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Keeping up the challenge and interest
http://forums.paradigmconcepts.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=383		 Page 1 of 2
Author:  mininin [ Mon Dec 09, 2013 7:58 am ]
Post subject:  Keeping up the challenge and interest
Okay,
it came up within one of the other threads about keeping players challenged enough that they need to keep spending their fate points. How do you feel the best way to do this is without making things into a grind and without cheating too much? Any suggested tactics as well?

Currently I tend to add an extra minion or two and add in an extra stamina based character for every 2 that there are. usually I add an extra point to their skills to hit as well. Obviously this varies by encounter and can include an extra wave of bad guys.

Minions tend to try and charge in and swarm an individual character as if they don't charge they rarely get a chance to act and their avoidance is rarely high enough to make the loss of avoidance an issue, it also lets me use the wolf pack tactics / mob tactics that they frequently have.

non-minions vary depending upon their spec- melee types unless they have a story based reason or special mechanics end up slugging it out, trying to focus upon the character that is giving them the most pain.
Special characters (casters, leaders and the like) get a perception check to notice the casters hiding and target them or to use abilities on good targets.


Tracking vanquished minions for using leadership is a pain and annoying for the players to have the dross combatants stand back up again. Nobody is buffed usually leaving casters free to do whatever they want without worrrying about unravel the thread but in encounters where the guidance has been castigate castigate castigate that lasted as long as the first one...fights rarely last more than 2 rounds.


What are your experiences and thoughts?
Author:  Harliquinn [ Mon Dec 09, 2013 8:03 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Keeping up the challenge and interest
I said something like this in the other thread, but will repeat here.

I feel that to make encounters challenging without making them a grind (i.e. adding more creatures, increasing stamina, increasing defenses, etc.) is to add other things to do in combat. This has several key effects:

1) It gives characters without high combat abilities something to do to contribute
2) It takes characters away from the 'fighting' part of the encounter (Which has a net effect of lowering damage to the creatures)
3) It adds a sense of urgency to an encounter

For instance, in an encounter where you need to kill the demons who are about to sacrifice the girl...
1) Current Way (This is just for illustrative purposes): Characters arrive on the seen, the demons and cultists stop what they are doing and combat ensues. Everyone focuses on killing the bad guys.

2) Proposed Way: Characters arrive on the seen. The cultists send the demons after the characters. The cultists proceed with the sacrifice by surrounding themselves with wards and chanting while the girl is shackled to the table. Now, the 'fighters' can deal with the demons, the 'rogue types' can unlock the girl's manacles, and the 'casters' can unravel the thread on the cultists castings. Perhaps at least 3 of the cultists need to be unraveled and the girl needs 2 of her bindings unlocked in order for her not to die in say 12 ticks....now you have a very dynamic combat that's challenging but hasn't added to the 'grind' feel of just hacking through a group of demons and cultists.

John
Author:  MaurLysander [ Mon Dec 09, 2013 4:00 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Keeping up the challenge and interest
Harliquinn wrote:
Proposed Way: Characters arrive on the seen. The cultists send the demons after the characters. The cultists proceed with the sacrifice by surrounding themselves with wards and chanting while the girl is shackled to the table. Now, the 'fighters' can deal with the demons, the 'rogue types' can unlock the girl's manacles, and the 'casters' can unravel the thread on the cultists castings. Perhaps at least 3 of the cultists need to be unraveled and the girl needs 2 of her bindings unlocked in order for her not to die in say 12 ticks....now you have a very dynamic combat that's challenging but hasn't added to the 'grind' feel of just hacking through a group of demons and cultists.



I like as long as the judge is flexible for unbalanced parties. What if there are no casters to unravel the thread. I even remember a mod where we needed to unravel the thread and I was the only caster and because I was Expert I couldn't do it. Thank goodness the judge was flexible and we completed the encounter successfully. It was not pretty though.

