We've all discussed it, we've all complained about it to a certain extent, now let's all get down to the business of doing it.

My party contains an annoyingly strong Dwarf Trollslayer, he's accompanied by a well equiped dwarf watchman who understands the importance of a good block action and is defenced up to the gills. In most combats, he'll engage with the rest of the party, activate the saga of grungni, then soak it up as the slayer deals it right back out.

We've all had this discussion before, but now it's time to get serious and start acknowledging weaknesses in combat heavy parties and start developing strategies to deal with them. Here's where my observations have led me so far.

1. The troll slayer has an intelligence, fellowship and agility of two. On their own, these don't mean all that much, but can be used at the start of combat to impose specific and galling penalties that will punish the PC's over time.

2. The highest agility in the group is three, a glorious mercy for me. Even trolls and zombies can get the jump on these clowns. This means I have the possibility of getting one, solid hit in before blocky mccantstabme gets in with the saga of grungni.

3. Willpower on the watchman is only three, a viable ***** in their armour.

My conclussion is likely the same as most that people have arrived at.

1. Extend combat for as long as possible, throwing multiple, low powered enemies at the group. Bog them down in their own actions.

2. Pile on the stress and fatigue and conditions.

Drawing out combat takes PC's out of their comfort zone of really powerful, single use abilities, troll feller strike might (will!) take down the troll on the first attack, but that's your cunning ruse to draw the slayer away from the armoured bucket and isolate him where you can start applying option 2. above. If I play the long game against the slayer, I'll eventually force an insanity on him, sooner rather than later if he keeps bullheading into reckless stance like he does. One insanity has this cheery little way of leading to another insanity. Rinse, repeat, see you in the loony-bin. This actually has the potential to be quite interesting, since the troll slayer will continue winning fights but pitch slowly(then rapidly) into insanity.

The watchman? Again, chip, chip, chip away. In this instance, he's the one I direct willpower related attacks against. For starters. Breaking the wheel is one action I just can't get enough of. Converting wounds to criticals and dark magic are the order of the day with him. One spell at a time I'll build up criticals until I can have a arm off. Or something similar. Corruption and conditions should also help me out.

My two other PC's are a burgher and gold wizard and, really, they seem to be a challange only because they can hide behind the watchman. Once he goes down or is suitably debilitated, they become targets. Big, easy targets.

With this in mind, does anyone have a seriously hardcore group they're having trouble with, maybe we can come up with a suitably evil way of putting them in their place.

Fighting fire with fire, can backfire

My point being, that your PC's obviously are fighting clever, so let them have that success, they've earned it!

Also those who're fighting clever are dwarves, dwarves are born into a warrior society, they're born and breed to defend their clan!

I would continue letting them shine on the battlefield, have highway-men ambush them, only to flee the scene with their bones badly broken.

It's freaking dwarves! Tales of dwarves fighting is usually a few dwarves beating 10 times their own numbers, by going in shield-wall mode and then sing while they chop away their enemies.

But players still need challenges, apart from the obvious in given the dwarves challenges out-side the battlefield (handling nobles etc...), you can give them challenges by once in a while introducing clever opponents. They can lure them into a fight, where a second front is suddenly opened by hidden opponents springing out from some bushes, suddenly exposing the other members. Also missile fire, and lots of it.

But don't make opponents like this the norm, but throw in a few who utilize everything they can.

I had my players fight 2 guards, who took turns using Improves Guarded Position, and with both wearing heavy armor, with large shields, the players actually had to retreat! They did come back better prepared, but their victory did come at the cost of a severe injury.

Hi,

Seconding Spivo's thoughts on giving them their glory vs bandits and mooks.

Have you thought about some cunning skaven skirmishers?

An assassin or two, few gutter runners, a poisoned wind globadier, topped off with a nasty grey seer who fights dirty from the shadows...

