# Balancing encounters for a 6 player party - help!



## Whyareall (Aug 22, 2010)

Ok, so today, in the first encounter, I ran the 6 player, level 2 party against 3 wolves (CR 1 each). I guessed 1.5 times the number of monsters would be ok. But they slaughtered them, without expending a single resource.

As they've done this kind of thing before, on our 1st try of 3.5 (this was our second), (first with 6 CR 1/2 monsters, then with a CR 2 and a CR 1) I decided to put them against a CR 3 monster, a deinonychus. Dinosaur :: d20srd.org for stats.

It slaughtered them.

3 party members died, and because they were going so badly I ruled that it ate them the round after it killed them, and so drank the undead cleric's 3 potions of Inflict Light Wounds he was going to use for himself, had he not been brutally killed, which killed it. Then, due to RPing, the evil monk tried to run away to prevent being jailed (he had picked the pocket of the executioner (damn near derailing the campaign before the first quest) who went over to the ranger to demand what the hell he was doing in regard to the elf shooting through the rope that would have hanged the person on the gallows, who was innocent and loudly pleading that he was, which the ranger had realised was true by getting a nat 20 on a Sense Motive check. Anyway, the executioner let the monk travel with the party to try to get the stolen treasure back. Having realised that wasn't gonna happen, the monk fled) and the ranger gave chase. It ended with the monk out of breath, hiding, the ranger having to get close to Spot him, and those two trading blows when the ranger got too close and the monk attacked him, while the sorcerer tried to catch up with them.

So basically, how do I balance encounters for 6 PCs so that this NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN?


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## udalrich (Aug 22, 2010)

A party of six at a given level is about as strong as a party of four one level higher, so you need to increase the difficulty of the encounters to compensate.

Your party is 50% larger than the standard, so you will generally want to increase the number of monster in the encounter by 50% to compensate.  This works better increasing the level of the monsters for two reasons.  

First, the extra strength of a larger party is because they can take more actions and have more options available.  They can make six attacks per turn, which is more chances to hit and more possibly failed saves.  Even a monster than can kill a party member in one turn will likely be killed by the party, because it can only take one action each round.  Multiple foes generate more actions, which can both inflict more effects on the party and divide damage among party members (which helps them survive).

Secondly, a single higher level foe may have abilities that the party cannot overcome at their level, since the foe is intended to be fighting a higher level enemies.  

For example, a bralani is a CR 6 outsider.  As such, it should be difficult challenge for the party, but one they should (by CR calculations) be able to defeat.  However, it has SR 17, which means that the spell casters won't be able to affect it most of the (rather than about half the time for a sixth level party).  It also has fire and cold resistance 10 and electrical immunity, so many spell that get past the SR still won't damage it.  Additionally it has DR 10/cold iron or evil, which the party almost certainly cannot bypass at second level, so the fighters will also be doing little or no damage to it.  Add a 100 foot fly speed and the party will probably have trouble making attacks against it unless it chooses to come into melee.

Looking at the actual encounters, they were probably lucky against the wolves.  That is equivalent to a EL 3 encounter for a standard party of 4.  I'm suspecting that either the surprised the wolves or the encounter started at range.  If the encounter started with six attacks from the party or a round or two of ranged attacks, the wolves were doomed.  If not, did the wolves move to flank or attack the party members who were not wrapped in steel?  Wolves are intelligent animals and should attack like a coordinated pack.

The deinonychus is a lesser example of the danger of a single, high level foe.  It can basically always make 4 attacks around, either with a full attack or a charge and pounce.  The three secondary attacks will likely miss a well-armored PC, but if it started on the rogue and the wizard (or rolled well), 1d8+2d3+2d4+10 is probably enough to drop a 2nd level player in one round.


