IP Proofing, Falling off the RNG, and challenging encounters.

[Nytemare3701]

I'm having some trouble with my group, generally in the optimization priorities between players and appropriate numbers in encounters.

We have one player who IP-proofs is characters as much as he can. He always strives to be at least 10 higher AC than the highest known attack roll, have attack (or trip/grapple) rolls 10 higher than the highest known enemy opposed roll, etc. So far, we've kept him challenged by attacking him with immune creatures, but the immunities are getting less relevant as he gains items to counteract them, and they weren't really satisfying, since he pretty much couldn't interact with many of them. (FYI, this is The Monk Who Couldn't Decide build, which is doing surprisingly well at level 9. The link is outdated though.)

Another player is newer, playing a Astral Construct psion. He's our baseline. His ACs are about the same power as the average enemy bruiser, and he isn't using any recharge tricks, so he plays conservatively.

The Wizard is an Elven Generalist/Spellfire Channeler (Channeler being given full casting progression). Basically just a control wizard who eats wands to nuke on occasion.

The last player is a Warforged Gish, focusing on the Arcane Lightning+Fire ring combo with Wreath of Flames. He just walks up to things and does 12 or more d6 in an aoe around him.


One player who can ignore combat rolls, one player who is average, and two players who can spontaneously drop  enough damage to kill off most creatures without trying. Depending on the encounter, the ability of the team varies from (CR=Group ECL) to (CR=Group ECL+3). This sounds great, except that it is entirely random when the power shifts. The psion is the most common no-show, so it's not an optimized player not attending. It just seems to be a matter of them walking all over encounters until they hit a perfect storm of enemy abilities that completely screws the party.

Notable fights:
• CR 10 taken out by an explosive rune book (party was VERY shorthanded that day. Level 7, only 2 players)
• CR 13 taken out by the wizard's shivering touch.
• Monk dismantled an entire encounter because he had AC high enough to ignore the attacks of every enemy in the room, went in alone, and closed the door behind him.
• 2 people failed a saving throw for an inhaled paralysis poison at the start of an under-CR fight, almost ended up in a TPK.
• Party attempted to kill off an entire room of enemies by dropping a fireball through a skylight. The enemy boss was incorporeal behind them, collapsed the roof, and dropped a cloudkill into the rubble.
• 3 Party members failed save vs a Mind Blast, getting stunned for multiple rounds while Vrocks performed a Dance of Ruin.

(We are gentlemen about breaking the gentlemen's agreement. Explosive Rune books and Shivering Touch are now established tactics in the campaign world.)

Note that none of these ended up feeling like fair fights. The balance point swings from too easy to too hard with the slightest nudge, and the balance point continually changes based on the Wizard's spell loadout and the RNG of the player's saves vs crowd control.

[Unbeliever]

I'm not surprised at all that you're having trouble.  You have PCs that are very far apart in the numbers game, the Monk being that way on virtually all levels.  It's one thing to have a tank who has an AC much higher than the squishy Mage or Thief -- that's probably working as intended for D&D.  It's another to have a character whose numbers are effectively untouchable. 

And, then, you have well-known culprits like explosive runs novas and shivering touch running around.  And, that's in addition to all the ordinary swinginess that a 10th-ish level game can have with spellcasting.  And, on top of that you have no-shows.

Some of the examples confuse me a little bit.  I'm a little confused  by the skylight example, as anybody who can challenge this party should be able to get out of rubble. 

The paralysis poison and the mind blast example highlight that the party actually has no condition removal, which is the other side of IP proofing, typically the role (in reasonably optimized parties) of a healer-type.  If they want to build a party that way, then they need to expend resources to counter it.  Stuff like the Third Eye of Clarity combined with scrolls or wands.  Otherwise, they are just asking for a TPK when they all happen to roll poorly.  This, in turn, will motivate them to get more and more numbers to avoid that result, but that doesn't actually solve the problem.  They just space out the TPKs. 

Besides that, I'd say just move explosive runes, shivering touch, etc. off the table.  I prefer that to arms races about it, which I actually think isn't what's meant by a gentleman's agreement, but that's neither here nor there. 

I'm on the fence about the Monk.  How is he so capably able to outnumbers everything?  On the one hand, if that's his schtick, I'm inclined not to mess with it.  Especially if his damage is modest.  If that's how you deploy your resources, then fine.  I mean, that's kind of what MOMF does in practice.  On the other hand, I'm worried that it leads to monotony for both him and the DM.  Something with some vulnerabilities combined with some more spectacular abilities may  just be more interesting.

