Have a cr 10 monster going against 5 lvl 4's in my game. The monsters strong, has multiattack, regeneration and innate invisibility, but I'm worried about action economy. Should I add legendary actions or is that too powerful. The players are all vets.
5 level 4s vs a Death Slaad sounds like a TPK, to be honest.
The thing to realize about action economy is that it only actually matters for balance purposes when there's action trading going on. If side A has 5 actions worth 10 damage each whereas side B has 1 action worth 50 damage, both sides are doing 50 damage and it's even. However, if some effect removes one action from each side, now side A is doing 40 damage and side B is doing 0 damage. In 5e this tends to come up in the context of counterspell, which is moot for level 4 PCs.
The real reason for legendary actions isn't balance. Its fun. "Everyone pounds on the monster, and then it gets an action and kills two PCs" isn't actually unbalanced, but it's boring.
Interesting ... a Death Slaad or Yochlol are the only CR10s in the MM. Only the Death Slaad matches up with the abilities in your description.
Using the Beyond encounter builder ... any CR10 is 2x Deadly for a party of 5 level 4s.
Depending on the party composition - either of these stands a decent chance of TPKing the party.
The Death Slaad will almost certainly TPK the party if played correctly. It can use Cloudkill 1/day and Fireball 2/day in addition to 3 attacks/rd - +9 to hit and either likely d8+5+2d6 on one and 2d6+5+2d6 on the other two - that will add up fast - in addition, since it is resistant to fire damage, it might just choose to drop the fireballs on top of everyone nearby including itself if necessary. At level 4 a couple of fireballs might wipe the party right there - each averages 28 damage ... so damage will range from 28 to 56 for 2 of them on average. A d8 level 4 character with 14 con has 31hps - so if characters pass both saves they might still be standing - otherwise they are down.
First reaction: you're party is doomed. A CR 10 is generally way high for level 4s.
However, you're the one who knows your party. If your characters seem exceptionally powerful, they may have a chance. My advise not knowing more about the monster or party would be scale it down, but if your party has some powerful tools... maybe.
Also, know your players. I'm personally always down for a TPK encounter just to try to figure out a way to survive, but many would find it incredibly miserable to be TPKed.
Most importantly, it DOES NOT need legendary actions.
It's not a death slaad, it's a homebrew monster based on the Ekimmara vampires from the witcher series. Has no spellcasting, but hits hard with melee attacks. The original statblock was cr 10 but I nerfed it a bit so probably lower. My parties all spellcasters with either high ac or shield/silvery barbs, I also have given them items to help deal with it.
I would encourage strong caution on this one. Hits hard and has (for the party level) a good amount of HP to whittle down. Measure the damage and see if a pair of swipes will likely drop a party member. If so, a crit can one shot them and as soon as your party loses a member, the balance shifts a lot. Anything resembling the Slaad mentioned earlier is most likely going to flatten them, simple math alone, on average, with the fickle dice gods always having a chance of shifting favor one way or the other. It's a delicate line to walk, between challenging the party and killing them. At lower levels it's riskiest, because a single slip in the wrong direction can end in a TPK super fast.
Your homebrew, your party so you should have the best idea if they can survive it or not. I know a game I'm involved in are only level 5 and there are 4 of us. A Slaad would certainly smoke us without much difficulty I am pretty sure.
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Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
I would encourage strong caution on this one. Hits hard and has (for the party level) a good amount of HP to whittle down. Measure the damage and see if a pair of swipes will likely drop a party member. If so, a crit can one shot them and as soon as your party loses a member, the balance shifts a lot.
The way 5e is set up, for a party of 5, a monster that doesn't reliably drop a PC every turn isn't doing enough damage.
It's not a death slaad, it's a homebrew monster based on the Ekimmara vampires from the witcher series. Has no spellcasting, but hits hard with melee attacks. The original statblock was cr 10 but I nerfed it a bit so probably lower. My parties all spellcasters with either high ac or shield/silvery barbs, I also have given them items to help deal with it.
All we have to go on is the CR you listed and the statblocks at our disposal. Given that you tell us it's a CR 10 critter, it's gonna kill a party. Unless you powderpuff the encounter, which will make for a boring and unbelievable end to combat, a CR 10 monster played with the monster's intent of winning will kill a party of level 4 PCs. If you want this to be a more manageable encounter for the party, tune your creature down to about CR 5, and be prepared to dial the monster up or down depending on difficulty level that you intended. If you want this to be a Hard encounter (and bear in mind that you are not setting a defined constraint, only a probability of outcome) there is still a possibility that weaker PCs might be taken out of the fight, and one or more PCs may die. Check out SlyFlourish Dials of Monster Difficulty and Lazy Encounter Benchmark.
If you are comfortable with the modifications that you have already done, I might suggest checking your work in the DMG Ch. 9, just to make sure that the CR that you believe you have is the CR that you actually have.
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It's not really possible to say whether it's balanced or not purely on CR, but you've aimed for a CR that is supposed to be an unwinnable encounter. The monster design for 5e as given by the MM is not very helpful; consider that a CR10 Aboleth has 135 hit points, a Yochlol 136, while a Death Slaad has 170.
