Challenging optimized adventurers?

[darqueseid]

For an optimized party the challenge rating system is totally wrong, that's no big news, so what is a good way to come up with challenges for them?

how do you set the challenge rating for parties with optimized characters? Do you just tack on a +2 or +3 ECL and be done with it?

This feeds into a second question, at about ~12th level or so it seems that it becomes difficult to challenge a party of optimized people at all, and I don't just mean in combat.  They get spells or abilities that basically make them skip to the end of any carefully crafted plot line (not that they always know the correct ability to use but sometimes they can figure it out).   How can you challenge these characters? 

and lastly, once you get to 20th and epic levels the characters generally know the best courses of action to solve almost ANY particular problem.   These characters literally have an ability to do everything between them.  What do you do to challenge them?  Are epic levels not even worth playing because of this? 

[dipolartech]

at 12th level? Hmmm make sure that plot jumping is blocked mechanically or taken into account. Thats pretty much it, if they tend to break your plot into little chunks of cheesy Cheese-it tastiness with spells, a lot of spells have mechanical counters and divinations can be answered super cryptically (according to your ad-lib ability). But you have to just take into account stuff like Fly and stone-to-mud removing your walls etc into how you design your encounter spaces.

Combat wise, don't use simple open battlefields make 'em complex, have cover and stuff that can fall and stuff that smoke and burn, and then go tactical on them. Line-of-sight and Line-of-effect are key components to quickly winning or losing combat at most levels. Combine tactics with the Ras Al'Gul guide (in the Handbook section) to making better bad guys and you'll hopefully find a more entertaining way of engaging the players without just looking up high level monsters.

[whitetyger009]

in order to keep a plot line intact it can be useful to use spells/items that circumvent a parties ability to use magic to solve problems.  a bad guy who uses a brooch of mind blank or non-detection can be useful.  another way would be to use cut outs for bad guys.  if the captured/dead bad guys don't know anything the party can waste a lot of time and energy trying to get information that is just not had.

in the end making a plot line for these higher level and more optimized characters becomes more work. 

[whitetyger009]

i second the Ras Al'Gul guide. 

[Unbeliever]

I usually add 2 to the CR and double enemy hit points.  That, plus complex environments often create good challenges.  I have a habit of killing my PCs, even reasonably optimized ones.  Although it depends just how optimized your party is.

Other posters have mentioned counters for plot-circumventing abilities.  One other thing you might consider is just being open with the players about it.  In our games we don't tend to use teleport to avoid plots, and we tend to be pretty generous about things.  Like, in Savage Tides, the DM asked "is there some way to block your crystal ball?"  I'm sure there is, so I said, yeah, and it's reasonable the greater demons have access to it.  Stuff like that. 

Everyone around the table is (should be?) interested in making an interesting game that works.  If you're up front on things that might break the plot, then they should work with you.  That involves the DM being flexible, too.  For example, if you don't want teleport to circumvent the classic fantasy quest, then make it easy for them to go to towns, caravans, or whatever to "gear up" when needed. 

P.S.:  many of the monsters in the later MMs have more interesting mechanics as well.  And, dashing a bit of something like a spell like ability at will or a ToB can radically change a monster/encounter in an interesting way that doesn't feel overly ad hoc.

[ksbsnowowl]

I'm beginning to run into this problem with my 10th level gestalt party.  I was doing a great job of challenging them to the breaking point all the way up to about 9th level.  I use a lot of tanarukk and trolls (of various varieties), and by that point they'd gotten good at hitting with fire and acid, or at least incapacitating the trolls until they could get around to burning them, etc.

9th level is also when my Druid//Sorcerer player picked up Arcane Strike.  Drop a 4th level spell, pounce in tiger form (with Girallon's Blessing) and get +4 attack/+4d4 damage to each of seven attacks.

The other thing I've noticed is that many creatures have relatively low AC for their CR.  Even CR 10 critters often only have an AC of 20 or maybe 23.  When my Barb//Beguiler lays down haste and rages, he's at something like +20/+20/+15 to hit (and he doesn't have power attack to dump any of that BAB into).  At 12th level he'll also pick up Arcane Strike.