I hope that's at least a little helpful. 


P.S.:  how do they deal with less numbers oriented stuff?  I'm thinking of enemies that can throw Web and Solid Fog type of effects?  One thing to do, especially till the numbers "level off" (high level enemies tend to outnumbers pretty much everything) is to do some more tactical battlefield stuff, which may end up interesting.

[Nytemare3701]

Some of the examples confuse me a little bit.  I'm a little confused  by the skylight example, as anybody who can challenge this party should be able to get out of rubble. 

The party was the one who ended up in the rubble. They took falling damage, cloudkill damage, and ended up in a locked room with no ceiling. Nobody had flight -_-

The paralysis poison and the mind blast example highlight that the party actually has no condition removal, which is the other side of IP proofing, typically the role (in reasonably optimized parties) of a healer-type.  If they want to build a party that way, then they need to expend resources to counter it.  Stuff like the Third Eye of Clarity combined with scrolls or wands.  Otherwise, they are just asking for a TPK when they all happen to roll poorly.  This, in turn, will motivate them to get more and more numbers to avoid that result, but that doesn't actually solve the problem.  They just space out the TPKs.

Indeed. The Monk is already moving this direction, having picked up items that let him hit incorporeals, add his AC to incorporeal attacks, etc. The Psion meanwhile has picked up the improved elan feats, which give him a +6 to saves at will. Condition removal is a tough one for this group, since there is no divine caster (beyond the monk's 1 cleric level) and they are loathe to spend money on consumables.

Besides that, I'd say just move explosive runes, shivering touch, etc. off the table.  I prefer that to arms races about it, which I actually think isn't what's meant by a gentleman's agreement, but that's neither here nor there. 

When I say "established part of the campaign world", I mean that they are known tactics and enemies either expect them and prepare accordingly or they are disregarded as mutually assured destruction. I let my players get away with just about anything once, let them have their fun with the cheese, then we all mutually set it aside while saying "yup, that was a thing that happened".

I'm on the fence about the Monk.  How is he so capably able to outnumbers everything?  On the one hand, if that's his schtick, I'm inclined not to mess with it.  Especially if his damage is modest.  If that's how you deploy your resources, then fine.  I mean, that's kind of what MOMF does in practice.  On the other hand, I'm worried that it leads to monotony for both him and the DM.  Something with some vulnerabilities combined with some more spectacular abilities may  just be more interesting.

The monk does insignificant damage (averages about 15 per turn, just enough to trigger knockdown), but is quite good at tripping (counts as +1 size category, so he's staying relevant longer), grappling (same here), and general disruption. He's good at peeling the enemy off of his allies with stunning fist/trip/grapple/etc, but doesn't do much else. Funny enough, that same player loves playing the MoMF, for the same reasons. He seems to enjoy falling off the RNG more than anything else.

P.S.:  how do they deal with less numbers oriented stuff?  I'm thinking of enemies that can throw Web and Solid Fog type of effects?  One thing to do, especially till the numbers "level off" (high level enemies tend to outnumbers pretty much everything) is to do some more tactical battlefield stuff, which may end up interesting.

They fail horribly. Puzzle rooms are almost universal failures until they bruteforce them somehow. Enemies with puzzle defenses are generally bruteforced as well. Until recently Ogre Magi were a huge problem for the party, especially the Elemental Magi with their wind wall+shockwave+fire combo.

[Slippery_Chicken]

Note that none of these ended up feeling like fair fights. The balance point swings from too easy to too hard with the slightest nudge, and the balance point continually changes based on the Wizard's spell loadout and the RNG of the player's saves vs crowd control.

That's kind of how high-op goes: each fight is either a foregone conclusion, or a race to see who can press the "win" button first. High-op strategies are not conducive to fair, interesting, or satisfying fights.


My suggestion is to ask your players to cut out the exploits so you can provide better challenges for them. Maybe roll up new characters, or lower-op versions of the current PCs. You could even try another system if your players aren't mature enough to hold back.

[Unbeliever]

Based on your responses Nytemare3701, my first thought is, funnily enough, "working as intended."   

I mean, the PCs have committed resources at being "hardened" -- by which I mean IP proofing, falling off the RNG, etc.  That means that anything that either (i) manages to break through that proofing, like an unlucky roll, or (ii) sidesteps the defenses, like solid fog poses a real problem for them.  That is a function of the decisions they've made. 

And, I can't even fault the Monk too much.  He's gone for big numbers on defense at the expense of offense, and coupled it with some lockdown type of stuff.  That seems like a viable choice to me. 