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## Whyareall (Aug 23, 2010)

udalrich said:


> Looking at the actual encounters, they were probably lucky against the wolves.  That is equivalent to a EL 3 encounter for a standard party of 4.  I'm suspecting that either the surprised the wolves or the encounter started at range.  If the encounter started with six attacks from the party or a round or two of ranged attacks, the wolves were doomed.  If not, did the wolves move to flank or attack the party members who were not wrapped in steel?  Wolves are intelligent animals and should attack like a coordinated pack.



The wolves surprised the party, and even delayed in the surprise round to move to flank together, but due to the cleric's mad habit of grappling things and trying to shove potions down their throats (which I count as a touch attack with a -4 penalty), one of them couldn't move around very well.


Said cleric kept also trying to grapple the dinosaur (his player wanted a new character), which accounts for his death. And the fighter was just at the front of the line, so died to a full attack. And then the last healer, a druid, goes to... wait for it... loot their bodies. He was eaten the next round.


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## billd91 (Aug 23, 2010)

I would not recommend increasing the CR of individual creatures. What I would suggest is designing the encounter for a 4-PC party and generally doubling the number of creatures in the encounter... assuming the layout of the encounter area enables them to get into the fight.


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## aboyd (Aug 23, 2010)

I mostly agree with billd91.  The only exception I would add is that I think you *may* throw slightly higher CR enemies at a big party.  However, I would qualify that by saying only _slightly_ higher CR than normal, and I'd expect the DM to do a good job of inspecting the creature's abilities to make sure that it doesn't have some party-killing feature that low-level parties cannot overcome.

One way I've found to do this is to simply give humanoids a few levels of warrior or fighter.  That way a single monster is stronger, but not with something scary like damage reduction or magical abilities that are difficult for low-level groups to beat.  The monster is simply tougher.

If I know ahead of time what spells would be intimidating but not result in a TPK, I might assign a level or two of sorcerer to the creatures.  I did this for the Sih'hel in the Castle Whiterock mini module.  The party was stronger than expected, so I gave a few of the Sih'hel levels of sorcerer, and treated them sorta like tribal shamans.  When the PCs showed up and started wiping everyone out, I had the sorcerers all unleash magic missiles.  Since the party couldn't avoid the magic missiles, it was pretty scary for them to all take unavoidable damage under a barrage of missiles.  However, it was low damage, and they killed off the Sih'hel quickly before any of the party members died.

Just remember, you want the combat to be surprising and fun and edgy, not monotonous, drawn out, and hopeless.  Good luck!


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## pawsplay (Aug 23, 2010)

To be honest, it sounds like the PCs kind of choked. I mean, come on, one CR 3 dinosaur? I've seen four person parties that can take one down. If the cleric wants to try to dose things with potions instead of just casting inflict light wounds, well... what can you do? Admittedly, Deino there has a nice charge attack, but it's going to be difficult to charge except on open ground... in which case they should see him coming. 

I regularly used average party level +2 or +3 encounters against my players in groups of three or four, and they usually thrashed the monsters (and the exceptions tended to be when they underestimated their foes). My guys would probably have spotted the thing coming, dropped a grease under it as it attacked, then wasted it with ranged attacks. And these are not hardcore powergamers; one of my players is my wife, who was frequently nursing a newborn during the game. 

Grappling with potions, looting your own fallen comrades, not blocking movement by full-attacking melee monsters... there is NOTHING you can do to stop a TPK from occuring again. The PCs are suicidal. You could probably use a weaker monster with similar tactics and still kill them.


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## ValhallaGH (Aug 23, 2010)

pawsplay said:


> one of my players is my wife, who was frequently nursing a newborn during the game.




I do believe that *that* is the most hardcore gaming story I have ever heard.

Congratulations on having your awesome spouse.