At level 5, I'd say that a fresh party of PCs would probably win against most of the CR10 monsters from the MM, but without those L5 abilities (extra attack, 3rd level spells), probably not.
D&D 5e monster design often favours builds that deal one enormous alpha strike attack on turn 1, and then hope for it to recharge before it dies. Combat is aimed at lasting 2-3 turns. Personally I prefer important combats to go about 5 turns.
I recommend calculating your boss monsters this way instead:
1. Look at your party and work out what the average plus bonus is for attack rolls. The monster's AC should be 9 plus that number; which means they'll hit on about 50% of their attacks.
2. Look at what that damage output means for one of your characters (preferrably not a spellcaster) at a basic level. So if you have a level 4 fighter with a greatsword, they probably hit for 10 (2d6+3) damage. Because only 50% of the attacks will land, let's call it 5dpr.
5 x 5 = 25 damage per round (dpr).
3. If you want a fight to last for 5 turns, the monster needs to survive the "mega turn" where they blow Action Surge and other useful abilities, and will probably deal double damage, so that's turn 1: 50 hit points needed to live. It then needs 25 hit points for each subsequent round. For a 5 turn combat, that means it should have 6 x 25 hit points (to account for the alpha strike turn) = 150 hit points. If the players are veterans and have optimised with GWM, PAM, SS and the like, add like 33% more hp, so 200hp. This is the 5e monster design's greatest failing, e.g. adult dragons with 217 hit points that die in the first turn of combat.
4. The boss needs to be immune to debilitating effects that will prevent it from taking a turn; Stunning Strike, Charmed etc. Without that, it can easily be locked down in one turn.
5. Work out what damage you need to take down all of the characters. So let's say your level 4 party has a total hit points of 120. The fight is expected to last 5 turns, so if it hits all of its attacks it should drop one character per turn. But spread the damage out so that the boss cannot just nuke one PC to death every round. Your goal is to threaten them and make the fight close, but without one-shotting anyone (again, a major failing of 5e monster design). The perfect boss ability for this situation would simply be an AoE that deals 6 damage to every character within 120 feet, but that's not so much fun to play against, and randomness is fun.
6. Work out the average party AC. The boss's plus to hit modifier should mean it misses if it rolls a 9 or less against the average AC.
7. Give the boss multiple attacks so you can spread them out across the party, and don't make the boss just wail on one character all the time. For all the boss knows, the party are commoners, why not try to take them all out in a couple of turns? If we want to deal 30 damage per turn, and the average party AC is 15, then the boss should have +5 to hit, with 4 attacks that each deal something like 15 (2d8+6) damage each, because he ought to be missing some of them. Make 2 of the attacks close quarters, and 2 of them long range in some way. Split them over legendary actions if you like.
And voila, you have a monster that has predictable damage and you can tailor it to the exact spec of the party it will fight rather than just going on basic damage thresholds, suggested AC and whatnot.
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5 level 4s vs a Death Slaad sounds like a TPK, to be honest.
The thing to realize about action economy is that it only actually matters for balance purposes when there's action trading going on. If side A has 5 actions worth 10 damage each whereas side B has 1 action worth 50 damage, both sides are doing 50 damage and it's even. However, if some effect removes one action from each side, now side A is doing 40 damage and side B is doing 0 damage. In 5e this tends to come up in the context of counterspell, which is moot for level 4 PCs.
The real reason for legendary actions isn't balance. Its fun. "Everyone pounds on the monster, and then it gets an action and kills two PCs" isn't actually unbalanced, but it's boring.
Interesting ... a Death Slaad or Yochlol are the only CR10s in the MM. Only the Death Slaad matches up with the abilities in your description.
Using the Beyond encounter builder ... any CR10 is 2x Deadly for a party of 5 level 4s.
Depending on the party composition - either of these stands a decent chance of TPKing the party.
The Death Slaad will almost certainly TPK the party if played correctly. It can use Cloudkill 1/day and Fireball 2/day in addition to 3 attacks/rd - +9 to hit and either likely d8+5+2d6 on one and 2d6+5+2d6 on the other two - that will add up fast - in addition, since it is resistant to fire damage, it might just choose to drop the fireballs on top of everyone nearby including itself if necessary. At level 4 a couple of fireballs might wipe the party right there - each averages 28 damage ... so damage will range from 28 to 56 for 2 of them on average. A d8 level 4 character with 14 con has 31hps - so if characters pass both saves they might still be standing - otherwise they are down.
So, I'd guess it isn't really balanced ...
First reaction: you're party is doomed. A CR 10 is generally way high for level 4s.
However, you're the one who knows your party. If your characters seem exceptionally powerful, they may have a chance. My advise not knowing more about the monster or party would be scale it down, but if your party has some powerful tools... maybe.
Also, know your players. I'm personally always down for a TPK encounter just to try to figure out a way to survive, but many would find it incredibly miserable to be TPKed.
Most importantly, it DOES NOT need legendary actions.
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It's not a death slaad, it's a homebrew monster based on the Ekimmara vampires from the witcher series. Has no spellcasting, but hits hard with melee attacks. The original statblock was cr 10 but I nerfed it a bit so probably lower. My parties all spellcasters with either high ac or shield/silvery barbs, I also have given them items to help deal with it.