Use specific action cards to try and split the party up, make it obvious so the players can fee they're being hunted by a predatory pack. Immobilising shot, warpstone throwing stars, improved dodges and the assassin riposte card. couple that with a summoned rat swarm and some other filthy rat magic. Take the mage down with ranged actions, pile on the stress/fatigue with the swarm/spells and hit and run attacks from the others. Oh and when they're topped up with fatigue ask politely for a disease check .

Of course setting it in a 4' swamp or sewer is great for putting rat poo in a dwarfs beard.

Rat poo in a dwarf's beard eh?

*scribbles*

I think you've put me in mind for a ranged engagement at least, something for which I have a somewhat humerous idea.

The party is attacked by two dwarves and two humans, have a long running, ranged engagement with their opponents who easily scurry off from their advances. They come out the other side of the forest...

Then get arrested by watchmen looking for a party of bandits. Two dwarves, two humans.

I've done a few things in my campaign to deal with our Ironbreaker. First off, I do want to say, our party is by no means melee heavy, but the Ironbreaker can be really tough.

The first rule I use is to have a good balance of different difficulty encounters over the course of a certain amount of game sessions. Let's throw out some random numbers: Out of 10 combats, I'd say 5 should be easy (say with mooks or the like), 3 should be difficult, and 2 should be very, very challenging.

One of the things to consider is how to bring them out of their element.

For one fight, I had a group of thugs hired by the baddie sneak into the house they were staying in in the middle of the night and set the place on fire. So they now had a fight with armed baddies (one with a vicious 2H weapon and some nice Action Cards to support it) in their underwear in a burning building (using the Burning Building location card). Makes the combat dynamic, fun, and very challenging, even for the Ironbreaker. That specific encounter ended up really fun for the players.

Another fight they were on a precarious path along a cliff with a rickety rope bridge. A Shaggoth showed up a ways above them on a cliffside and opened up the fight by hurling a bunch of large boulders on them. Then he engaged. This is a good example of having the monsters try for advantages aside from the typical: "Monsters spottted, everyone charges and begins whacking on each other"

Lastly, my group is facing a lot of undead in the current campaign. Can't kill the Ironbreaker with damage? You can sure as heck drop him with oodles of stress.

All in all, a bit of creativity on the part of the GM can lead to some fantastic (and difficult) encounters if done right. Each group may vary, just find what they like!

Crazy Aido said:

First message on a new forum, and I'm trying to be restrained. This sort of thing makes me despair.

You're the GM. If you want to kill your players, kill them. Look, there's a Dragon. Or a meteor. Or a Cyber Disease Lich. Easy. Move on.

If on the other hand, the purpose of the game isn't to put people in their place, but is instead to ensure that everyone around the table is enjoying themselves, maybe you need to think what it is that gives your players enjoyment. It sounds like at least two of them enjoy being really effective at combat. Your response is to try and stop them? How's that going to increase the group's enjoyment of the game? Apart from anything else, these players probably directly link the pleasure they get from any particular session with their combat exploits.

It's right to set players challenges and even have them fail occasionally. But if you're going to do that, make the failures ones that aren't going to spoil the players' enjoyment and sense of character. You've pointed out their poor skill diversity, so have them lose out in a social situation, be double-crossed or tricked out of a prized possession. And then let them kill whoever did it and get their righteous retribution. Everyone wins. You get to remind them they aren't completely invulnerable. They get to reinforce their sense of character values. Everyone has fun.

I hate when players make broken characters (and I'm guilty of it myself..so I guess it's a bit of self-loathing).

Options:

Try to kill them off with wounds (usually only kills the other characters and then if you kill the actual character, the player just brings back another character min-maxed even worse). This is why I always require back-up characters to be sitting in the player's folders..then they stay with a "character" instead of just another build to keep from getting killed.

Disease, insanity, corruption, mutation ...yea, yea, yea, yea. Start throwing this stuff at the dude.

Take the player aside and ask them to tone the character down.

House rules: THIS character is exempt, but future characters are not allowed to be so broken -type-of-approach

phild said:

I would agree with everything that's been said here. I realise I've come on a little strong. There's a reason behind that.

