Encounter Design, Pt. 2: High Level Encounters

In the first article of this series, I went over using multiple NPCs, and drawing players into encounters using terrain, skills, and their surroundings. Today I will be discussing some of the nuances of higher level play. High level encounters are some of the most complex and bewildering of encounters for many GMs, both new and veteran alike, so let's try to tackle some of that today.

Today I'd like to give another shout out to Umbriere, Icyshadow, and Magnuskn of the Paizo Messageboards for getting me to start these articles, and a shout out to my gaming group for all the horrors I put them through with my encounters. ^_^

WARNING - THIS IS A LONG POST
You may want to split the reading into multiple portions if you can't handle reading a lot at once.

Player Characters From Low to High Levels
Pathfinder (and D&D 3.x) changes dramatically as characters advance in level. Characters become inhumanly tough, capable of doing god-like things, and have a much wider array of options open to them when deciding how to solve problems. This is true for both sides of the fence (both PCs and NPCs) and as a result combat changes at high levels into something deeper and more tactical (but very rewarding I think).

The one on the left, is the dangerous one.

Characters move faster or have new ways to move. Most characters by high levels can afford things like boots of speed, but many will also have steady access to flight in some form or another (magic items like celestial armor, carpets of flying, or spells like overland flight spring to mind), or even more exotic ways to move about (there are methods to obtain swim or even burrow speeds, where even the earth itself is no obstacle), or even shed their bodies entirely with effects like gaseous form or ethereal jaunt. Or characters may forgo moving entirely and simply be where they wish to be with spells like dimension door or greater teleport, allowing them to move around virtually any obstacle and often at great distances.

Meanwhile, characters are much more durable. Assuming players have not neglected their defenses, they should have statistics like Armor Class and Saving Throw bonuses in abundance, lots of hit points, and likely resistances or outright immunities to several attack forms (such as poison, diseases, or various types of energy damage such as electricity or fire). Attacks that would have outright killed or ended their existence at lower levels can be absolved in an instant (if a gorgon turns one of your characters to stone, likely your party can cast stone to flesh on the character, possibly even during the same combat, allowing the player to resume their activities)!

Finally, characters have much greater offense. Not merely in the scale or amounts of their damaging abilities, but also in the wealth of options they have for being offensive. Characters can deal damage, stun, daze, paralyze, petrify, hold, confuse, throw, drain life force, or even banish enemies from existence! Chances are if one method of attack isn't working, a high level party can try several more until the opponent cries uncle.

In pretty much every way, characters are bigger, badder, and more potent.

High Level Encounter Basics
For the most part, the advice given in part one of this guide applies more or less directly to high level combat. Like at low levels, we want our encounters to be dynamic, full of energy, with lots of stuff going on, and with many antagonists to interact with the party. That much is the same. The biggest hurdle is just learning to think with some creative flair and take into account the wealth of options that high level monsters and NPCs have.

Dealing With Lots of NPCs and their Abilities
As an example, let's look at the Succubus. The succubus is a CR 7 creature and one of the first things you'll notice is that it has a lot of unique abilities. Besides her resistances, natural flight, shapeshifting, and special perks like profane gift and energy drain, she also has a wide variety of spell like abilities which allow her to do things like accurately teleport, turn ethereal, or control the minds of others. She even has an offensive option with her vampiric touch spell-like ability (which can be delivered through a claw attack by the way).

By herself she has a lot of tricks, but what if there were several of them and a Rakshasa? When you start getting into multiple creatures at once you don't want to stop and have to decide what each creature is going to do individually. That takes time that should generally be spent progressing the flow of your game. So how do we handle this?

1. Assign Roles. When dealing with lots of NPCs, you will want to get a basic idea as to what that character should do during an encounter. Assuming the succubi + rakshasa combo above, we decide that the succubi will flutter about the encounter with their flight or teleportation and try to harass the party while being as hard as possible to pin down (and by harass I mean constantly trying to charm cohorts, animal companions, and PCs, while occasionally sucker-punching casters with vampiric touch delivered through a claw attack). Meanwhile the Rakshasa can engage the party more directly with melee or ranged weapon combat while supporting the group with whatever sorcerer spells he knows.

You'll be running encounters like this in no time!