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## Whyareall (Aug 23, 2010)

pawsplay said:


> To be honest, it sounds like the PCs kind of choked. I mean, come on, one CR 3 dinosaur? I've seen four person parties that can take one down. If the cleric wants to try to dose things with potions instead of just casting inflict light wounds, well... what can you do? Admittedly, Deino there has a nice charge attack, but it's going to be difficult to charge except on open ground... in which case they should see him coming.
> 
> I regularly used average party level +2 or +3 encounters against my players in groups of three or four, and they usually thrashed the monsters (and the exceptions tended to be when they underestimated their foes). My guys would probably have spotted the thing coming, dropped a grease under it as it attacked, then wasted it with ranged attacks. And these are not hardcore powergamers; one of my players is my wife, who was frequently nursing a newborn during the game.
> 
> Grappling with potions, looting your own fallen comrades, not blocking movement by full-attacking melee monsters... there is NOTHING you can do to stop a TPK from occuring again. The PCs are suicidal. You could probably use a weaker monster with similar tactics and still kill them.




At the time when the looting of fallen comrades was occurring, it was clear we weren't gonna win. We were in a cave, with the dinosaur blocking the exit, the fighter and cleric were already down, and one of the characters had cast Cause Fear on it, allowing him, the ranger and the monk to escape. The druid stayed behind to loot the corpses, even though I told him in no uncertain terms that the dinosaur would come back, and he would die. And yes, the cleric and druid wanted to reroll, so were suicidal. The fighter just got a bad hit with a full attack.


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## Jhaelen (Aug 23, 2010)

Whyareall said:


> So basically, how do I balance encounters for 6 PCs so that this NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN?



You don't. There's no failproof way to design encounters. Live and learn. Experience will help, but there are no guarantees - and that's a good thing!


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## frankthedm (Aug 23, 2010)

Watching damage output will be a primary concern at low level. Pounce-O'matic meat grinders and two handed weapon wielders will crush characters if met early before HP accumulate.


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## Persiflage (Aug 23, 2010)

Whyareall said:


> [snip] Dinosaur :: d20srd.org for stats.
> 
> It slaughtered them.
> 
> 3 party members died, and because they were going so badly I ruled that it ate them the round after it killed them,




Lolwhut?  How long do you suppose it takes a size Large creature (think "bear") to eat a Medium-sized one?



> and so drank the undead cleric's 3 potions of Inflict Light Wounds he was going to use for himself, had he not been brutally killed,




It ate an _undead_ in preference to warm meat?  Really?



> So basically, how do I balance encounters for 6 PCs so that this NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN?




You can't.  Not this party.  If you've got characters who are deliberately committing suicide, how the hell do you expect to not end up with a situation like this?  It should have been a cakewalk, but your entire group is... erm... "unique".  You're allowing someone to force creatures to ingest potions using a freakin' _touch attack_?  What?



			
				SRD said:
			
		

> *Ingested:* Ingested poisons are virtually impossible to utilize in a combat situation. A poisoner could administer a potion to an unconscious creature or attempt to dupe someone into drinking or eating something poisoned. Assassins and other characters tend to use ingested poisons outside of combat.




A harmful potion is basically an ingested poison.  The only way I'd allow someone to shove one down someone's throat is if they were pinned by another character, and even then it would be a full-round action...

Anyway, all that madness aside, we can't help you and here's why: you're not playing the same game as we are.  Your players aren't playing the same game.  I can understand (maybe) one character dying, but a party wipeout tells me these people are just not thinking.  Not only that, but you're not playing by the rules, or even making reasonable house rules so far as I can tell.  If you're allowing crazy cr*p like those potion touch attacks then what else are you hand-waving? 

In general, particularly at very low levels, you need to increase the number of monsters rather than up the CR, because low-level parties may not have the ability to do _anything_ to creatures of a higher CR.  Abilities like incorporeality, bizarre movement modes, high spell resistance and/or AC, touch attacks, gaze attacks and whatnot are just plain undefeatable in the wrong circumstances for a party that doesn't yet have a wide range of options.

However, in this case, none of that applied.  The party should absolutely have been able to own that dinosaur but they died instead.  They didn't die because the CR of the encounter was messed up (there are CR3 creatures that probably should have killed them, but that wasn't one), they died because they _acted like total muppets_ and there's no formulaic way of balancing the game that can save a party like that.

