending the campaign. And I think the players know this, as they are getting ballsier and ballsier each session.
What can I do, Veeky Forums?
What wall?
Get creative and make a situation where failure isn't just dying.
Say, the stone obelisk with runes on it is sinking into lava. During the fight, someone better be taking turns to write down the runes before it submerges. Just, encounters where even if everyone is alive and all the monsters are dead, it's still possible to have "lost."
I don't want to make them too difficult, and risk killing them off, but making them 'balanced' according to the averages in the system makes them easily beatable.
I like that, user, but the party doesn't have much motivation aside from 'Gotta get the money!' - Each session I feel I'm struggling to make shit pertinent, but I suppose that's another thread in and of itself.
make it a glyph covered obelisk, that way the magic user has to see the writing, leaving the more balanced charactersto the fighting. The secret to every wizard having every spell ready is to overload them with simultanious tasks only they can do.
You track encounter hp behind a screen no? Use a little bit of DM fiat if you must.
What system is this? Tell us more.
System?
Setting?
Are your players minmaxers?
Do they browse Veeky Forums?
I'm here for you, user.
So it's just an open sandbox? No goal, no BBEG, no endgame? Maybe risking killing them off isn't so bad. Either way it'll keep things from getting stale and dragging on forever uneventfully. Mediocrity is worse than death.
I'm running Fantasy AGE, which doesn't have a bestiary, so I finagled a monster creation system. But while I'm sure it works with the averages, it like above, just creates paper tigers if I stay *at level*
The setting might as well be generic sci-fantasy, closer to fantasy than sci, but sprinkles of the latter.
My players are NOT min-maxers, which makes it all the more embarrassing. To add salt to the wound, they're newbies, so that might be why I'm coddling them a little bit, that and not wanting my campaign to end. Despite their passing interest at most.
They're not 4channers, so no biggie there.
They have a goal in that they're transporting someone in their airship, but aside from that, they're all worried about whatever is most profitable.
They're more than happy to do whatever I have planned during a session, they just wind up destroying it with little to no effort.
You do have a point about killing them though...
Sounds like you're just terribad at strategy. Even a lowly Kobold tribe should have your players take the necessary precautions. Don't just keep monsters in one place spamming attack, use strategies that intelligent creatures would use like
>one monster that looks alone and weak, "runs away" into an ambush
>environment activity like a spider crawling away into crevices or a stalagtite knocked down onto the party
>oil drums knocked over and set aflame
>geek the mage
>grappling archers and ranged attackers
Super simple shit like this turns a block of HP and XP into an actual challenge.
Depends on the system. Different systems are very different in terms of encounter balancing.
Stop coddling. End the "Tutorial Phase" dramatically.
Choose (Wisely!) the one that would best handle a death. Intro a new BBEG that targets this one person and hammers them to death.
After killing said character, have the newly-minted BBEG go into a speech that can be summed up as "HA! Fuck ya'll, come and get me if you dare!"
It lets them know shit's real and introduces a reason to do some non-murderhobo adventuring (Revenge!) and down the line you can slowly reveal the motivations behind the attack as part of a broader narrative.
Just my thoughts. Players often need a wake up call when they get used to winning in all scenarios.
Are you rolling behind a screen? You can fudge things a bit to make it harder, but still let them prevail.
Is the party balanced or overpowered for their level? You could try some sort of small level drain, have some equipment stolen or lost temporarily.
Are they just working well as a team? Look up Tucker's Kobolds. It's basically a team of non-threat Kobolds using traps, ambushes and tactics to take out a more power player party.
If you have their sheets you can just try to run through an encounter solo to get a feel for it's difficulty. Then adjust from there.
I will have to consider environment, actually, thank you user.
Fantasy AGE
Well, the situation is kinda strange. Sorry for the 'gamer story' but I guess I'll spill the details.
The players are a group of free traders who have an airship that are currently transporting a guy to a new continent.
They are the Capitan,
The Muscle
The Medic
And they have an NPC that is just background flavour, he doesn't do much combat-wise.
A surprise BBEG is a good idea, but I wonder if throwing it at them right next session might seem like a jerk in the wrong direction? But again I am asking for help so I doubt I know what I'm talking about.
I am behind a screen, but so are they (online game), but I trust them enough to not cheat.
They're not OP for their level, at least I think. But they are nuking monsters in 3 attacks. But inflating HP will only make encounters last longer not make them more challenging.
They don't do much in the way of teamwork, but they've only had at most 1 per member to deal with. Again that might be a solution in and of itself...
>They are the Capitan,
>The Muscle
>The Medic
Try tying up the muscle or medic in something so they can't help for a few turns. Maybe they fall down a hole and have to fight something solo before climbing out. Maybe they get strung up in a trap or caught up with a grappler.