By getting an idea of what each creature's role will be during the combat it allows you to condense all those cool abilities down into a sort of manageable goal.

2. Plan Ahead. When I say plan ahead, I'm not talking about GM prep-time in the traditional sense. I mean have an idea as to what each creature is going to do on their turn before their turn comes around. Don't wait until it's succubus #3's turn to know what she's going to do. This can be done tactically a few turns in advance, generally a few rounds in advance, or even conceptually before the fight ever begins. For example, we did some of this when deciding their role (when we decided they would harass the party's minions with charms and/or try to sneak up on the party casters while they are dealing with the rakshasa). So when her turn comes up you can have her act and move on to the next character.

This is good advice for dealing with summoned creatures, familiars, animal companions, or even player characters. With a little practice, even large encounters with lots of NPCs and player henchmen (including cohorts, animal companions, familiars, and undead) can move along really quickly.

3. Have an Initiative Strategy. One thing that's important when running lots of NPCs is deciding how to handle their initiatives. If you have a digital initiative tracker (as with some online tabletop programs) this can be less of an issue. If you're running a traditional tabletop game or lack such a digital tool, you have a lot of options available to you.

• Roll initiative before combats. You can roll and mark initiatives for NPCs at any time before the combat begins. If you're using statblocks you can mark the NPC's initiative roll on their sheet.
• Use average initiative. The original D&D 3E basic game used average initiative for everyone, which is where you assume the NPCs rolled a 10 + their initiative bonuses (so a +2 Init becomes a 12, and you can roll a d20 to break ties). This can be useful for dealing with large numbers of mooks but some might complain that you can't take 10 on initiative. Still, my players have never complained when I've used this method (in fact, we have played games where we dispensed with rolling initiative entirely using this method).
• Use grouped initiative. If you're using groups of enemies you can roll for the group instead of the individual. For example, in our sample encounter of succubi plus a rakshasa you might roll 1 initiative for all of the succubi and one initiative for the rakshasa. This is especially good for big combats where you'd like groups of enemies or mooks to all act as kind of a horde or unit.

Any of these methods can greatly cut down on dealing with initiatives during combat and keep the game progressing smoothly.


Putting It All Together
Now let's build a high level encounter. I'm going to progress on with the Rakshasa and the succubi because it sounds like a fun encounter. Drawing on what we learned in part one, we're going to try and make an exciting and dynamic encounter.

XP Budget
We're going to aim for a CR 16 encounter with approximately 76,800 XP worth of enemies. We spread our budget like this:

• 16 CR 1/2 Enemies: 16 Tieflings (3,200 XP)
• 7 CR 7 Enemies: 7 Succubi (19,200 XP)
• 1 CR 15 Enemy: 1 rakshasa eldritch knight* (51,200 XP)

Total XP Value: 76,800 XP

The Location
We set our scene in an underground throne room in a complex beneath the streets of a major city, with an entrance from the "Beautiful Sins" nightclub owned by the Rakshasa. A truly terrible creature named Kili the Auburn Hare or "Master Au'hare" as he is identified in his human guise. Beneath his club is a living compound best described as a den of absolute inequity where he sees to his dear "family". A master manipulator and powerful even by the standards of Rakshasa, he is supported by an entourage of succubus concubines who serve as his lovers, spies, and assassins. He has a hand in many forms of vice and illegal dealings in the city, especially in the area of trading slaves.

At the center of this complex is a long room filled with burning incense, lavish black and white roses, and erotic paintings and tapestries adorning the walls. This beauty is contrasted by small chimes and sculptures made of humanoid bones, with bead-like strings of teeth hanging like curtains. Doors line the walls of each side, presumably leading to other areas of the underground mansion. At the end of this seemingly impossibly long room sits a silk-padded throne studded in the bones of monsters. Atop the throne, a very well-dressed human man (our Rakshasa Au'hare in his human form) who could be described only as physically beautiful sits drinking from a gem-studded goblet made from a goblin's skull. Surrounding him are a pair of beautiful women with clearly demonic features that only seem to enhance their appearance in a strangely exotic way.

The entire area is lit with nothing more than lots of candles and burning incense. This leaves the entire complex lit with little more than dim light, which imposes no penalties on Au'hare and his family who all possess darkvision.