I suggest that all concerned spend a little time learning the rules and considering their options in combat _outside_ of the game session.  As pawsplay said, a simple _grease_ spell (or _caltrops_ if you want to get really minimalist) could have turned that fight around completely, as could a  tanglefoot bag or even just some readied actions.  

If your party are cooperating and using clever tactics and you're still wiping them out then you've got a valid concern about game balance and the chances are that there's something under your control that could fix the problem.  However, this thread should have been entitled "Help!  My players don't have a clue!"


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## IronWolf (Aug 23, 2010)

There has been a lot of good advice already posted in this thread.  Balancing encounters can be difficult, especially for lesser experienced players as it doesn't take long to get them in over their head.

In my experience the easiest way to scale an encounter up is to increase the number of combatants by a bit and if things are looking too easy, boost the HP up a bit as well to help the baddies stick around just a little longer.

As others have mentioned, putting in higher CR creatures sometimes backfires because they have more attacks or possibly better defenses the lower level characters don't stand a good shot of getting around just yet.

Just stick with it for now and you will start to get a feel of things as time goes on.  It can be a learning process and does get easier as you get more experience as well.


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## Whyareall (Aug 23, 2010)

Persiflage said:


> Lolwhut?  How long do you suppose it takes a size Large creature (think "bear") to eat a Medium-sized one?
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Hey, I'm new to DMing d20 system. And said grapple-happy dude was playing an Apothecary, (could make Necromantic spells into potions), and didn't get a syringe feature til level 7, rendering that particular class feature useless without some house-ruling, and plus i looked frigging EVERYWHERE for something about forcefully ingested potions and didn't find any, plus he wanted to reroll, plus the sorcerer had bad spell selection, plus my players are goddamn lazy and haven't opened the PHB that I gave them, and all they know of the rules is what I've taught (in game), and I'm not the best teacher, to put it lightly, with the exception of the evil monk, and yes, they really don't have a clue. I have to direct the combat half the time.

Hmmm, when I put it like that, I think I'll throw random encounters for 20th level characters at them from now on. Thanks for the help!


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## Whyareall (Aug 23, 2010)

Oh, and I've heard the monk is a bad class. So it says something about the party that the monk was the most effective combatant.


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## radmod (Aug 23, 2010)

First off, you have to ask yourself: "What kind of DM do I want to be?"
Do you want to be challenging? A killer DM? An easy DM?

Are you DMing for yourself? Or the players? As one person has put it to me, "Isn't all about having fun?"
The problem is that it can be frustrating to do all that work and then have the players blow it. Then again you don't want to make it too easy, you want it to be challenging.

I'm taking a wild guess, and assuming that your group is young and relatively new to D&D. Likewise, they tend to be a bit chaotic in play and are thinking only of themselves and not the other players (and certainly not the DM!)
IMO, you have three choices: continue the way you are as long as  everyone has fun,  make it easier for your players, or simply play and let the consequences be what they are. You will make mistakes (we all do) and, IMO,  you should correct YOUR mistakes, but not the player's errors.
In your dino example, you killed off half the party so it's really not all that bad that you fudged it in the end. The question  is did  everyone still have fun?
Unless you want to be an 'easy' DM (and possibly lose players who are looking for a challenge) don't overcompensate and make it too easy.
If you let the players suffer the consequences of their actions, you will likely start getting a party that works together and, more importantly, thinks.
If you feel YOU have made a mistake don't worry about fudging. Most DMs do it; often by faking the dice, that is, that '20' you rolled sure looks like a '2'. (Never let the players see your dice rolls.)

And, follow udalrich advice.


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## athos (Aug 23, 2010)

A 6 player, level two party should slaughter 3 wolves...  that seems right, but they should also kill rather easily most CR 3 encounters, assuming they are awake.

