D&D Challenges
I see parties in my campaigns often too easily overcoming encounters that are designed for their level. My theory on why this happens has two parts. Part one is the experience level of the Players in my games. If D&D were a paying job, most of my Players would be distinguished and highly paid professionals. In part, I'm talking about the decisions they make for their PCs in-game, which are almost uniformly sound. I'm thinking module writers probably assume Players of "average" ability, and design encounters accordingly. However, I am also talking about character design - I can't think of anybody who has designed the dreaded "ineffective character" in many years (except maybe me, but Hey Zeus was a half-NPC, lol). And the opposite is true: most of my Players design exceptionally effective characters.
This brings me to the second part of my theory, which is the widely accepted concept that D&D 3.5 progressed over the years in a way that granted more and more powerful options for PCs to take advantage of. I won't make a laundry list, but a few glaring examples spring to mind. One is the Tome of Battle, which made the dying fighter class obsolete once and for all. Another is the Spell Compendium, which allows spellcasters to pull tricks that published modules just aren't designed to be able to counter. Closely related to that product was the introduction of swift and immediate actions, especially spells with swift or immediate casting times, which can be game changers. Finally, I would mention the Magic Item Compendium, which, while not presenting unreasonably powerful magic items (with the possible exception of the Belt of Battle), essentially taught the Players who didn't already know that they ought to be filling every single body slot with a magic item, if at all possible, because any magic item in a slot is better than no magic item in that slot.
Whatever the reasons why encounters have become so easy for the parties in my games, this presents a challenge to me as the DM. So far, I have been toying among three "solutions" that I don't really love. The first option is trying to be OK with it. If the Players don't mind one round combats, why should I? It's fun to be so powerful you can easily whip your competition, right? But no, that doesn't really fit with what I think D&D ought to be. The second option is to increase the monsters' CRs, and/or simply add more monsters, but the problem with this is that more CR = higher XPs = increasingly powerful PCs, and bam, we have a snowball effect going.
My third solution is to disassemble each of the module's monsters and reassemble it using the tools my Players have. Why is the Temple of Air's champion an eighth level fighter and not an eighth level warblade? Why doesn't the evil high priest have revenance and revivify to use on his best underlings? Why does anybody 9th level or higher have the Toughness feat instead of the Improved Toughness feat? And since the current adventure plots involve fighting worshipers of a god of madness (Tharizdun) or a demon prince of madness (Adimarchus), why would every single wizard, sorcerer, and cleric capable of casting 5th level spells NOT be under the effects of death throes? These are just a few examples from the many, many ways I can improve on Players' opponents' design. But all these changes I'm talking about in this paragraph that I can make add up to tougher encounters with no increase in CR, and therefore no XP bump. They put the bad guys back on a more even playing field.
What I dislike about the last solution is that, while it ultimately results in greater satisfaction for me, it is also a LOT of work. Players can build a single PC over the course of years, but I have to redesign several NPCs/monsters every month. While it is a labor of love, and creatively fun, the reason we buy published adventures is to reduce our DM workload.
My working theory had been that switching to Pathfinder rules was going to solve all my problems for me. But then there's converting all of the monsters in my modules that are written for 3.5...
This brings me to the second part of my theory, which is the widely accepted concept that D&D 3.5 progressed over the years in a way that granted more and more powerful options for PCs to take advantage of. I won't make a laundry list, but a few glaring examples spring to mind. One is the Tome of Battle, which made the dying fighter class obsolete once and for all. Another is the Spell Compendium, which allows spellcasters to pull tricks that published modules just aren't designed to be able to counter. Closely related to that product was the introduction of swift and immediate actions, especially spells with swift or immediate casting times, which can be game changers. Finally, I would mention the Magic Item Compendium, which, while not presenting unreasonably powerful magic items (with the possible exception of the Belt of Battle), essentially taught the Players who didn't already know that they ought to be filling every single body slot with a magic item, if at all possible, because any magic item in a slot is better than no magic item in that slot.
Whatever the reasons why encounters have become so easy for the parties in my games, this presents a challenge to me as the DM. So far, I have been toying among three "solutions" that I don't really love. The first option is trying to be OK with it. If the Players don't mind one round combats, why should I? It's fun to be so powerful you can easily whip your competition, right? But no, that doesn't really fit with what I think D&D ought to be. The second option is to increase the monsters' CRs, and/or simply add more monsters, but the problem with this is that more CR = higher XPs = increasingly powerful PCs, and bam, we have a snowball effect going.
My third solution is to disassemble each of the module's monsters and reassemble it using the tools my Players have. Why is the Temple of Air's champion an eighth level fighter and not an eighth level warblade? Why doesn't the evil high priest have revenance and revivify to use on his best underlings? Why does anybody 9th level or higher have the Toughness feat instead of the Improved Toughness feat? And since the current adventure plots involve fighting worshipers of a god of madness (Tharizdun) or a demon prince of madness (Adimarchus), why would every single wizard, sorcerer, and cleric capable of casting 5th level spells NOT be under the effects of death throes? These are just a few examples from the many, many ways I can improve on Players' opponents' design. But all these changes I'm talking about in this paragraph that I can make add up to tougher encounters with no increase in CR, and therefore no XP bump. They put the bad guys back on a more even playing field.
What I dislike about the last solution is that, while it ultimately results in greater satisfaction for me, it is also a LOT of work. Players can build a single PC over the course of years, but I have to redesign several NPCs/monsters every month. While it is a labor of love, and creatively fun, the reason we buy published adventures is to reduce our DM workload.
My working theory had been that switching to Pathfinder rules was going to solve all my problems for me. But then there's converting all of the monsters in my modules that are written for 3.5...