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11-26-2021, 02:40 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Nov 2014
Location: Near Chicago
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Why dose my party struggle with basic thugs but not boss monsters?
Has anyone else had this experience? You throw all sorts of stuff at your players, killer robots, werewolves, swarms of piranha men, krakens, aliens and zombies yet they come through all those encounters unscathed, but then a standard goon with a club or a knife just utterly wrecks them.
Ive had this happen a lot, like bigger bad-er enemies with more power aren't a big deal but one dagger wielding cultist manages to kill somebody, and a couple henchmen with batons puts the whole party in the hospital. Why is this? They're just standard "Mooks" with a primary weapon skill no higher than 12 yet they do more damage to the party than huge monsters in so many of my games even when they arent aloud anything more powerful than a knife or a stick for weapons and have no armor. I'm not sure if my players just automatically assume normal humans are less of a threat and just act carelessly, or if there's an element to how the antagonists are designed that I'm missing |
11-26-2021, 02:50 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Why dose my party struggle with basic thugs but not boss monsters?
I would speculate that it might be a combination of two other things:
* Truly random rolls produce unexpected outcomes: The really inept combatant gets a lucky roll, or the really skilled one gets an unlucky one * You tend to remember those outcomes more vividly because they're improbable, and not to remember the many more events that lack surprise And there may be more going on than that, but that's the null hypothesis I'd want to eliminate first.
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
11-27-2021, 04:16 AM | #3 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Why dose my party struggle with basic thugs but not boss monsters?
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11-27-2021, 05:16 AM | #4 |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: One Mile Up
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Re: Why dose my party struggle with basic thugs but not boss monsters?
This may seem a bit overly obvious, but don't forget the NPCs' motivations, also. Do these guys get paid enough to fight to the death? Are they really going to stick around to the bitter end after seeing even one of their number killed or maimed? Maybe so if they're mindless zombies or something, but otherwise remember the, "Holy crap Bob just got his hand chopped off I'm outta here!" factor.
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11-27-2021, 07:45 AM | #5 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Pioneer Valley
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Re: Why dose my party struggle with basic thugs but not boss monsters?
Beyond all the comments above, look, man. You're the guy at the table observing. We're not. We have no idea what kind of dice luck the mooks have, whether your players visibly ratchet up their play when they face Big Bads, or what kind of gear/goodies/tricks you hand out to your NPCs.
But I do have to say that between a 300-pt master wizard Big Bad and a squad of six 50-pt mooks (where two have crossbows, two are sword and board, and two polearm users), I know which are more likely to put a serious hurting on a party.
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My gaming blog: Apotheosis of the Invisible City "Call me old-fashioned, but after you're dead, I don't think you should be entitled to a Dodge any more." - my wife It's not that I don't understand what you're saying. It's that I disagree with what you're saying. |
11-27-2021, 11:17 AM | #6 |
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southeast NC
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Re: Why dose my party struggle with basic thugs but not boss monsters?
If the situation is big boss that is the culmination of the adventure versus a random encounter, I'd add one additional hypothesis: preparation.
When the boss battle is looming, you're going to have buffs in place, your gear in hand, and select the approach and timing to maximize your advantage. When attacked by a group of thugs or wandering monsters, you'll likely lose a few turns getting yourself ready, or be forced to do without some of what you'd have when fighting a set piece fight.
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RyanW - Actually one normal sized guy in three tiny trenchcoats. |
11-26-2021, 02:59 PM | #7 | |
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Portsmouth, VA, USA
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Re: Why dose my party struggle with basic thugs but not boss monsters?
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11-26-2021, 03:25 PM | #8 |
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Sydney, Australia
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Re: Why dose my party struggle with basic thugs but not boss monsters?
For most characters, they have finite resources of some kind. Against bigger, badder, bosses, it's an easy choice to throw everything at it. More of everything, use the bigger spells, the fancy arrows, the special abilities that take time to reset, and so.
With mooks, the assumption is that it won't be needed. And experience will bear that out. But this is GURPS. And even a mook rolls a 3 or 4 now and then, and there are usually more of them. That can drain defences and dilute attacks against them. It's why throwing a couple of mooks with the boss can be more of a challenge than just boosting the boss. Unless your PCs are boss level themselves, mooks in even small numbers can be a threat if they try to take it easy.
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Farmer Mortal Wombat "But if the while I think on thee, dear friend All losses are restored and sorrows end." |
11-26-2021, 03:30 PM | #9 |
Join Date: Dec 2020
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Re: Why dose my party struggle with basic thugs but not boss monsters?
Groups of relative low level monsters are really dangeroius if they outnumber and / or encircle the party. Itīs in fact the same tactic the players use on the big bosses turned the other way around. You canīt block, parry, dodge and take other defensive measures without end, you eiter run out of the allowed numbers for blocking and parrying, or your luck with the dice runs out. Same goes for a modern or scifi scenario. Best advise is not ot let them hit encircle you or even better use a bottleneck to fight them piecemeal, otherwise you are doomed.
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11-26-2021, 10:25 PM | #10 |
Join Date: Nov 2014
Location: Near Chicago
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Re: Why dose my party struggle with basic thugs but not boss monsters?
yeah thats the thing... the party usually dose outnumber them and they still lose, even when its like, 3 on 5 in there favor, and they do better against a similar number of higher point level threats, its really strange
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Tags |
encounter balance, foes |
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