I'll be honest, I want players to die, I want them to go mad and turn into mutants. I want them to suffer. Because that, in my opinion, is what you do in wfrp. But I don't want them all to die, and I suppose, in a way, I want them to go out saying "I died doin' what I loved!" That way, even turning into a shambling mass of limbs, they have fun, and are looking forward to making a new character. If a character makes a combat character, then I want to challange him in combat. By challange, I mean I want to have him sitting at about three wounds, wondering what he's going to do to stop himself from kicking the bucket. Now with the likes of a slayer, that's... Difficult. I can knock him out, but I need a whopping six criticals to kill him, he laughs off most resistance rolls. Insanities are my only real inroad. So far. But that will change.

So in short, I may want to kill my PC's, but I still want my players to have fun.

hehe, had a funny conversation with another 3rd edition GM, since I last responded to this thread.

I did not write it down, but here's a summary of what he said...:

When I created my group, I knew one of my players would need to be reigned in, in regards to min-maxing. He always tries to create a min-maxed char, I then show him it's a bad idea, he then makes a new min-maxed. We dance around a bit like that, until he finally creates a great character with soul, which he enjoys playing a lot more than the others. Apparently he doesn't know why he does so, but he always ends up thanking me for pushing me the right direction...

So in 3rd edition he started out by making a Bright Wizard, 2 str, 2 tou, 2 ag, 5 Int, 5 WP, 2 Fel...

Okay, first fight they get in, he dies super fast when 2 bandit archers shots him down, 2 crits + unconcious = 3 crits = dead...

Okay, next char... Troll Slayer... 5 Str, 5 Toug, 2 Ag, 2 Int, 3 WP, 2 Fel...

Okay, river boat got in a storm (never guess the location), Ag check, falls in river, several checks later, drowned (talk about un-heroic way for Slayer to die...).

Okay, new char... Grave Robber... 3 Str, 4 Tou, 4 Ag, 2 Int, 4 WP, 2 Fel...

I commented "That's not to bad", but ho and behold... they encounter a Witch Hunter in the process of burning a village.

It's important to know, this player ROLEPLAYS his stats!

Due to his lack of intelligence, he gives a round of drinks to two WH helpers, and when asked how he got so rich, he comments he sold 2 well preserved bodies to a young Noble. Grave robbing is frowned upon...

So he's dragged out on the street, and has to answer to the accusations, in front of the WH. His Fel got him trouble here, and he ends up being burned.

Finally he makes a Smuggler, Str 3, Tou 3, Ag 3, Int 4, WP 3, Fel 4... And he's loving it

His story was more vivid than this, and really really entertaining! But it goes to show, that min-maxed players characters are easy to kill, if you know how to, and also without it looking obvious.

1) It is important to take note that the Saga of Grungi only forces/draws attacks from enemies in the SAME ENGAGEMENT. So, unless everyone is huddled around the watchman, he won't be necessarily drawing all the attacks onto him. It also says nothing about enemies disengaging from him and engaging someone else, only that if they are in that engagement, they must attack the user of the Saga. So, there is nothing preventing an enemy from disengaging from the Watchman and then engaging another PC (in a different engagement) and attacking them. Sure, they take wounds to do so, since it takes an extra maneuver, but it is legal.

2) Re: Ironbreakers and other 'tough' PCs. Every PC will have a weak spot. Whether it is fatigue, Stress, or Wounds.
- Remember that every hit will do at least 1 wound to even the toughest PC, so if you increase the number of hits (ie enemies), you'll do more damage. Surround the PC with a lot of enemies and whittle him away.
- There are attacks that ignore armor soak (of varying amounts). Give those to NPCs and let them use them specifically against the heavily armored PC. Nothing like seeing a player's face when you declare the goblin is using Troll-feller strike against his Ironbreaker (or what have you). <evil grin>
- Ranged attacks can work too. Archers on roofs, where a melee-oriented PC cannot have much of an effect.
- Non-combat situations will generally cause problems for combat-oriented PCs, especially min-maxed ones. Ensure to rely less on combat and more on social situations for a few sessions.
- Make use of disease. Combat in the sewers? Apply a Disease check every time you take a wound (or difficulty modified by the number of times you were wounded in a turn). So, while the Watchman might only have taken a single wound from each of 3 or 4 enemies, that means a disease check with 4 additional misfortune dice (or whatever you decide). And so on.
- Don't let the PCs rest or heal. Make it difficult for them to recover wounds during the course of an adventure. Those little 1 and 2 wound hits will add up.

