“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
What level are the PCs? How many PCs are there? Are you asking how many minions to put in the dragon fight or just generally through a larger lair that they will creep through?
Have you DM'd for this group before? I ask because a team who are able to take down an adult white dragon are probably level 8+, and there's just not much point bothering with CR1/4 and CR1/2 monsters, as the PCs can just clear them in a turn. If so then what challenges do you expect these minions to offer?
As a general rule I'd recommend no more than 4 combat encounters in one adventuring day, as more than this really feels like a grind. But without knowing the party level it's impossible to say.
thanks for the reply Sanvael It's the climax for HotDQ v Glazhael the Cloudchaser, campaign is heavily modified 2 Player PC's level 9 2 npc level 9 with a possible addition npc level 5 if they free him they haven't as of yet...
Ideally I'm asking what number of Minions would such a white dragon have at it's disposal to defend its lair thematically
I'm thinking if the group go in without trying to be sneaky they will get swamped so the winged Kobold's Ice Troll's and Ice Mephits should be avoided and the group have to take out the Adult White Dragon Glazhael the Cloudchaser fast before to many of it's allies join the fight...
Yeah totally agree about 4 sloggy combat encounters really not what I hoping for.... I guess I just really like idea of the pressure of if we get sprung we're in big trouble
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“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
Any advice on how many Minions a Adult White Dragon CR 13 should have?
As many as makes it interesting for the PCs? An adult white dragon is 10,000 xp, the daily budget for 4xlevel9 is 30,000, so you should have 20,000 adjusted xp of other encounters that they're likely to deal with. I'd probably double that and figure that the PCs will manage to bypass at least half of them, particularly given that there's multiple entries. However, I wouldn't use ice mephits and winged kobolds as the core of any encounter -- they aren't totally ineffective against level 9 PCs, but the number you need to make them a direct threat is extremely annoying. You can still have them about, but in small numbers (and not counted in encounter math) -- the kobolds are scouts and watchers, the mephits basically exist to annoy the PCs with Fog Cloud and incidental frost breath to break concentration.
Any advice on how many Minions a Adult White Dragon CR 13 should have?
However, I wouldn't use ice mephits and winged kobolds as the core of any encounter -- they aren't totally ineffective against level 9 PCs, but the number you need to make them a direct threat is extremely annoying.
An option if you want to run mephits is to run them as a swarm like the swarm of rats, they are tiny creatures too after all. To run them as a swarm you just multiply the stats by the number in the swarm, give them the swarm trait, the condition immunities and the half damage at half health thing. For example there is this swarm of ice mephits I quickly made. It has 6 mephits in it but if you wanted a more challenging swarm you could do more. 2-3 swarms would be a decent challenge which is the equivalent of about 18 mephits they could be spread out like land mines or hidden in piles of treasure.
Any advice on how many Minions a Adult White Dragon CR 13 should have?
You can still have them about, but in small numbers (and not counted in encounter math) -- the kobolds are scouts and watchers, the mephits basically exist to annoy the PCs with Fog Cloud and incidental frost breath to break concentration.
Running them as sort of living fog clouds like this works well too.
Some more elements elemental option which werent out at the time HOTD was written are:
Yeah I was thinking the ice mephit and winged kobold would be scouts almost like traps to be avoided and theIce Troll could still make for a interesting fight.
That's so Cool Solarsyphonswarm of ice mephits pun intended! I'll definitely be giving my players chills with that idea! and those other monster look very interesting to will have a closer look...
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
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Any advice on how many Minions a Adult White Dragon CR 13 should have?
I'm thinking Winged Kobold CR 1/4 and Ice Troll CR 8 and a few Ice Mephit CR 1/2
The Dragon Lair I'm using is quite extensive with multiple possible entry points so minions would be spread across it
Thank you for any advice thoughts
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
What level are the PCs?
How many PCs are there?
Are you asking how many minions to put in the dragon fight or just generally through a larger lair that they will creep through?
Have you DM'd for this group before? I ask because a team who are able to take down an adult white dragon are probably level 8+, and there's just not much point bothering with CR1/4 and CR1/2 monsters, as the PCs can just clear them in a turn. If so then what challenges do you expect these minions to offer?
As a general rule I'd recommend no more than 4 combat encounters in one adventuring day, as more than this really feels like a grind. But without knowing the party level it's impossible to say.
thanks for the reply Sanvael
It's the climax for HotDQ v Glazhael the Cloudchaser, campaign is heavily modified
2 Player PC's level 9 2 npc level 9 with a possible addition npc level 5 if they free him they haven't as of yet...
Ideally I'm asking what number of Minions would such a white dragon have at it's disposal to defend its lair thematically
I'm thinking if the group go in without trying to be sneaky they will get swamped so the winged Kobold's Ice Troll's and Ice Mephits should be avoided and the group have to take out the Adult White Dragon Glazhael the Cloudchaser fast before to many of it's allies join the fight...
Yeah totally agree about 4 sloggy combat encounters really not what I hoping for.... I guess I just really like idea of the pressure of if we get sprung we're in big trouble
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
As many as makes it interesting for the PCs? An adult white dragon is 10,000 xp, the daily budget for 4xlevel9 is 30,000, so you should have 20,000 adjusted xp of other encounters that they're likely to deal with. I'd probably double that and figure that the PCs will manage to bypass at least half of them, particularly given that there's multiple entries. However, I wouldn't use ice mephits and winged kobolds as the core of any encounter -- they aren't totally ineffective against level 9 PCs, but the number you need to make them a direct threat is extremely annoying. You can still have them about, but in small numbers (and not counted in encounter math) -- the kobolds are scouts and watchers, the mephits basically exist to annoy the PCs with Fog Cloud and incidental frost breath to break concentration.
An option if you want to run mephits is to run them as a swarm like the swarm of rats, they are tiny creatures too after all. To run them as a swarm you just multiply the stats by the number in the swarm, give them the swarm trait, the condition immunities and the half damage at half health thing. For example there is this swarm of ice mephits I quickly made. It has 6 mephits in it but if you wanted a more challenging swarm you could do more. 2-3 swarms would be a decent challenge which is the equivalent of about 18 mephits they could be spread out like land mines or hidden in piles of treasure.
Running them as sort of living fog clouds like this works well too.
Some more elements elemental option which werent out at the time HOTD was written are:
Thanks so much Pantagruel666 and Solarsyphon for your reply
Yeah I was thinking the ice mephit and winged kobold would be scouts almost like traps to be avoided and theIce Troll could still make for a interesting fight.
That's so Cool Solarsyphon swarm of ice mephits pun intended! I'll definitely be giving my players chills with that idea! and those other monster look very interesting to will have a closer look...
again thanks so much for your replies thoughts
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again