Try throwing some "easy" opponents at them.  Like have goblins, warrior 3rd level, riding on those wolves.  That would be 3 cr 1 goblins and 3 cr 1 wolves against 6 level 2 players, should be fine but more of a challenge.  Don't cheap out either, give the goblins chainshirts, shields, lances, and if you want to be ornery, give the wolves studded barding.   Yes, you are taking a chance if one of the goblins crits on a charge, it might take out a weaker PC, but hey, they call it adventuring for a reason.  When the goblins charge with those lances, the PCs should learn pretty quickly to respect goblins   If the PCs overcome them, the equipment is worth something if resold, so there is automatically some treasure for them.  

Or, numbers are fun too.  Make up a kobold encounter where they ambush the party, maybe at a bridge, or someplace that keeps the party mostly at a distance.  12 kobolds is a cr 3 encounter.  Bump the CR to 4 since they will have location to their advantage.  Give the little fellows 3 adepts and 9 warriors.  The adepts carry wands of magic missiles, cl 1, 8-10 charges each.  Give 3 warriors banded armor with shields and swords, and the other 6 crossbows.  The 3 banded armor warriors will hold the bridge, while the others pepper the party at a distance.  Once again, with some smart tactics, a lesser monster will quickly teach the party to respect them.

After a few of these type encounters where the party is pushed, but not slaughtered, you should have their attention and they should calm down and play smart.  If they don't, there really isn't anything you can do.  But using weaker opponents, that don't kill the characters outright, but cause them to use resources like hp and healing spells is a good way to get them into the swing of things and wear them down before the "exciting" final encounter of the adventure.


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## frankthedm (Aug 23, 2010)

Persiflage said:


> Lolwhut?  How long do you suppose it takes a size Large creature (think "bear") to eat a Medium-sized one?



Errata made the 4 HD Deinonychus into Medium size rather than large. Mega raptor 8HD is the large one post errata.


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## Whyareall (Aug 24, 2010)

athos said:


> A 6 player, level two party should slaughter 3 wolves...  that seems right, but they should also kill rather easily most CR 3 encounters, assuming they are awake.
> 
> Try throwing some "easy" opponents at them.  Like have goblins, warrior 3rd level, riding on those wolves.  That would be 3 cr 1 goblins and 3 cr 1 wolves against 6 level 2 players, should be fine but more of a challenge.  Don't cheap out either, give the goblins chainshirts, shields, lances, and if you want to be ornery, give the wolves studded barding.   Yes, you are taking a chance if one of the goblins crits on a charge, it might take out a weaker PC, but hey, they call it adventuring for a reason.  When the goblins charge with those lances, the PCs should learn pretty quickly to respect goblins   If the PCs overcome them, the equipment is worth something if resold, so there is automatically some treasure for them.
> 
> ...




Hey, thanks! I never really thought of anything but just using monsters out of the MM, and maybe statting up a villain.

And does anyone know what the CR of a PC is? Is it just the ECL?


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## athos (Aug 24, 2010)

Whyareall said:


> And does anyone know what the CR of a PC is? Is it just the ECL?




The CR is the level for PCs.

What you will want to try and do is create encounters where the ECL is high and the CR is low, otherwise, 4 3rd level PCs will end up being a CR 7 encounter if you use the DMG for a guideline, and obviously they are nowhere near that powerful normally.

But, let's say you want to make an encounter with a sorcerer for your group.  Make the sorcerer level 4, and give him glitterdust or some decent spell, maybe a minor wand as well, throw in some 3 orcs for a body guard and you have an encounter that is appropriate for your 2nd level party.


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## radmod (Aug 24, 2010)

And be a bit cautious when you get to enemy 5th level Wiz/Sorcs because that's really when they start damaging everybody in single shots. Granted it's not high damage but I've always thought it as a jump in the power curve.


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## aboyd (Aug 24, 2010)

Yep.  5th level wizards, 6th level sorcerers -- at that point, they gain 3rd level spells, and that's a deal-breaker for lower-level PCs.  If you have a 5th level wizard NPC and he's got his first Fireball spell, he's going to bring _all_ the PCs down by an average of 17 hit points _in the first round._  So even if there are 6 3rd-level PCs, odds are good that in the first round, only 4 are still standing, and it'll be pretty desperate for the remaining 4 to endure subsequent rounds of battle.  All the PCs will be close to dead after just round 1.