Wandering the hallway and other portions of the complex are female tieflings that would seem physically attractive to most humanoids if not for strange and creepy features like elongated teeth, strange animalistic eyes, rabbit-like ears of various colors, and fur-like hair. These tieflings are Au'hare's daughters and lovers, born from the coupling of Au'hare and his special "guests" that he finds in his nightclub (which he eventually sells off as slaves when he grows bored with them if they don't succumb to the hunger of him or his succubus concubines). Au'hare's daughters are fiercely loyal to their father as he has raised them to practically worship him and takes great pleasure in spoiling them by showering them with gifts and attention. Au'hare has sired many more children by his indulgences but he kills all the male children born so as to prevent any rivals for power or attention from his daughters.

Au'hare's Family

• Daughters: Angel, Beauty, Compassion, Dignity, Emotion, Freedom, Holiness, Integrity, Justice, Love, Mercy, Parish, Righteous, Salvation, Truth, and Virtue
• Succubi: Varilexa, Violencia, Sixtixa, Loss, D'Philia, Marotep, Harvexa

The Scene

"Daddy, I want to play with this one!"

When the party arrives, Au'hare in his usual confidence welcomes them to his home. Inside his throne room are his daughters Dignity and Virtue who are playing violins in an upbeat tone which has Au'hare nodding his head in rhythm. When the party arrives, there is an eerie semblance of family life going on at first glance. Au'hare insists on introducing his family, telling the party that their business can wait. "Oh please, put your weapons down and meet the family, Dignity, Virtue, say hello to our guests." he insists when the party arrives. Dignity and Virtue are especially fascinated with the strangers and smile warmly, revealing rows of sharp teeth as they curtsy with dancer-like form. Virtue takes a special interest in one of the party members (chosen for whichever the GM thinks would be the most creepy) and remarks "Oh, I like you. Daddy, can I have this one?" she comments.

Thanks to the telepathy of the succubi, his other daughters emerge from doors around the compound to meet the party. Au'hare introduces each. Each one with similar twisted features. After he introduces his daughters, he then introduces the succubi as his wives.

Au'hare is soft-spoken with his daughters and enjoys spoiling them. When Virtue asks to have one of the party members, he responds with something like "Maybe sweetest, we'll see." which can allow the party to simultaneously feel objectified by these strangers and imply the level of arrogance present in Au'hare.

Au'hare is not particularly fond of combat and enjoys playing with his guests instead. If given the opportunity he'll flirt with female members of the party, which will draw obvious jealousy from his daughters who get noticeably angry and try to draw his attention back to them by making passive-aggressive comments about their appearances such as "But her hair isn't as pretty as mine, right daddy?" or "Her skin can't be as soft as mine daddy, and I know you love soft skin". Au'hare continues displaying his pride for his home, and will even do strange things like invite the party for dinner as though they were somehow friends (though he's just toying with the party as long as they will go along with his little games).

The objective in this scene is to draw attention to the twisted mockery of a family. It is in this that his Rakshasa taboos can be found, and it is in this that ingrains the scene into the memories of the players.

The Plan
Au'hare is an overconfident bastard, and he knows that he is nearly untouchable in his dark sanctum here. His entire complex is guarded by permanent mage's private sanctum which prevents people from spying on his affairs with spells like scrying. He usually has his favorite succubi (Varilexa and Violencia) close at hand with him at his throne and the others reside elsewhere in the complex. Each of them can alert the others to the presence of intruders and give them play-by-plays of what they're perceiving with their Telepathy, and all of them willingly fail their saving throws to resist Au'hare's constant detect thoughts which allows them all to do organize their nightmarish activities in perfect synchronization if they are near each other.

If combat breaks out, the succubi immediately alert the other five succubi who begin using their summon spell-like ability to summon as many Babau demons to join in the fight as possible (statistically speaking all the succubus combined should summon around 3-4 babau). After that, they use their greater teleport to join the fight, flying out of reach of melee characters when possible and using charm monster to harass players or henchmen (such as cohorts, animal companions, familiars, etc) and attempt to use their strong Charisma scores to force their victims to turn on their friends. If they see any spellcasters left unguarded they will cast vampiric touch and charge them on the following round to deliver the spell with their claw attack (see holding the charge) to inflict some heavy burst-damage and put them in position to harass the casters.