This all seems to be a bit of the potential risks of optimizing, or at least doing so in a particular way.  I think, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that the reason these encounters don't feel great is that the real conflict is being moved back a step.  It's all that the character build, advancement, or equipment stage.  Rather than the kind of give and take that might feel more natural and engaging, i.e., something like a baddies to X, players counter with Y, and so on.  Instead, this is more like players anticipate baddies doing X, and counter with Y during downtime. 

[Janthkin]

From a DM plot-evolution space, this could actually be a good thing - the party has some potent strengths, but also some obvious weaknesses.  Any BBEG should be probing the latter in some way (send more minions!); after a few skin-of-the-teeth encounters triggered by lack of, say, protection from energy drain, they'll have to shift behaviors...and that's when you smack them with the all-flying-evil-monkeys encounter. 

[Nytemare3701]

From a DM plot-evolution space, this could actually be a good thing - the party has some potent strengths, but also some obvious weaknesses.  Any BBEG should be probing the latter in some way (send more minions!); after a few skin-of-the-teeth encounters triggered by lack of, say, protection from energy drain, they'll have to shift behaviors...and that's when you smack them with the all-flying-evil-monkeys encounter. 

This is almost exactly what is going on. I don't start my campaigns with a full plot, instead just making daily adventures with an assortment of different open ends. The open ends start to tangle in specific ways (The party seems to be making an enemy of a lot of extraplanar creatures...) and it forms organically into a real plot. Each player on the team has a thing they groan when they see (The psion groans at incorporeals, the monk groans at flyers, the wizard groans at con damage), but the 4th person always manages to have it covered excessively. ^That looks like a party who hates wraiths, right? NOPE, the gish pops them on accident just being close to them.

EDIT: In response to the optimization goals...yeah. I'm thinking we may want to take a step back on the next set of characters. They are optimizing themselves into a corner.

[Unbeliever]

EDIT: In response to the optimization goals...yeah. I'm thinking we may want to take a step back on the next set of characters. They are optimizing themselves into a corner.

One of my friends, who DMs a lot, has a very compelling way of articulating his concerns regarding optimization.  He tends to worry it would make encounters monotonous, for one side or the other or both.  Given that is something everyone definitely wants to avoid, I find it persuasive.

[Slippery_Chicken]

EDIT: In response to the optimization goals...yeah. I'm thinking we may want to take a step back on the next set of characters. They are optimizing themselves into a corner.

One of my friends, who DMs a lot, has a very compelling way of articulating his concerns regarding optimization.  He tends to worry it would make encounters monotonous, for one side or the other or both.  Given that is something everyone definitely wants to avoid, I find it persuasive.

Do you know how he does that? Maybe a transcript of his spiel could be useful? I might try my hand at GMing 3.X someday, so that sort of thing could be useful.

[Unbeliever]

I'll poke him about it sometime soon and get him to do a thumbnail sketch and post it. 

I've known him and gamed with him for over 10 years, so the rapport is easy.  But, really, I think the last time it came up he pointed out an ability a character had and just said something to the effect of "I'm worried that fights will be monotonous b/c this ability will always decide them."  Which, as I noted, I found very compelling.

I don't necessarily want to derail this thread into a lovefest for my gaming buddies -- I do love them, but that seems a lot less interesting to you all.  I bring it up, though, b/c we seem to have avoided most of the main pitfalls of D&D gaming, and that's with both a heavy dose of optimization in our games and also some substantial variety in the charopp tastes in the group.  If you want to start another thread (or send a PM) about pitfalls you hope to avoid, I'm sure you'll get some great advice.

For what it's worth, I'll just say one more thing about starting off GMing -- it's not nearly as hard as it looks.  If you want to and are enthusiastic about doing it, and are willing to put in like an hour or two of thought, it turns out pretty grand. 

[Janthkin]

^That looks like a party who hates wraiths, right? NOPE, the gish pops them on accident just being close to them.

So, BBEG learns to buff up his Wraiths with Mass Resist Energy, right?

I'm vaguely reminded of the old G.I. Joe cartoon, where Cobra would have a plan that almost works, until something fairly minor ruins it completely at the end.  Why didn't they ever just patch that problem, and reuse the plan?

The old 2e High Level Campaigns guide has a section on how to create challenging encounters for higher-level players, without forcing them to fight gods 3 times a day.  The example I remember best was the giant slug behind a salt-covered grate high up in the wall - it couldn't move forward, so it would just sit behind the grate and spit acid at the adventurers.  Bad guys, especially recurring villains, are allowed to optimize their use of resources, too.