I would encourage strong caution on this one. Hits hard and has (for the party level) a good amount of HP to whittle down. Measure the damage and see if a pair of swipes will likely drop a party member. If so, a crit can one shot them and as soon as your party loses a member, the balance shifts a lot. Anything resembling the Slaad mentioned earlier is most likely going to flatten them, simple math alone, on average, with the fickle dice gods always having a chance of shifting favor one way or the other. It's a delicate line to walk, between challenging the party and killing them. At lower levels it's riskiest, because a single slip in the wrong direction can end in a TPK super fast.
Your homebrew, your party so you should have the best idea if they can survive it or not. I know a game I'm involved in are only level 5 and there are 4 of us. A Slaad would certainly smoke us without much difficulty I am pretty sure.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
The way 5e is set up, for a party of 5, a monster that doesn't reliably drop a PC every turn isn't doing enough damage.
If you're homebrewing it, just tune it down a level or two if you want your players to stand a chance.
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HERE.All we have to go on is the CR you listed and the statblocks at our disposal. Given that you tell us it's a CR 10 critter, it's gonna kill a party. Unless you powderpuff the encounter, which will make for a boring and unbelievable end to combat, a CR 10 monster played with the monster's intent of winning will kill a party of level 4 PCs. If you want this to be a more manageable encounter for the party, tune your creature down to about CR 5, and be prepared to dial the monster up or down depending on difficulty level that you intended. If you want this to be a Hard encounter (and bear in mind that you are not setting a defined constraint, only a probability of outcome) there is still a possibility that weaker PCs might be taken out of the fight, and one or more PCs may die. Check out SlyFlourish Dials of Monster Difficulty and Lazy Encounter Benchmark.
If you are comfortable with the modifications that you have already done, I might suggest checking your work in the DMG Ch. 9, just to make sure that the CR that you believe you have is the CR that you actually have.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
It's not really possible to say whether it's balanced or not purely on CR, but you've aimed for a CR that is supposed to be an unwinnable encounter. The monster design for 5e as given by the MM is not very helpful; consider that a CR10 Aboleth has 135 hit points, a Yochlol 136, while a Death Slaad has 170.
At level 5, I'd say that a fresh party of PCs would probably win against most of the CR10 monsters from the MM, but without those L5 abilities (extra attack, 3rd level spells), probably not.
D&D 5e monster design often favours builds that deal one enormous alpha strike attack on turn 1, and then hope for it to recharge before it dies. Combat is aimed at lasting 2-3 turns. Personally I prefer important combats to go about 5 turns.
I recommend calculating your boss monsters this way instead:
1. Look at your party and work out what the average plus bonus is for attack rolls. The monster's AC should be 9 plus that number; which means they'll hit on about 50% of their attacks.
2. Look at what that damage output means for one of your characters (preferrably not a spellcaster) at a basic level. So if you have a level 4 fighter with a greatsword, they probably hit for 10 (2d6+3) damage. Because only 50% of the attacks will land, let's call it 5dpr.
5 x 5 = 25 damage per round (dpr).
3. If you want a fight to last for 5 turns, the monster needs to survive the "mega turn" where they blow Action Surge and other useful abilities, and will probably deal double damage, so that's turn 1: 50 hit points needed to live. It then needs 25 hit points for each subsequent round. For a 5 turn combat, that means it should have 6 x 25 hit points (to account for the alpha strike turn) = 150 hit points. If the players are veterans and have optimised with GWM, PAM, SS and the like, add like 33% more hp, so 200hp. This is the 5e monster design's greatest failing, e.g. adult dragons with 217 hit points that die in the first turn of combat.
4. The boss needs to be immune to debilitating effects that will prevent it from taking a turn; Stunning Strike, Charmed etc. Without that, it can easily be locked down in one turn.
5. Work out what damage you need to take down all of the characters. So let's say your level 4 party has a total hit points of 120. The fight is expected to last 5 turns, so if it hits all of its attacks it should drop one character per turn. But spread the damage out so that the boss cannot just nuke one PC to death every round. Your goal is to threaten them and make the fight close, but without one-shotting anyone (again, a major failing of 5e monster design). The perfect boss ability for this situation would simply be an AoE that deals 6 damage to every character within 120 feet, but that's not so much fun to play against, and randomness is fun.
6. Work out the average party AC. The boss's plus to hit modifier should mean it misses if it rolls a 9 or less against the average AC.
7. Give the boss multiple attacks so you can spread them out across the party, and don't make the boss just wail on one character all the time. For all the boss knows, the party are commoners, why not try to take them all out in a couple of turns? If we want to deal 30 damage per turn, and the average party AC is 15, then the boss should have +5 to hit, with 4 attacks that each deal something like 15 (2d8+6) damage each, because he ought to be missing some of them. Make 2 of the attacks close quarters, and 2 of them long range in some way. Split them over legendary actions if you like.
And voila, you have a monster that has predictable damage and you can tailor it to the exact spec of the party it will fight rather than just going on basic damage thresholds, suggested AC and whatnot.