Any summoned Babau will simply attempt rush into combat as fast as possible, relying on their damage reduction and acidic slime to protect them, and using their longspears to set up flanking positions where they can sneak-attack. When the tieflings or they use their darkness spell-like abilities, they take great glee in ambushing anyone who cannot see in the darkness (leaving them blind and very vulnerable to their sneak-attacks).

Au'hare's daughters are not very strong but they are very loyal to their father both out of adoration and fear. Though they pose little threat on their own, they each can cast darkness as a spell-like ability and will blanket the area in this darkness, and will try to fight with the party until they realize it's hopeless (likely after one or two of them has been effortlessly dealt with, either by being injured, disabled, thrown aside, or slain) at which point they try to keep their distance out of fear. They don't wear armor but each carries a bag with alchemical items like tanglefoot bags, acid, and alchemist fire, as well as a single masterwork melee weapon gifted to them by their father (usually a dagger, rapier, short sword, or other light or finesse weapon). If Au'hare begins taking excessive damage, his daughters betray their love for their father and attempt to throw themselves in the way of incoming attacks using Aid Another to grant him bonuses on armor class or saving throws, shouting things like "Leave my daddy alone!" or "Remember me daddy!".

Au'hare himself prefers to begin combats with mind fog to soften up enemies for his many enchantment spells like mass hold person. He takes a special fondness of using terrible save-or-die spells as finishing moves when he gets a successful critical hit (his favorites are mass hold person, persistent flesh to stone, persistent baleful polymorph, persistent hold monster and persistent slow) in addition to blinding his foe with Blinding Critical. He will not hesitate to activate his boots of speed to haste himself, and if given the opportunity he prefers to buff himself with improved invisibility and greater heroism in that order.

Au'hare is flamboyant and egotistical. He enjoys toying with enemies he feel are weaker than himself, but his mood turns excessively sour if someone strikes his daughters or insults the appearance of himself or his girls. If one of his daughters is slain he immediately targets her killer with as much hatred and reprisal as he and his succubi can muster. Au'hare is too self-centered to fight to the death however and will attempt to escape if the battle turns against him by using teleport or shadow walk to flee to the countryside with the intention of seeking terrible vengeance in the future.


Au'hare / Kili the Auburn Hare
NE Medium outsider (native, shapechanger) eldritch knight 10

"It looks like we have company, ladies."

Init +12; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +24
DEFENSES
AC 30, touch 18, flat 23 (+4 armor, +8 dex, +9 natural)
Hp 330 (20d10+220); Fort +21, Ref +21, Will +14;
DR 15/good and piercing; SR 25; Immune mind blank
OFFENSE
Speed 40 ft., Fly 40 ft. (good manueverability)
Melee +1 rapier +22/+18/+13/+8 (1d6+23/15-20), bite +9 (1d6+8)
*: Includes a -6 to hit and +18 to damage from Power Attack)
Special Attacks detect thoughts, spell critical
Sorcerer Spells Known (CL 16th, Concentration +27)
8th (3/day) -- mind blank*

7th (6/day) -- insanity (DC 26), mass hold person (DC 26)
6th (7/day) -- flesh to stone (DC 24), greater heroism, shadow walk
5th (7/day) -- baleful polymorph (DC 23), overland flight*, hold monster (DC 24), teleport
4th (8/day) -- lesser globe of invulnerability, dimension door, greater invisibility, bestow curse (DC 22)
3rd (8/day) -- haste, slow (DC 21), vampiric touch, dispel magic
2nd (8/day) -- mirror image, blindness/deafness (DC 19), ghoul touch (DC 19), hideous laughter (DC 21), see invisibility
1st (8/day) -- charm person (DC 20), mage armor*, shield,  touch of gracelessness (DC 18), corrosive touch
Cantrips -- detect magic, detect poison, light, mage hand, prestidigitation
*: Already cast (included in statblock).
STATISTICS
Str 18, Dex 26, Con 30, Int 13, Wis 12, Cha 24
BAB +20, CMB +24, CMD 42
Feats Power Attack, Weapon Finesse, Combat Casting,  Improved Initiative, Improved Critical (rapier), Heighten Spell, Spell Focus (Enchantment), Greater Spell Focus (Enchantment), Persistent Spell, Toughness
Bonus Feats Critical Focus, Blinding Critical, Blind-Fight
Skills Bluff +34, Diplomacy +13, Disguise +28, Perception +24, Perform +20, Sense Motive +24, Stealth +21; Racial Modifiers +4 Bluff, +8 Disguise
Equipment +3 cloak of resistance, +2 gloves of dexterity, +2 vest of constitution, +1 called adamantine rapier "Black Phantom", boots of speed, 1,670 gp worth of additional items.

