As a DM: I need some input on encounters [MY PLAYERS STAY OUT]

[Nytemare3701]

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Lockdown: 6 Arms, Meteor Hammer, Has levels in Shield Guardian.
Flies, Burrows, has 15 foot reach, and is able to continuously lock down 3-4 creatures per turn.
Mailman: Capable of doing up to 130 damage if given 3 rounds to charge his spells.
Pretty much untouchable by melee since the Lockdown has him marked as his "Charge"
Turn/Healbot: Can turn up to 8HD creatures, and has a fuckload of turn attempts.
Passive player, generally more willing to cast cantrips in combat than actually blow a spell slot.
Aurawhore: Wilder with a bunch of passive auras. The party almost always goes first.
He's a puppeteer, so he's ALMOST untouchable.
The Corpse: Revolving door of characters.
Not actually a skillmonkey anymore, but he seems to be afraid of math and attracted to monks and singleclassing.

The Campaign Setting and General Plot.

The Problem:
If the enemy is 3 or less creatures: Lockdown and shoot it. It's not going anywhere.
If the enemy is 4 or more creatures: Greater turning.

The solutions so far:
Swarms are immune to half the party, and are able to hit the Puppeteer. They aren't very satisfying encounters though, since flat immunities make for boring fights.
High HD groups are effective, but there's only so many high HD low CR undead.
Ranged Attackers are an option, but the ratio to Intelligent/Unintelligent undead isn't too favorable for this.
Turn Resistance helps, but it is kind of a slap in the face to the second weakest person in the party.
Incorporeal Undead don't actually help, since the lockdown's weapon is ghost-touch.

EDIT:I'll try to be more clear this time around: I'm looking for single mechanics or base creature abilities that works well against the listed party, while NOT requiring an intelligent Team Monster. Deflect attack works great, as it's a single ability that I can stick on any creature and entirely shut down or hamper certain mechanics. The barghest has invisibility and blink on a bruiser, so he bypasses 90% of the party. These things are good.

Note: 90% of the encounters don't have an enemy leader. They are the byproduct of the plot mechanic. As the story ramps up, there will be quite a few more planned encounters with real enemies. What I'm having a problem with right now is the mindless hordes and random encounter undead.

[BearsAreBrown]

Get 'em with environment. High ground, surround, etc. Also consider the weakness to hit and run tactics combined with the above.

Check this and sort by either CR or HD undead.

[Mithril Leaf]

Carrion eating/death loving outsiders.
A CR 9 Greater Barghest has 18 HD and 207 HP. Not great, but also unoptimized. http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/barghest.htm
Read this:
http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=578

[linklord231]

Incorporeal undead using mole tactics?  Ie, a Shadow with Spring Attack hides underground, pops up, deals his Str damage, then pops back down.
A cleric leader using the "bolster undead" option to prevent immediate turning, but who can be targeted first in order to kill him and then turn the minions?
A dispel focused dude to keep the mailman in check?
A guy to lock down the lockdown (big creature, trip attacks, grappling, etc), while minions hassle the others?
A bard with the feat that lets you Inspire undead?

[bruceleeroy]

I second the shadow spring attacking idea. A desecrated area with an altar can provide them with an easy +2 to hit so their touch attack goes up to +5, I'm sure you could find another effect or spell or somesuch to help with that. Remember that concealment defeats AoOs, so any smoke or magical darkness can ruin the lockdown guy's day. At CR 3, you can throw a dozen shadows at the group at once, maybe with a greater or two mixed in. +5 incorporeal touch is nothing to shake a stick at, especially if you have the shadows make a hide check (while in the ground) to be considered invisible against their opponents until attacking. That's another +2 to-hit. +7 incorporeal touch vs. flat-footed means you're basically going up against any deflection or sacred modifiers.

Shadows are easy enough to kill that the encounter can be a satisfying series of 'splodey-monsters for the PCs, while still being able to inflict terrible strength damage if they concentrate on a single target. If the group uses sheltered vitality, throw in a mummy with a few dispel magics attacking from a distance.

