Gauging Opposition

[Sammael99]

I apologize in advance if this has already been covered, but I just joined the forum.

I'm in the process of writing an adventure, and I have a hard time getting a sense of what the right degree of opposition is for beginning PCs.

I have devised an encounter with Attercops but I have no idea how many I should consider for four players. Is two per PC too much ? I would like them to survive the encounter.

On another related note, the Cave Troll needs at least 1 wound and endurance 0 to go down. Since he rolls d12+3d6+7 armor, wounding a cave troll seems nigh on impossible, which seems to make a cave troll an unbeatable foe. Am I missing something ?

[uhu79]

@Cave Troll: hard to wound him, yes - but easier if weary (= no hate left)

[Glorelendil]

New players can probably handle two attercops each, especially if you send them in waves.

And Cave Trolls are no joke. I wouldn't use one against new players, both because their characters are weaker and because they probably haven't figured out things like getting Trolls Weary as quickly as possible. To make troll fights a little less brutal, and more fun, some LMs have them switch targets each round to whoever did the most damage to them the previous round.

[poosticks7]

Yeah I always play trolls like that. They wack whoever hurts them most in a round.

[Sammael99]

I staged a combat between the Cave Troll and four pre-gens tonight (the Beornid and the Wood-Elf from the rulebook and the High-Elf and Ranger from Rivendell). It was very very boring: once the Cave Troll got to zero endurance and zero hate, it was all dice rolling, and no wounds whatsoever.

The thing is I don't see how more powerful characters would have fared better: their weapon's Injury would have been only marginally better, and at d12+3d6+7, even weary I was rolling over 16 every single time.

[Indur Dawndeath]

I had a similar fight with a Cave Troll, fortunately for the players, the troll did not hit them very often...
In my game there was a trap that could kill the troll. Without that I think the fight would have lasted for a very long time.

Next time I will make an effort and describe how the small weapons are not doing any significant damage, to get the players to use great axe and longsword with two hands

[Majestic]

Fights like that can come down to players just rolling the Feat die, as further Endurance loss is irrelevant.

Once players are skilled enough, some can fish for Called Shots, to guarantee that they will hit their Edge and force a Protection test. Getting the adversary Weary also really helps improve the odds that the important Protection test will be failed, too.

[Glorelendil]

Once players are skilled enough, some can fish for Called Shots, to guarantee that they will hit their Edge and force a Protection test.

Of course (Francesco, you fiendish mastermind...) weapons that do a Pierce on a called shot are also the ones with the lowest Injury...

[Majestic]

Agreed that that's so brilliant. I love that there's not some supreme optimal weapon that is just a no-brainer to choose.