Languages Common, Abyssal, Infernal

SQ change shape (any humanoid, alter self)

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Detect Thoughts (Su) A rakshasa can detect thoughts as per the spell of the same name (CL 18th). It can suppress or resume this ability as a free action. When a rakshasa uses this ability, it always functions as if it had spent three rounds concentrating and thus gains the maximum amount of information possible. A creature can resist this effect with a DC 22 Will save. The save DC is Charisma-based.
Profane Gift (Su) Au'hare is the beneficiary of a +2 profane bonus to his Constitution score due to his relationship with his succubus lovers. A profane gift is removed by dispel evil or dispel chaos. The succubus can remove it as well as a free action (causing 2d6 Charisma drain to the victim, no save), but will not willingly do this to unless magically compelled.

NEXT TIME
I hope you enjoyed today's blogpost and the creepy kinks of the Auburn Hare! Next time I'm going to talk about using low level creatures in encounters with high level players (you didn't think those orcs were going to just disappear when you hit 11th level, did you?)!

See you next time Alvenians. Until then, game on!

Help My Game! - Encounter Design, Pt. 1

Recently I was asked by my friends Umbriere, Icyshadow, and Magnuskn to write a guide to designing encounters in Pathfinder (though most applies for Dungeons & Dragons 3.x as well, though the math may be a little different in some places) and so here we go!

Encounter design has become one of my favorite parts of the game and I've talked a lot about encounter dynamics on forums like the Paizo forums. However, I've never wrote anything in-depth on the subject on the forums. Rather, instead I generally gave individual help advice. Today, we're going to try and tackle ALL the encounters you will ever want to design in your games (and we'll do it with a nod to flair and excitement)!

WARNING - THIS IS A LONG POST
You may want to split the reading into multiple portions if you can't handle reading a lot at once. ^_^

Encounter Building - Overview
In an RPG "encounter" can mean a lot of different things. For the purposes of this guide, an encounter is a scene that is intended to be challenging, exciting, filled with action, or somehow function to draw the player into your game and your story. We'll begin with combat encounters and then later move on to other kinds of encounters in later articles.

Encounter Building - Combat Encounters
One of the biggest hurdles to jump as a new GM is building a good combat encounter. It is as much or more an art form as it is mechanical formula. It's also where most people make their first mistakes with the CR (challenge rating) system. Firstly, let's look at what we generally do not want or look for in an encounter.

The owlbear stood up and roared ferociously, bearing claws and a sharpened beak that could have snapped trees or severed steel. It takes a swipe at the young warrior before it and its claw glances across his armor, leaving little more than a memorable scratch. Then...the party goes, and the owlbear is dead. The combat is over in one-round. Turns out 4 players each pounding their name-brand into the owlbear results in a dead owlbear pretty quickly. The combat ends shorter than expected and it wasn't very epic. You're not sure why. It was a CR 4 creature. The party was CR 4. What happened?

The above scenario is all too common (and I don't mean owlbears are overused). The GM chose a monster based on its CR, and expected the lone monster to make excitement happen, or to be challenging enough to make for an interesting combat encounter. Unfortunately, there are a few things wrong with this fight.

1. The fight isn't very dynamic. It's really just one brutish monster versus the group. This means that it's already veering towards "uninteresting" because it's pretty strait-forward. This is what you might call a routine encounter, in that it doesn't require the party to make any special considerations or think tactically beyond avoiding getting smacked around a little.

It's not fair! I've only got two claws!
I can't fight ALL of them!

2. The monster is at a disadvantage. Though never mentioned in the rulebooks, something scholars of the game refer to as "action economy" is a very real thing. In short, action economy is the relation between how many actions the protagonists have versus the antagonists (like our owlbear). In this case, the owlbear was by itself. It had 1 set of actions to take. The party was 4 players, so they had literally four times the actions during this combat. So the battle quickly became one-sided as the 4 teamed up on the 1. This is often multiplied further in effectiveness due to team synergy (if the wizard buffs everyone else, his action makes the value of the other actions that much greater).