[Nytemare3701]

Carrion eating/death loving outsiders.
A CR 9 Greater Barghest has 18 HD and 207 HP. Not great, but also unoptimized. http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/barghest.htm
Read this:
http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=578

I like the Barghests. I was already using Entropic Reapers as Agents of Nerull, sent to properly reap the dead, now I can add Barghests to that pool of monsters.

As for the guide you linked. I'm the author of that guide's cousin, the Monster Tactics Handbook. I know how to build an encounter, I just need the base monsters.

[Captnq]

Okay...

1) Why? Answers that jump to mind.

Bad Luck - This is a catch all. It involves really bad luck. Someone gets hit in the head with a meteor. Your PC's favorite Ultimate Weapon fell out of his pocket. There is usually no one behind it, it's just an accident. However, the PC may not KNOW there's no one behind it, and several red herrings can lead him to believe it was anyone from his arch rival to the paper boy.

Bug Hunt - Pick something to be the Bug. Have the players hunt and kill it.

Conspiracy - Two or more antagonists get together and do something to threaten the PCs. The PCs are typically the enemy of the status quo. Those in charge hate change.

Escape - Confine the players in a dangerous situation. Let them try to get free. This could range from escape from a city, the undead, or madness.

Rescue - The counterpart to escape. Someone else is stuck and the PC's need to go in and get them.

Siege - Many, Many, Many low level scum to die in droves.


2) Mood? You got three answers here.

Grim - Life sucks, it's always raining, and you got a hole in your shoe. Nothing has any color. Stack the cards against the players, but only in a cosmetic sense. Things end poorly UNLESS the players work hard to make sure it doesn't.

Horror - Beyond grim, there is Horror. The PCs have a slight chance to win, but if they break even, they should be happy. Evil is out there; it's older, more powerful, and its got the edge. Big Evil is typical and frequently the players Cannot Win. But, they can hold off the coming of the Final Night. They can hold out another day, and where there is life, there is hope. Tentacles are a must.

Unrelenting Nastiness - Ewwwww... Hit the player's right off the bat, HARD. Keep them off balance. Deplete their resources, nickel and dime them to death. Everybody is evil. Your old school teacher you liked so much? He's in jail for being a cannibal. They can't win. They can't break even. They can't quit the game. BUT, they can get a Pyrric victory. They just might be able to take the bad guy with them. The best the players should hope for is to make sure Nobody Wins and that they get out Alive. Usually, it's one or the other. NOTE: Most players will hate you, they came to have FUN and relax - not to struggle this hard. Find out if this is their kind of fun BEFORE you run it.


3) Theme? Got some suggestions here:

Foreshadowing - This is basically when you include something in the adventure eerily on that tells the players what might happen in the future. I'd have the stars move around alot and make wierd shapes all the time as the necromatic energies of the world shift around.

Symbolism - This is where you use symbols to represent things. Pick some shapes to keep popping up. Don't worry what they mean, the players will start to speculate. Take the idea that works best for you.

Personification - Since the living is becoming partially dead, make inanimate objects partially alive. Give inanimate objects a human quality. Describe rocks as squatting, or old buildings as hulking. Objects should be described as doing or feeling something. They should not actually be alive, but the goal is to have a world being overrun by undead, so too shall the inanimate start to take on animate qualities.


4) Incentives, or Why should the PCs give a shit?

Knowledge and Power. Give out knowledge with an eyedropper, but be kinda liberal with the power. Supplies are a form of power. Magic even more so.


5) Events at the base of operations

Friendly Forces - Friendly forces to the player show up and offer to help the players, want the player's help, or maybe they just want to hang. Or maybe they've had mind control devices planted in their heads and are waiting for the right moment to have their brains detach for their spines and flail tentacles around and ... and ...

New Supplies - For what ever reason, the players get fresh supplies of Magic, money, lawyers, Food, whatever. Either they stumble across it or someone gives it to them.