>They don't do much in the way of teamwork, but they've only had at most 1 per member to deal with. Again that might be a solution in and of itself...
Yes...yes, that would go a long ways towards fixing your problem.
I bring up the surprise BBEG because I pulled that one in my first time GMing.
Also it sounds like a much larger mob of weaker enemies, using real tactics, might do for you. Teach them the hard way that closing ranks and applying some teamwork is going to become a necessity.
Mob tactics may indeed be the solution. But I am up for more suggestions. More cards in my deck are better than fewer.
And the surprise BBEG isn't a bad idea, I am considering breaking their ship instead of killing one of them, but that may not get the point across...
Have you just been throwing straight normal monsters at them with no specific strategy to be able to beat them?
Curve balls like invisible enemies. flying enemies. mimics that sneak into the party as a doppelganger so they have to figure out a safe way not to blast their friends PC. things immune to physical damage. things immune to certain elements. Things immune to everything but a certain element.
Something that's more of a challenge and requires them to figure out a puzzle instead of just roll dice until it dies.
Something like a massive slow dragon. It's has no claws or sharp teeth, so it can't hurt them that bad and they can keep running and dodging to easily avoid getting crushed... but it will chase them relentlessly with no chance of escape because it can just about keep u and it's starving so it really wants to eat them. It's thick hide stops swords and fireballs alike.
However, it's large scales and slow movement make it very mountable.
Passing easy dex / agility / strength tests to clime it's height of about 8 meters would let you onto it's back. There isn't much armor on the top of it's neck and a sword will easily penetrate the back of the neck between scale plates to severe it's spine. The dragon would try to roll and throw the climber off. had the party not been distracting this dragon's more simple mind.
The local town will pay handsomely to been rid of this pest that has bothered local trade routes.
Just an example of what you can work with to make a fight a puzzle instead of just a fight with stats.
You obviously need to ratchet up the difficulty, but you're not obligated to kill them. You can give them a saving throw of sorts when they would otherwise be dead. Or you could just choose have them be incapacitated rather than dead.
adding to a bit:
>But again I am asking for help so I doubt I know what I'm talking about
Some non-system specific GMing advice might be a help with this. A bit of google-fu and a visit to the PDF threads can get you loads of reading on engaging players and constructing a narrative. A bit of reading can work wonders as far as building the confidence to GM like a boss.
adapt tucker's kobolds. laugh at their quick and painful deaths.
I like this idea, I may steal it, but obviously change it a bit to fit the setting. Puzzle bosses always are alluring, but the fact that players might not 'get it' is where I start to worry.
I like this concept, the system has a sort of 'bleed-out' system, perhaps I should stop worrying and learn to lean on that just a bit.
I have downloaded so many PDFs, I suppose reading them should be on my list of shit to do, haha.
Tempting! But I want my stupid campaign to live on. Which I guess is meaningless if there's no threat of failure...
If they're doing lots of things people are likely to have heard of them. If they're doing lots of helpful things people are going to want to reward them.
Give them something open ended like some land. Have people hear about it and consider migrating to it to live under their protection. Let them improve it how they want, whether than means walls and towers, windmills, schools, or a portal to a pocket dimension with a "No Bad Guys Allowed" sign out front.
Thank you anons for pointing me in the right direction, by the way. I appreciate any more thoughts/efforts, but I think I have a good idea of where to go from here.
More involved encounters
Environmental hazards
Introducing a flavoured villain that they can go 'Grr, fuck that guy' at
Looking at the inspirational pdfs I've downloaded however many times over.
Plotting *encounters* instead of *fights*
Thank you again, anons!
Have goblins run away with the dungeon's treasure then. The challenge isn't in killing them or avoiding death: it's in not letting them get away as they dash into an unexplored and trapped part of the dungeon!
There are plenty of ways to make encounters exciting in nontraditional ways.
No no, you're right. I just need to consider this as well. If anything I need to get a good grasp of my party's intentions and wants.
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You're welcome to use something like that.
If they don't get it, there needs to be hints in your description. You can be a teacher who expands there minds into seeing new tactics and thinking outside the box for encounters. It will make them better players going forward.
When I used to play, we'd always ask observation questions about what we were fighting and the environment before we took any action.
One last thing I'll add, along the lines of Encounter v. Fight: Try planning encounters that have non-combat RP solutions. A larger reward for solving it without resorting to violence can be a good thing.
Maybe even an "oh shit..." moment afterwards if they go straight to the gun to show off what they could have had if they said "Hello" instead of *BLAM*
Good point.
Also good point! I'll have to remember that as well.