So, I was doing a test while planning a boss encounter. This is a party of 4 level 5 characters.
A Drow Elite Warrior(CR 5, DPR 34) + 2 Bandits is labeled as HARD.
But 2 Swashbucklers (CR 3 each, Combined DPR 42) + 2 Bandits is MEDIUM.
This doesn't make sense to me, because the encounter with the Drow Elite Warrior would be doing less damage per round. Does anyone have any good explanation? I'm new to DMing.
Swashbucklers are pretty basic. They do damage through physical attacks and that's it. The Drow Elite Warrior has solid saves, a couple of spells, and most of all a good Stealth bonus and Darkvision. If you use the DEW's abilities to set an ambush and his spells for tactical advantages during the encounter, he becomes much more dangerous than simple DPR suggests.
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So do you think for this boss encounter (Just in a room) a DEW and once-per-round arriving Bandits will be too dangerous for a party of 4 level 5 characters?
So do you think for this boss encounter (Just in a room) a DEW and once-per-round arriving Bandits will be too dangerous for a party of 4 level 5 characters?
That depends a bit on how you play them, as always, though I don't think it'll be too dangerous. If the DEW ambushes and potentially poisons one PC before the party can even react and later on gains some time to have more reinforcements arrive by hiding in his Darkness spell things might be much more difficult than if the party meets him in that room and things escalate from there. You control how many bandits keep joining though, so you can adjust things on the fly to some extent - you don't have to have the encounter play out exactly as planned, depending on how the adventure went leading up to the encounter and on how the encounter itself goes you can decide to do things a little different.
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So, I was doing a test while planning a boss encounter. This is a party of 4 level 5 characters.
A Drow Elite Warrior(CR 5, DPR 34) + 2 Bandits is labeled as HARD.
But 2 Swashbucklers (CR 3 each, Combined DPR 42) + 2 Bandits is MEDIUM.
This doesn't make sense to me, because the encounter with the Drow Elite Warrior would be doing less damage per round. Does anyone have any good explanation? I'm new to DMing.
Maybe the defensive abilities of the DEW are so much higher than those of the swashbucklers?
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A DEW has AC 18 and can add 3 to it as a reaction (so only one attack). It has 71 HP.
a Swashbuckler has AC 17 and no Parry reaction. It has 66 HP.
Overall, it seems to me that 2 Swashbucklers would be stronger than 1 DEW.
It IS the beta of this thing, I suppose.
Swashbucklers are pretty basic. They do damage through physical attacks and that's it. The Drow Elite Warrior has solid saves, a couple of spells, and most of all a good Stealth bonus and Darkvision. If you use the DEW's abilities to set an ambush and his spells for tactical advantages during the encounter, he becomes much more dangerous than simple DPR suggests.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
So do you think for this boss encounter (Just in a room) a DEW and once-per-round arriving Bandits will be too dangerous for a party of 4 level 5 characters?
That depends a bit on how you play them, as always, though I don't think it'll be too dangerous. If the DEW ambushes and potentially poisons one PC before the party can even react and later on gains some time to have more reinforcements arrive by hiding in his Darkness spell things might be much more difficult than if the party meets him in that room and things escalate from there. You control how many bandits keep joining though, so you can adjust things on the fly to some extent - you don't have to have the encounter play out exactly as planned, depending on how the adventure went leading up to the encounter and on how the encounter itself goes you can decide to do things a little different.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].