Edit: I also hate long drawn-out encounters. I like it when monster is powerful enough create a fear of death early on in the encounter but goes down fairly easy. In other words I HATE Tier 1 creatures with sickly high defenses but hit like little girls. I have probably played dozen of combats that way.
Author:  val Holryn [ Mon Dec 09, 2013 4:32 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Keeping up the challenge and interest
This is a topic of interest to me since, in a world largely without limited resources, there is no impact from one encounter to the next. You never worry about spells/healing running low. Worse its actually really hard to "grind" since each combat is binary. You either are victorious and emerge at full health or you are defeated. It is hard to safely escalate from any given encounter that is already challenging.

In this game, now, the limited resources you have are Fate and Wounds. There is a huge thread on Fate. No one is suggesting more wounds need to be dealt. What does that leave?

We are still trying to figure that out. John's summation that adding noncombat "problems" is pretty much the best idea we've had.
Author:  MaurLysander [ Mon Dec 09, 2013 5:02 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Keeping up the challenge and interest
val Holryn wrote:
This is a topic of interest to me since, in a world largely without limited resources, there is no impact from one encounter to the next. You never worry about spells/healing running low. Worse its actually really hard to "grind" since each combat is binary. You either are victorious and emerge at full health or you are defeated.


Create situation where people don't have time to heal between encounters. It has often been stated that ticks are not the same thing outside of combat as in combat.

val Holryn wrote:
We are still trying to figure that out. John's summation that adding noncombat "problems" is pretty much the best idea we've had.


I agree wholeheartedly as long as the party is required to be built a certain way to have a successful encounter.
Author:  Harliquinn [ Mon Dec 09, 2013 5:10 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Keeping up the challenge and interest
MaurLysander wrote:
val Holryn wrote:
We are still trying to figure that out. John's summation that adding noncombat "problems" is pretty much the best idea we've had.


I agree wholeheartedly as long as the party is required to be built a certain way to have a successful encounter.


There are always "Fate Points for Do the Impossible" if you are lacking something. And the Module writers can have 'alterantive' ways (Maybe a series of Knowledge (Arcanum) checks instead).

John
Author:  SamhainIA [ Mon Dec 09, 2013 5:33 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Keeping up the challenge and interest
The presumptions that are made at the outset of this question discount every method I use for counting as a solution.

Here are a couple of conjectures I base that upon:

1 people that game like me, aren't going to be very challenged by typical encounters.
2 to challenge people like me, selective "cheating" is required.
3 knowing how and when to do that, and most importantly when to stop is very difficult

Every party is different, some players will have more fun RPing for an extra hour and a half off track and be ok with dead simple fights that most people walk thru. some will have the combat monkeys that will have more fun dishing out damage to guys that should have died 30 minutes ago, but are only alive because i quit keep track of their stamina
Author:  mininin [ Tue Dec 10, 2013 5:09 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Keeping up the challenge and interest
[quote="SamhainIA"
1 people that game like me, aren't going to be very challenged by typical encounters.
2 to challenge people like me, selective "cheating" is required.
[/quote]

people like you?

I think that from previous posts there was a general consensus that the current format of encounters does have that binary outcome an that it was unlikely to change without changing the format of encounters which is fine in a home game but less so in one in which the encounter has been scripted by a module writer (and sometimes even included scripted actions). So how have GMs been providing that challenge within the constraints of running within the campaign? Do they just run it as it is out the box or do they change it at all?

Could we have a competition for short module writing? Must include a non combat challenge, a combat challenge and an environmental encounter? Prizes (well....kudos from us) for the most varied an interesting one that actually has a coherrent plot and draws in player drawbacks and backgrounds?
Author:  Harliquinn [ Tue Dec 10, 2013 8:10 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Keeping up the challenge and interest
I also started a thread for chronicles and others to share some 'exciting' encounters.

It's posted Here. Only 1 person has submitted.

John
Author:  mininin [ Tue Dec 10, 2013 8:42 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Keeping up the challenge and interest
I had had seen it but had thought it just an example template so hadn't looked beyond that.
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