How Much Random Encounter Grinding Do you Do?

Well, it's the Temple of ELEMENTAL Evil, after all

Seriously though, I'm aware that having high level baddies stalking the roads is a bit unnatural. I'd always wanted to tie it to some story element, and now seems like a good time. Perhaps the Arena of Heroes? Any thoughts on this? (hopefully something better than "A WIZARD DID IT!" )

 

I haven't been to the Arena of Heroes yet, so I cannot comment on that specifically. However, with respect to higher level or 'exotic' supernatural baddies . . .

I can't think of any story exactly, and not sure what you mean really.

However, back in my DMing days I seem to recall some tables and such that were determining random encounter that were shaped by team level, as well as the area in which the encounter occurred. Certain critters were just not going to occur in certain locations, whereas others were pretty likely and others pretty unlikely but possible.

Overall, I got the impression that Co8 NC included something along those lines as the composition of the groups I encounter does seem to vary depending on what part of the map I'm on.

Maybe just remove critters like elementals, or other types that just do not make sense for this map entirely?

 

Interesting. I have never had a random encounter with an elemental outside of the temple.

 

I think they're new as of 8.1.0. Aside from the one that wiped me out around 5th level (I think it showed up as a fluke), I think they're well balanced and interesting for higher level parties.

 

My recollection of playing 1st ed PnP ToEE is that the loot from the Moathouse boosted our levels pretty dramatically (1st ed gave 1xp per gp earned iirc), but it was nearly 30 years ago so I may have miss remembered.

 

Now that I've finished most of the intended content that interests me with a party of six, I'm doing some grinding to get my crafters to catch up with everyone else before doing Gaear's piece de resistance. The new XP capping rule is what's driving me to this, as I didn't have to grind much if at all to catch them up before. The Fighter/Wizard has to get to 20th to reach +16 BAB, though the Fighter/Cleric only has to be 19th.

 

I finally encountered the

Spoiler

huge fire elementals

again. They're much more manageable at 18-20th level, but I noticed they all do non-lethal damage to my Periapt of Wound Closure wearing party members. Shouldn't they do lethal? I imagine this applies more generally, but I either didn't have Periapts yet, or just didn't notice in the middle of combat before.