The other thing is that they will often "jump to the end" by flying over things (took me a bit to realize to expect that...), and they will spam invisibility/invisibility sphere on the whole party, silence themselves, and they've now started casting remove scent, so the trolls have no chance to notice them until the Druid (and his tiger animal companion) pounces from invisibility.  I've started giving the trolls Large and In Charge (Draconomicon) to counter that somewhat, but it doesn't do any good in the surprise round.

Also, my Druid//Sorcerer has an impressive AC at ~27 with greater mage armor, barkskin, plus the base AC of his wildshape forms (favorite is a Red Tiger [Silver Marches])

The one thing that just baffled the hell out of them (and I could have slowly obliterated them, as they were running low on spells, if I'd been mean) was a Shadow Creature Red Abishai (with Mindsight) during polar night.  I think often times outsiders, dragons, and enemy casters are about the only thing that will challenge such high-level characters.

We'll see how tonight goes, though.  My 10th level PC's (4 of them, plus one Druid//Scout/Wiz DMPC) will try to hunt down a gestalt CR 11, 16 HD fiendish rage drake.  I swapped Improved Crit for Blindfight, and gave it Leap Attack with its 15th HD.  Depending on how they attempt to engage it, a slim possibility exists I could kill one of my PC's outright on the first pounce. (Charging, four attacks at +22 [1d8+20] and a bite at +17 [2d6+15, plus Imp Grab, then a Fort save DC 27 or stunned]) That's a minimum of 101 points of damage if all attacks hit.  (Because of blind fight, he'll have ~75% chance of any attack getting past the miss chance from invisibility).

I know my Barb/Beguiler has ~120 hp.  But my Rogue/Wiz only has about 70...

[Eagle of Fire]

Players are usually always specialized in something and neglect something else.

Pick a monster which specifically challenge their neglected side. You'll see that PCs who used to bash 5+ their own CR will suddenly struggle to overcome an encounter of their own CR.

Of course saying this is easy. Actually finding something which work is the hard part. And since what I just said is so general I can't really give any good piece of advice either... I just think this is the general idea one should follow to answer the question of this thread.

Also, if your group is night invulnerable together... Try to isolate one of them and see what the rest of the party can do alone. It is really rare that every member of a whole party are able to do everything very well.

[veekie]

Players are usually always specialized in something and neglect something else.

Pick a monster which specifically challenge their neglected side. You'll see that PCs who used to bash 5+ their own CR will suddenly struggle to overcome an encounter of their own CR.

Of course saying this is easy. Actually finding something which work is the hard part. And since what I just said is so general I can't really give any good piece of advice either... I just think this is the general idea one should follow to answer the question of this thread.

Actually making it work too often might also ruin your game in turn. The players after all, chose to specialize in an area, expecting that it'd come up, and then you foil it at every turn in the name of providing a challenge.

Variety is key.

[Eagle of Fire]

You are quite right.

Of course, if you follow the RAW then you should not provide encounters which are too challenging to your players in a regular basis. Most of the encounters should be fairly simple and easy, with a very challenging encounter once in a while.

It also depend of your style and your players interest. Some players/DM actually welcome a very challenging campaign and expect to have the chance to die every game.

[NiteCyper]

• E6? Retard the scaling.
  
• Think of it from the players' point of view. Throw in some minions that tempt the caster(s) to blow their good loads early, for example. Once they learn that the DM pulls tricks like that, surprise them again: make them regret underestimation.
  
• Channel Tucker.
• This is all that I could find of Megazord.
• Out Tuckering Tucker
• Challenge their endurance, their nova capability, take them unda da sea, into another plane, etc..
  

[Pencil]

When my players are getting too optimized I just don`t take MM Monsters but create enemy npc characters with the same ECL.Seems too work well enough but is some work.

[Eagle of Fire]

In my last game, I had a Cloaker using a Siren Pearl sit at the bottom of a pool. Adventurers being who they are, they thought a magic cloak was up for the grabbing and one of them dove down without any armor or equipment to get it. Surprise!