The owlbear is pretty much on par with other creatures of it's challenge rating. It's worth its experience. The catch is that due to the sheer number of players versus the monster, it's very likely that the owlbear never gets to really interact with the group much.

Now let's look at an encounter that gives samples of the things we do want to look for.

The party wanders through the forest. It's dark as the canopy filters the sunlight into eerie beams of light piercing the darkness (dim light). There are no real trails this deep, so the ground is overgrown in many places making movement somewhat more difficult off the beaten path (difficult terrain in many places, especially the root systems of large trees). The forest is still...perhaps too still. Suddenly the sound of rustling leaves and the snarling of monsters echoes through the forest, bouncing off the tree trunks. Worgs are upon you! They rush in from hiding, taking you by surprise (with a surprise round even). A pair of them slowly circle the party, snapping at them with their jaws and using both the party and the trees to make it difficult to shoot at them. The worgs speak, shouting "Haha, look my lovely mate, at what meal we have lucked into this day!", "Oh yes my dear! So much more flavorful than deer again...the pups will enjoy eating out their eyes!"

"We'd like to invite you for dinner!"

The dim light of the forest grants everyone without low-light vision concealment (20% miss chance), but the worgs have low-light vision (as do elves and gnomes). The worgs ambushed the party because they were taking 10 with a +9 stealth modifier and a +5 bonus from being 50 ft. away from the party when the encounter begins, so the party didn't notice them hiding along the trail ahead. The worgs charged that 50 ft. during their surprise round over what terrain wasn't difficult, possibly knocking down the flat-footed party members with their trip ability when they bite them! As the combat starts in earnest they can either press their advantages gained during their surprise or use their speed to dart around despite the difficult terrain in the forest (moving at 25 ft. per move action rather than the 15, 10, or even 5 ft. of the player characters). When the wolves move, the concealment and often cover (from the other PCs or trees) make it difficult to take shots at them from a distance (but it's still probably the safest bet). The battle will likely rage on for a few rounds before the worgs flee, shouting "My dearest, I believe we have picked more than we can chew today. Let us flee until we have the strength of the pack to bring them down!", or if one of the worgs was slain "My dearest!? You two-legged mutts will pay dearly for this! I will stalk you to the ends of the earth until I tear our your still beating heart with my fangs!".

Let's examine this encounter a bit. It's similar to the owlbear encounter in many ways. It's in the wilderness, it's in a forest specifically (owlbears live in forests too), and the encounter is also CR 4 (two worgs are equivalent in XP value to a single owlbear). So where is the difference really coming in?

1. The encounter is more than just the worgs themselves. It takes the entire scene into account and that makes it more likely to be ingrained into the minds of the players. It incorporates the very ground, trees, and dark glow of the forest into the encounter. The warrior or wizard who feels fear because moving through undergrowth to safety, as well as moving forward to press advantage on the worgs, is difficult and draws even more attention to the worg's quadrupedal speed (it also means moving into the undergrowth makes it impossible to 5 ft. step/shift out of the worg's reach without risking getting bitten). The very trees can be allies or enemies (as you take cover behind them to hide, use them to prevent the worgs from charging you, or curse them for blocking your arrow fire).

From a mechanical perspective, it's taking lighting, distance, skills, and perceptions into account. It's taking terrain into account (with areas of normal terrain that you can charge and move across easily, and areas where movement and vision is troubled). It takes into account the abilities of the worgs and translates them as how they would use them to hunt in a living world.

2. It draws attention to the uniqueness the characters and their circumstances. The elf who can get a clear shot because her eyes adjust to the dim light will feel more gratified and happier about being a elf. The worgs using their natural habitat to their advantage makes it feel like you are being hunted on their turf, which is scary as you are out of your element and inside theirs! The worgs would have a sense of personality even if they weren't speaking, but their ability to speak and their cunning further draws the attention to their uniqueness and the severity of the situation. It also opens an opportunity to allow the party to try to parlay with the wolves instead or even strike a deal with them: "Hold worgs! Eat us and you'll eat for a day! Aid us, and I will ensure you grow fat on ox a day for a week!"