Or, another angle: maybe that wizard doesn't have Fireball, but does have another 3rd level spell, Fly.  At this point, he's dropping rocks onto the PCs heads and they'll have very limited ability to get up near him and enter melee.  While the wizard is beatable, he renders the melee types obsolete or much less effective for the course of the battle, and thus it's much more difficult to win.


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## Persiflage (Aug 24, 2010)

Whyareall said:


> Hey, I'm new to DMing d20 system. And said grapple-happy dude was playing an Apothecary,




What's that?  I mean, obviously I know what an apothecary is, but I'm not familiar with it as a class in D&D...  there are so damn many these days  



> (could make Necromantic spells into potions),



_Anyone_ who can cast Necromantic spells can make them into potions by the simple expedient of taking the Brew Potion feat.



> and didn't get a syringe feature til level 7, rendering that particular class feature useless without some house-ruling,



A _syringe_ feature?  This class sounds... odd.



> and plus i looked frigging EVERYWHERE for something about forcefully ingested potions and didn't find any,



You didn't find any rules on that because it isn't supposed to be possible; the section in the SRD that I quoted in my earlier post makes that clear.  I mean, seriously, _why_ would it be possible?  How are you going to force someone to drink a freakin' pint of liquid in the middle of combat?  Are we talking about a really vicious curly straw or what?

It sounds like you've got a whole load of house-rules going on before you or your group have got a grip on the _actual_ rules, and I suspect that this is why things are getting away from you.  

All the advice people on the thread have given you is good advice, but I suggest that you need to worry a bit more about the fundamental problem first: to whit, that you and your group don't know the rules of the game.  House rules are great, I'm all in favour of house rules, but you have to know what the rules are before you can override them or you'll end up playing Magical Princess Tea Party.



> plus he wanted to reroll, plus the sorcerer had bad spell selection, plus my players are goddamn lazy and haven't opened the PHB that I gave them, and all they know of the rules is what I've taught (in game), and I'm not the best teacher, to put it lightly, with the exception of the evil monk, and yes, they really don't have a clue. I have to direct the combat half the time.



Then you've really answered your own question.  CR is the least of your worries right now.

I would suggest starting over (or at least putting the current campaign on hold) and holding a couple of "arena" sessions.  Start with 1st-level characters and 1st-level challenges on a fixed battleground, and use the time to learn how combat works.  You can make it interesting, by all means, but the point will be to try different combat scenarios (grappling, charging, difficult terrain, basic spellcasting approaches) and learn the rules as you go.

I've done this for novice groups before and it has worked very well.  Get them to build their characters and wipe the slate clean after every encounter: all hp's restored, all spells recovered, all ammunition and other equipment unused, etc.  If it helps, you can always use a flavourful background.  Maybe an Adventurers' Training Camp run by a powerful wizard who's essentially running the party through Holodeck simulations by the use of powerful illusions.

Meh, just a suggestion


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## Whyareall (Aug 24, 2010)

They could make Necromancy spells into potions, and only into potions. They couldn't cast them. As many Necromancy spells are offensive, use a syringe, inject an enemy with the potion, and you've just cast a Necromancy spell on them.



> I would suggest starting over (or at least putting the current campaign on hold) and holding a couple of "arena" sessions. Start with 1st-level characters and 1st-level challenges on a fixed battleground, and use the time to learn how combat works. You can make it interesting, by all means, but the point will be to try different combat scenarios (grappling, charging, difficult terrain, basic spellcasting approaches) and learn the rules as you go.



I've tried. They don't get immersed, which is all that keeps them paying attention half the time.


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## pawsplay (Aug 24, 2010)

Whyareall said:


> Hey, thanks! I never really thought of anything but just using monsters out of the MM, and maybe statting up a villain.
> 
> And does anyone know what the CR of a PC is? Is it just the ECL?