This meant that my one fighter PC who usually rely on 24 AC was down to 12 AC. Underwater, no less. And after she was able to get back to safe ground, the Cloaker engulfed another PC and brought it into the water, with all the maluses of trying to swim with full equipment on. >: )

None of them ever bothered to consider upping the swim skill before. Even though the encounter was clearly under their own level they decided to flee instead of staying up for a fight and claiming the pearl (which I have to admit they didn't know existed).

With a little imagination...

[Pencil]

In my last game, I had a Cloaker using a Siren Pearl sit at the bottom of a pool. Adventurers being who they are, they thought a magic cloak was up for the grabbing and one of them dove down without any armor or equipment to get it. Surprise!

This meant that my one fighter PC who usually rely on 24 AC was down to 12 AC. Underwater, no less. And after she was able to get back to safe ground, the Cloaker engulfed another PC and brought it into the water, with all the maluses of trying to swim with full equipment on. >: )

None of them ever bothered to consider upping the swim skill before. Even though the encounter was clearly under their own level they decided to flee instead of staying up for a fight and claiming the pearl (which I have to admit they didn't know existed).

With a little imagination...

But those were pretty NOT-optimised.

[darqueseid]

right, what pencil said.  An optimized group won't have a fighter in it.  or the fighter will be some sort of gishy hood build or something. 

When I'm talking optimized we're talking about a balanced party usually including several tier ones and even if there are lower tiers they are built to be the best that they can.  An optimized fighter should have higher than 24 AC at mid levels or AC shouldn't really matter much because he's dishing out damage or knocking things down.  And the optimized party at mid-range level should have a way to get freedom of movement (underwater), if only for a short time. 

I really don't want this to turn into an argument about whats optimized though, more about how do you challenge such a party?  In practice they can do just about everything, and by the time they're hitting 18-19th levels they can generally do ANYThing AND they know it.

[brislove]

I tend to use things that are difficult to lock down, or simply use a lot of the powerful "tricks" that PCs use.

12+ I'm not on the material plane very often anymore. This allows for planar environmental.. issues. Line of effect/sight is the biggest thing that you can do to mess with players. Being on Plane where summoning becomes difficult. Have enemies use save or loses. Why can't the enemy planeshift you?

Spell casting is strong, make players use silent/stilled spells. AMF, Silence on a bunch of imps while the devil is fighting you! Templated hordes of undead? Half Fiend is a great template, full of fun abilities, slam that on a bunch of "ok" monsters and the players WILL have more problems. Lots of HD is a plus since half-fiend has SR.

Bait people. Clerics don't have teleport. Make him follow someone upwards, then have them teleport away (still using demons here). Higher levels, non-dectection, areas of restricted planar travel. Party members have limitations, If you want to use out of the book monsters, and don't want to use a lot of spell casting... you're going to have a rough time of it .

Advancing monsters with class levels, sundering to keep wealth in check, summoning (this is always a good one) Remember to pack dispel (oh you're flying, now you're falling. oops?)

Again let the PCs be unstoppable gods against garbage, just use that garbage to draw them into a trap where your big bad is actually ready for them.

[littha]

sundering to keep wealth in check

 

[Eagle of Fire]

Well yeah, well it depend of your definition of optimized. I find my PC warriors pretty optimized. Granted, Warriors are low tier to begin with but still... And my scenario was exactly what a warrior should expect to encounter in his/her career since the monster is wimpy in itself. Only the strategy used make it strong or (and this is even more important) look stronger. And I still think baiting my warrior into removing her armor to fight a monster is a winning situation in this premise of trying to challenge them.

I have to admit though that my PCs are fairly low level still. There is a world of difference between level 19+ and low level or even 12+. Aren't PCs of very high level supposed to be able to do about everything anyways?

[darqueseid]

Aren't PCs of very high level supposed to be able to do about everything anyways?

Well, yes, so how do you challenge them? ;-)

[NiteCyper]

The Cloaker engulfed another PC and brought it into the water, with all the maluses of trying to swim with full equipment on. >: )

I think that you mean malices, not "maluses". I had to look that one up for a sec.

[linklord231]

The Cloaker engulfed another PC and brought it into the water, with all the maluses of trying to swim with full equipment on. >: )

I think that you mean malices, not "maluses". I had to look that one up for a sec.

I think he meant penalties.  Mal-us, as in the opposite of Bon-us.