Opportunity for Profit - An opportunity for profit that has nothing to do with the current conflict presents itself. A neutral third party wants help getting the shipment of Y to X, for example

Opportunity for Treachery - Someone gives the players an opportunity to do a Benedict Arnold. They offer the players a lot to change sides, look the other way, or in general make a profit at the cost of their side.

Raiders - Someone wants to take advantage of the chaos and a third party comes in to attack. The third party is looking for profit and then wants to bug out.

Actual encounters

Ghoul Babies. Nuff said.

Someone is stealing locks of hair from the PCs as they sleep.

Someone offers a PC 100 gp to blow over a glass of green fluid, but refuses to explain why.

The king offers to pay them large sums of money to work for him, but starts to tax the crap out of money they make adventuring. The goal is to make it so they are dependent on him.

They find the animate corpse of a childhood hero of one of the PCs.

Some of the undead try to talk to one PC and repeatedly ask why he is with the "warm ones." He just happens to look like one of the evil necromancers.

Nightmares. Lots and Lots of nightmares.

A baby winds up at the PC's home with a note: "Don't let them get her. There isn't much time."

A vampire falls in love with a PC. Hackney, I know. But hey. Go with the classics sometimes, ya know?

The PC is reading at home when the book bursts into flames and the walls start bleeding. A thousand voices start chanting in Faux Latin. If the PC speaks Faux Latin they are saying "He is coming. Prepare the way!" Then the flames and blood goes away

The Leaf Wight. A powerful, yet OCD, Druid dies in his sleep and comes back obsessed with lawn care. Woe be to any with poor landscaping skills.

Someone thinks the PCs are undead, but hiding it very well. Nobody believes them. Every once in a while, the PCs find burning chicken skulls outside their homes. It's a way to ward off demons. It doesn't work. He's just bat shit insane.

And my personal favorate: People are suddenly grasping their heads, falling to their knees, then teir skulls pop open. Their brains (with eyes still attached on stalks) sprout nerve ending tenticals and run off, trying to get into the sewer. They are all gathering together to form a horrible undead brain-thingie with a thousand unblinking eyes. The longer it takes to stop them, the bigger it gets until it eats the city. Evil sewer necromancer a must.

[Nytemare3701]

-snip-

Read my last message again. I don't want help building the encounter itself. I need some monsters that work well against the listed party. It's a shame you had to write all that, as most of it doesn't apply in my campaign setting (as there are no cities left, no kingdoms, and no real interaction with anyone but the party)

[linklord231]

I second the shadow spring attacking idea. A desecrated area with an altar can provide them with an easy +2 to hit so their touch attack goes up to +5, I'm sure you could find another effect or spell or somesuch to help with that. Remember that concealment defeats AoOs, so any smoke or magical darkness can ruin the lockdown guy's day. At CR 3, you can throw a dozen shadows at the group at once, maybe with a greater or two mixed in. +5 incorporeal touch is nothing to shake a stick at, especially if you have the shadows make a hide check (while in the ground) to be considered invisible against their opponents until attacking. That's another +2 to-hit. +7 incorporeal touch vs. flat-footed means you're basically going up against any deflection or sacred modifiers.

Shadows are easy enough to kill that the encounter can be a satisfying series of 'splodey-monsters for the PCs, while still being able to inflict terrible strength damage if they concentrate on a single target. If the group uses sheltered vitality, throw in a mummy with a few dispel magics attacking from a distance.

Concealment doesn't prevent AoO's, only Cover.  Hiding behind a chest high wall will prevent you from being locked down, but just darkness doesn't.  You still get the miss chance though, which applies twice for trips (once for the trip attack, once for the damage)

[bruceleeroy]

Forgive me. I was thinking of total concealment, I guess. Still works if they're hidden before they attack, and darkness gives them the concealment to make a hide check.

[Captnq]

-snip-

Read my last message again. I don't want help building the encounter itself. I need some monsters that work well against the listed party. It's a shame you had to write all that, as most of it doesn't apply in my campaign setting (as there are no cities left, no kingdoms, and no real interaction with anyone but the party)

*Blinks Alot*

Uh... That is my encounter notes.