Technically, the CR of one character with a PC class is their level. It's not their ECL; some ECL races don't justify the same bump in CR (e.g. drow have +2 ECL, but CR is just level + 1).


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## aboyd (Aug 24, 2010)

Persiflage said:


> What's that?  I mean, obviously I know what an apothecary is, but I'm not familiar with it as a class in D&D...



I just searched for it and it's not appearing in any of the main books from WotC.  Maybe it's a splat book from a third party.  In any case, it sounds very much not playtested at all, because...



Persiflage said:


> A _syringe_ feature?  This class sounds... odd.



...of this.  I'm not sure that syringes are a tool I'd necessarily even have in the period of time I usually emulate in my games.  But beyond that, a class that relies on injecting someone _in combat_ is stupid just in concept alone.  I mean, the idea of someone running into melee, people attacking with swords and axes, and runs up, grabs an arm, finds a vein, and squirts the poison in fully is _absurd._  To me, and maybe this is just me, it sounds like the kind of thing a kid would dream up after playing a combat medic in an online game.

To do such a thing in my game, I'd require the PC to initiate a grapple.  This would, I suspect, be thwarted most of the time by the AOO which causes most grapples to fail.  But if the PC got past that, I'd require another round for a pin.  So, more grapple checks.  Then and only then could the player try the injection, which would require -- you guessed it -- another grapple check.

So the apothecary would need to be well armored or highly nimble just to avoid all the opening AOOs that he/she is exposed to.  Then the apothecary would need to be incredibly strong and probably heavy on feats that help with grapples, just to keep succeeding on all the checks that are required.

I suppose if the apothecary could pull it off, it _would_ be cool -- a man rushes into armed combat with only a shot, tackles a combatant, holds him down and finds a vein _while the enemy is punching, squirming, and generally resisting_ and manages to forcibly inject the enemy with poison.  That's pretty impressive.

It's just that to do something that impressive, that logic-defying, I would require pretty realistic checks.  I wouldn't just give it to the player, even at the higher levels the OP is talking about.



Persiflage said:


> I'm all in favour of house rules, but you have to know what the rules are before you can override them or you'll end up playing Magical Princess Tea Party.



I think they're already at that point.  I could be wrong.


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## Whyareall (Aug 25, 2010)

aboyd said:


> I think they're already at that point. I could be wrong.



I make one rule so that one player's class can get its _basic premise_ before level 7, and I don't realise at the time that some Large creatures are 2x1, not 2x2 (messing up my perception of its size), and suddenly I'm not playing D&D?

By your logic as I see it, 4e is as far removed from D&D as football is. I could be wrong.


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## Whyareall (Aug 25, 2010)

Double post. Internet explorer's being buggier than a cheap motel. And ofc, they won't put Firefox on the uni computers.


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## Jhaelen (Aug 25, 2010)

Whyareall said:


> I make one rule so that one player's class can get its _basic premise_ before level 7, and I don't realise at the time that some Large creatures are 2x1, not 2x2 (messing up my perception of its size), and suddenly I'm not playing D&D?
> 
> By your logic as I see it, 4e is as far removed from D&D as football is. I could be wrong.



Since I have no clue what you are talking about, your game must be similar to football 

So, is this apothecary a class you invented? What kind of campaign setting are you using? Maybe something in the victorian age? I get a vaguely Call-of-Cthulhu-esque vibe from what you've written.


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## Whyareall (Aug 25, 2010)

Jhaelen said:


> Since I have no clue what you are talking about, your game must be similar to football
> 
> So, is this apothecary a class you invented? What kind of campaign setting are you using? Maybe something in the victorian age? I get a vaguely Call-of-Cthulhu-esque vibe from what you've written.




Well, originally tried WoW RPG, but one of the players was extremely anal-retentive about the 'lore' that was broken (for example, the -existence of hand crossbows-). So I said fine, we'll play 3.5, but people can keep their characters if they want, and not have to roll up new ones. Apothecary is a path of the Healer class.


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