3. The encounter is more dynamic. You'll hear me use the word "dynamic" many times throughout this guide. Being exciting and conveying a sense of energy and life is what we're going for with our encounters. While slugfests have their place in a game (sometimes it's just downright fun to trade full attacks until one guy cries uncle), there is more going on here. The enemies are moving, biting, tripping, taunting, and in a sense interacting with the players in more ways. This keeps the action more exciting, and ultimately helps to draw players and GMs alike into the excitement of the story.

4. More IS more. I love solo-encounters with a big bad. They really set the feel for when something is big, bad, and awesome. But they should really be the exception, not the rule. One of the biggest changes from the owlbear scenario to the worg scenario was the number of enemies doubled. That means the antagonists were doing more, even if what they were doing was less powerful individually. They are taking more actions which draws more attention to them. If one of them is downed, the other still continues to progress the excitement (either by vengefully taking a few more shots at the party until wounded, or by cursing the party as he foreshadows a vengeance that may or may not ever occur).

"I say ol' man! Cry havoc and let slip the hounds of war!"

Nine out of ten times more enemies means more to an encounter than more powerful enemies because of their ability to work together or to make a fight more dynamic. A battle with 6 orcs and a pair of riding dogs is almost guaranteed to be more packed with action than any single CR 4 enemy (especially if those orcs make use of their NPC wealth and use things like nets, reach weapons, alchemical weapons, and perhaps has an adept spellcaster amongst them or something).

Putting it All Together
Let's try building an encounter from scratch. And for this exercise I'm going to use nothing more than the PF Bestiary plus one custom NPC, to show that you don't need to spend hours and hours prepping for games (mostly generic statblocks will be fine). Plus it gives everyone a nice NPC to add to their collection at the end of the blogpost.

In our example, we'll assume that our party is 7th level. That's high enough that a lot of GMs begin getting bewildered by the capabilities of the PCs (casters have 4th level spells, and martials can break down walls with their fists). It's also a level where synergy from parties is getting really strong and players will seem to have more and more powerful resources and can go longer and longer. So with that in mind we're going to build a CR 8 encounter (a challenging encounter) to be a climactic battle at an outpost during one of their adventures. Pretty standard affair really.

We decide that our story involves a group of orcish mercenaries working alongside a goblin tribe under the banner of a powerful hobgoblin warlord. Under the hobgoblin warlord is a group of witches who are either helping him to achieve is goal or guiding him for their own purposes from behind the scenes. So now we have some antagonists, so let's put together a grouping of them!

XP Budget
At CR 8 we have approximately 4,800 XP worth of enemies to account for. So we divide it up like this.

• 5 CR 1/3 Enemies: 3 orcs warriors, 2 goblin warriors (675 XP)
• 4 CR 1/2 Enemies:  4 hobgoblin fighters (800 XP)
• 1 CR 1 Trap: 1 20 ft. wide pit trap that's 20 ft. deep (2d6 falling damage, DC 20 negates)
• 1 CR 2 Enemies: 1 rat swarm (600 XP)
• 2 CR 4 Enemy: 1 owlbear (1,200 XP), 1 9th level hobgoblin adept* (1,200 XP)

Total Value = 4,825 XP

The Location
For our climactic scene (probably a battle, but players can surprise you), we have an outpost with a spiked palisade wall with a pair of tall but rickety wooden towers similar to the crow's nest on a ship. In those towers is a pair of goblins who serve as lookouts and snipers with their shortbows (with their NPC gear, we also arm them with a few alchemist fires they can toss over the side at enemies).  Towards the center of the outpost is a large building made out of brick with small windows and murder holes, with some wooden spikes sticking out of large sections of the walls (mostly to deter battering rams, but could be a stage-hazard if someone is thrown into them).

The hobgoblin forces have dug a pit trap and filled it with ravenous rats near the entrance of their little fort. The rats serve a dual purpose as a trap and as a garbage disposal as they eat virtually anything that's thrown down to them. The trap is activated by a lever on the inner wall of the fortress, which one of the hobgoblins typically mans. When not opened, the pit trap looks like a training platform for warriors to practice their skills on.