I have a stock list of material about... dunno. Couple hundred pages? That post took about 5 minutes. I mean, if you just need stats...

Monster Advancer

Hit random about twenty times. Done.

Boring as hell, if you ask me....

[Captnq]

Hold on a sec. Am I the only one who does all this math in his head on the spot? I mean, I got a couple hundred pages of "cheat sheets" and I work on the Main Villians for... like... I dunno. maybe ten minutes before I start, but everything else I do is on the fly.

[ZhonLord]

An option my DM uses regularly is to homebrew-advance basic monsters and make them stronger - not just with more HP, but also with class levels and feats that the party doesn't have normal access to.


Example: bipedal Winter Wolf in a level 16 campaign

Most of the stats are unknown to us, but we have figured out that it uses a combo from a book called Ultimate Feats (a book that is either complete crap or very broken depending on the build you go for) that allows his wolves to cripple our melee fighters.  They all use a feat called Deflect Attack, which gives them an AoO against anyone who strikes them in melee.  This attack is used as a sunder attempt against the weapon itself, and however much they deal to the weapon is how much LESS they take themselves (i.e. if a fighter would deal 50 damage and the wolf's deflection attack would deal 30, then the fighter's weapon takes 30 damage minus hardness and the wolf only takes 20).  And these winter wolves are just the grunts and random encounters in our campaign.


This is just an obscure example of course, not many DM's are willing to use Ultimate Feats for their monsters or for the party (admittedly with good reason), but the principle is the same.  Just because your party might be restricted to certain books for building characters and equipment, doesn't mean YOU are just as limited as their DM.  A little creativity with monster builds and your party won't find the randoms anywhere near as easy prey, undead included - even if the foes are still the same number and hp as in the past.

[Nytemare3701]

@Zhonlord, unique mechanics coming from a single feat like that are great.


Again, I'm trying to avoid entire encounters, I'm just looking for specific creature abilities that I can use to augment the limited range of encounters I'm allowed to use due to story restrictions.

[Noliar]

Manticores have a natural ranged attack - undead ones might be able to use it even though mindless.

Burrowing ambush predators such as akhegs and Bulettes could survive for a while eating walking carrion and going down to avoid hordes. Popping out of the ground would let them bypass the lockdown and attack the squishies. Again, since it's instinctive behaviour it wouldn't be implausible for them to retain it as mindless undead. Ankhegs have their acid spit too.

Undead are unlikely to target plants. Yellow Musk Zombies could be interesting.

[brujon]

Human shields. Undeads are evil, and they don't respect life, but not all of them are dumb, mindless undead. Some of them are cunning, devious, and more than willing to twist the morals of their enemies against them.

The Human Shields more or less shut-down the mailman. He won't be able to use targetted spells because of children/women occupying the same square as the enemies, and Area Spells are a no go, also, for the same reason.

A moving wall of undead using Human Shields should be able to close in without being blasted, because the mailman won't be able to blast them without blasting the innocents alongside them.

If you want to be even more cunning... Have the undead use illusions to disguise themselves as human, and the humans disguised as undead. The party kills the undead but... WHOOPS, they killed the hostages. And the newly rescued humans are now among their midst, ready to attack. This makes for a traumatic, character-developing moment (especially for the cleric, if she's good), but it will only work once, before the party starts will to disbelief everything.

Flying undead are also a good option, because the guy can't lockdown anything if he can't reach it. Flying undead can use fly-by tactics to pick & drop the weakest members of the party - Mages can't use spells with somatic components if involved in a grapple.

Scattering the party is also a good option. Having undead skirmish the party at range from cover, breaking line of sight for spells, and prompting the lockdown guy to charge them, leading them into a trap.

[Nytemare3701]

Half the party wiped last night (to a bad roll and the weather...)

Thanks for the help everyone, I think I've got it from here.