- Stress and Fatigue are usually good to use, so let NPCs use actions that cause fatigue and stress.

The thing about social stuff is that if you have a large group, (like myself) with only one or two social characters. (Or at least, with a fellowship over three.) So when social stuff happens, there is very little happening. A chance to hit the PC's in the funny bits with some stress can't be missed, but I can't drag it out too long or they'll be spending most of their time with thier thumbs up their arses.

Lack of Fel rating does not mean the character is useless and cannot interact during social situations. In fact, most of the time it means they *should* be doing or saying something (although socially unacceptable, hehe), meaning a *lot* should be going on.

For instance, I had a Zealot in my group with a Fel of 2. He burned with religious fervor for Sigmar, and let everyone know about it. He was quite outspoken, and made it a point to attempt to get into social situations, especially to "spread the word of Sigmar". He was very offputting for most NPCs (until he used his massive intimidation checks to cow them) but he reveled in the attention and had a smug knowledge that he was always 'right'. This Fel 2 PC did a lot of socializing and talking during social situations ... things just didn't always go as the group planned, though, unless the other members of the group were able to use their skills and roleplay well enough to offset any untoward effects the zealot had caused.

Remember, a low Fel just affects any checks the PC has to make. It does *not* mean the player cannot interact or speak/roleplay during a social situation. A dwarf Trollslayer (with a 2 Fel) isn't likely to remain silent in a social situation, such as a party (especially if there is booze involved), for example.

Oh he doesn't shut up, is the thing, but for him, it's all about the honour defecit and the drinking. I wonder what would happen if he met some nobles...

But that probably won't happen becaaaaaause...

The troll slayer in our group, simply put, is not long for this world. His arm got lopped off last session, but more importantly he's sitting on no less than four criticals at the moment. Next session puts them head on against a hoard of zombies, vampires and god alone knows what else.

True to form he bellies into anything that stands in his way. Charging forward heedless of consequences. But that's not what knocked his wounds down like ninepins. Nor is it what kicked him in the goolies as regards crits.

Ladies.(I have yet to be informed of a lady on these forums, but proper conduct should still be observed.)

Gentlemen.(Gentlemen, hmmmmm...)

I'll run you through the last combat the group was involved in, so you can draw your own conclusions. The group happens upon a mortal enemy in heavy armour and decides his face needs to be radically re-altered. They attack in earnest. Responses?

The heavily armoured dwarf opposing them uses improved gaurded position, the duellist goes for a crit heavy strike.

The hidden dwarf ratcatcher pegs crossbow bolts at them, the invisible grey wizard hits them with, well, lots of stuff.

The PC's performed in an absolutely appalling fashion. The watchman, who heretofor had fired up saga of grungni at his first option, went with saga of valaya. Even had he have done that, I had still smacked the troll slayer with sheild bind, pinning the best melee attack roll in the group. The enemy grey wizard hits the group with... I can't remember the name of the spell but the wizard in the group was now perplexed and trying to fire off rank two spells. The elf envoy feels a bit silly and fires a crossbow. In short, I whipped them around the courtyard. I could probably have dropped them with ease and the reason?

Player actions. If you really want to slap the silly buggers around, give them some player actions. Then watch the sparks fly. Heavy hitter like trollslayer with a 2handed axe or a swordmaster? Sheildbind. Improved gaurded position. Heavily armoured bugger? Magic dart, or some of the other grey spells, or any spell that only requires a spellcraft only check. There are plenty of them. Go nuts.

Player actions also seem to be easier on the roll and cause more crits. Think of it, a few monsters with a few nice action combos, and you could put any group facing them in a very serious position.