Inside the largest building in the center is Reiga, our 9th level adept and her Imp Familiar (gained by the Improved Familiar feat) Xalxor. She typically remains inside out of the hot sun and typically is busy playing with her chemistry set. She is mostly left alone by her underlings out of fear of her magical powers and prejudice against the tribal witches in her clan. She is responsible for the outpost but would rather be hunting elven men to add to her harem that she has been amassing to the disgust of her fellow hobgoblins (who don't like elves at all).

The second largest building in the center of our little fort houses Rex, Reiga's pet Owlbear. He's been in locked in his pen in time out after he ate one of their goblin scouts. Despite his extremely irritable nature, Rex is trained for combat and will obey any hobgoblin, giving Reiga priority should their commands conflict.

Three orcs patrol the camp at any given time, while three hobgoblins are at post inside the main building near miss Reiga. Most of the hobgoblins keep their bows at the ready and the orcs with their falchions. The hobgoblins each have a few alchemist fires on hand in their NPC gear totals, and the orcs are each armed with a single skull-flask of Jujama Juice (a potion of enlarge person) that is said to make their body match the size of their rage.

Scattered about the camp are smaller huts made from brick. These huts are similar to stone in their hardness but are vulnerable to bludgeoning attacks which can knock them apart (bludgeoning attacks deal double damage to them).

How it All Plays Out
If the PCs try to lay siege on the camp from the air (such as with fly + fireball spam) then those not indoors and still alive will take refuge inside the huts (which are extremely resistant to things like fireball and lightning bolt), and will wait out any aerial attacks of the sort. If the PCs bring the battle to the ground, the warriors will attempt to draw some of the PCs over the large pit trap, and then one will throw the lever to drop any unsuspecting PCs. Alternatively, a hobgoblin may ready an action to flip the switch to catch a PC in the trap during a charge or some situation where the trap would be harder to avoid or ruin the PC's action.



If the goblins are left unbothered in the towers, they will take pot-shots at the PCs with their shortbows and throw alchemist fires from their nests, with a special attention to blasting anyone who's in heavy armor (who are more likely to resist their arrows). The towers could be caused to fall down by dealing 20 points of damage (hardness 5) to the wooden poles suspending them, causing the goblins and the towers to tumble over (causing the goblins to take 3d6 falling damage and likely go splat).

The orcs juice up on their potions growing to large size and swing their falchions around with reach. Their armor class in this case is terrible but their threat quite high, and these savage warriors fight until dead through their Ferocity racial ability.

If combat is going poorly for the soldiers, Reiga will emerge with to see what all the commotion is and call Rex to deal with the intruders (and Rex is a little cabin-crazy from being in time out and wants to play). Her familiar Xaxel is of particular cunning and will attempt to harry and harass anyone casting spells while his mistress deals with the rest of the party. He will also us suggestion to attempt to coerce warriors into jumping into the rat pit if it's open. Mistress Reiga has no patience for insolence and will begin blowing everyone up with her most powerful spells like lightning bolt, but will try to avoid killing any human, elf, half-elf, or halfling males so that she can capture and play with them later and decide if she wants to add them to her harem of exotic mates.

"Mmm, I want to know what humans taste like."

Reiga's Statistics
LE Female hobgoblin adept 9; Senses darkvision 60 ft., Perception +12; Init +5;
DEFENSE
AC 12, touch 11, flat 11 (+1 armor, +1 dex); Hp 49 (9d6+18); Fort +3, Ref +4, Will +7
OFFENSE
Adept Spells Prepared (CL 9th)
3rd - lightning bolt (DC 16) x2
2nd - invisibility, mirror image, scorching ray
1st - sleep (DC 14), obscuring mist, protection from good, comprehend languages
Orisons - create water, detect magic, mending, purify food and drink
 STATISTICS
Str 8, Dex 12, Con 12, Int 8, Wis 16, Cha 12
BAB +4, CMB +3, CMD 14
Feats Improved Initiative, Toughness, Spell Penetration, Improved Familiar, Combat Casting
Skills Craft (Alchemy) +12, Perception +12
Equipment +1 cloak of resistance, silken ceremonial robe, scroll of raise dead

That pretty much wraps up part 1 of this guide. Next time I'm going to discuss building high level encounters, how to deal with lots of NPCs at once, and how to avoid getting overwhelmed by the sheer options available to each NPC and PC! Until then, game on!