So what kind of CR monsters should a group of 7 players fight that are all around lvl4-5 to make combat interesting and fun without just adding large amount of weaker monsters.
on the same note what do you as DMs find more fun for your players. High AC mediocre HP or mediocre AC monster sponges that soak up larger amounts of damage?
What you need to make combat interesting is variety. One or two higher CR bosses, then a few types of monsters, probably around 4-5 CR, to try to keep them off the bosses.
There's also the question of how much fighting the PCs have to do to to get to the fight. The fresher they are, and the more they know they don't have more big fights to go, the more they can just break out the big guns.
I suggest high AC/lower HP, as lots of HP just makes things drag, but spells can really complicate this plan. In particular, if you have level five casters, make sure not to give them an easy fireball target.
So one of the creatures I did was a modified skeleton that fits the homebrew world.
shadow skeleton that deal in necrotic damage but can heal it self when it does do damage. Also has a 10% chance of dealing double damage while in darkness. AC 16 HP 50 1d6+5 short sword damage
It’s tough to say. I guess the first thing is to define “interesting and fun” does that mean lots of tactical choices, or the PCs all at 1 hp at the end, or interactions with things besides just the monsters, or what?
How many fights will they have had (since the last long rest) before this one? How many do you have planned for after?
Generally, one of the things that can make fights more interesting, and really impact the effective CR, is terrain. If the enemies are on high ground behind cover and the melee types can’t get to them, while the ranged ones have trouble targeting, it can make a fight much harder than the CR would suggest. It doesn’t even have to be that dramatic, just some kind of obstacle between melee characters and the enemies can really change the dynamic. Conversely, putting everyone in a small room, all mixed in together, so casters can’t really AoE, and ranged people have adjacent enemies so they have problems. You don’t want to do that every time, but now and then to mix it up is good.
So what kind of CR monsters should a group of 7 players fight that are all around lvl4-5 to make combat interesting and fun without just adding large amount of weaker monsters.
Single monsters against a party of seven won't make for much of interest using any standard monsters because they don't act often enough. While I think people can overstate the effects of action economy, an interesting fight does require stuff happening fairly often -- at least every 2 PCs or so something should change on the battlefield.
So what kind of CR monsters should a group of 7 players fight that are all around lvl4-5 to make combat interesting and fun without just adding large amount of weaker monsters.
on the same note what do you as DMs find more fun for your players. High AC mediocre HP or mediocre AC monster sponges that soak up larger amounts of damage?
Technically the 7 PC’s at level 4-5 have enough combined power to take down a CR 14 Adult Black Dragon… (if you’re thinking single encounter). Depending on how you run the dragon, at least 2-3 of the characters will die. That’s if you want that type of ‘do or die’ encounter.
if you’re just looking to spice things up, maybe include environmental challenges or puzzles to your combat encounters. For example, 2 characters have to turn a ‘wheel’ to lower a bridge, close/open a door or something like that while the rest of the party has to protect them. Or maybe the only way to stop the horde of ‘skeletons’ is to solve a puzzle, or reach an object in the room that is difficult to get to. The idea being that you force players to use their action for something other than attack/spell, essentially balancing the action economy a bit more to DM favour.
You’re basically dealing with 7 move/action/bonus action/reaction per round (ignoring action surge or haste). While you, the DM, are likely working with far less than that, even with lair or legendary actions. Most single monsters, even legendary ones, can’t take that kind of punishment for long.
If you’re between upping AC or HP, go with HP. Lots of combat narrative to have fun with and players love rolling those damage dice!
So what kind of CR monsters should a group of 7 players fight that are all around lvl4-5 to make combat interesting and fun without just adding large amount of weaker monsters.
on the same note what do you as DMs find more fun for your players. High AC mediocre HP or mediocre AC monster sponges that soak up larger amounts of damage?
What you need to make combat interesting is variety. One or two higher CR bosses, then a few types of monsters, probably around 4-5 CR, to try to keep them off the bosses.
There's also the question of how much fighting the PCs have to do to to get to the fight. The fresher they are, and the more they know they don't have more big fights to go, the more they can just break out the big guns.
I suggest high AC/lower HP, as lots of HP just makes things drag, but spells can really complicate this plan. In particular, if you have level five casters, make sure not to give them an easy fireball target.
So one of the creatures I did was a modified skeleton that fits the homebrew world.
shadow skeleton that deal in necrotic damage but can heal it self when it does do damage. Also has a 10% chance of dealing double damage while in darkness.
AC 16 HP 50 1d6+5 short sword damage
It’s tough to say. I guess the first thing is to define “interesting and fun” does that mean lots of tactical choices, or the PCs all at 1 hp at the end, or interactions with things besides just the monsters, or what?
How many fights will they have had (since the last long rest) before this one? How many do you have planned for after?
Generally, one of the things that can make fights more interesting, and really impact the effective CR, is terrain. If the enemies are on high ground behind cover and the melee types can’t get to them, while the ranged ones have trouble targeting, it can make a fight much harder than the CR would suggest. It doesn’t even have to be that dramatic, just some kind of obstacle between melee characters and the enemies can really change the dynamic. Conversely, putting everyone in a small room, all mixed in together, so casters can’t really AoE, and ranged people have adjacent enemies so they have problems.
You don’t want to do that every time, but now and then to mix it up is good.
Single monsters against a party of seven won't make for much of interest using any standard monsters because they don't act often enough. While I think people can overstate the effects of action economy, an interesting fight does require stuff happening fairly often -- at least every 2 PCs or so something should change on the battlefield.
Technically the 7 PC’s at level 4-5 have enough combined power to take down a CR 14 Adult Black Dragon… (if you’re thinking single encounter). Depending on how you run the dragon, at least 2-3 of the characters will die. That’s if you want that type of ‘do or die’ encounter.
if you’re just looking to spice things up, maybe include environmental challenges or puzzles to your combat encounters. For example, 2 characters have to turn a ‘wheel’ to lower a bridge, close/open a door or something like that while the rest of the party has to protect them. Or maybe the only way to stop the horde of ‘skeletons’ is to solve a puzzle, or reach an object in the room that is difficult to get to. The idea being that you force players to use their action for something other than attack/spell, essentially balancing the action economy a bit more to DM favour.
You’re basically dealing with 7 move/action/bonus action/reaction per round (ignoring action surge or haste). While you, the DM, are likely working with far less than that, even with lair or legendary actions. Most single monsters, even legendary ones, can’t take that kind of punishment for long.
If you’re between upping AC or HP, go with HP. Lots of combat narrative to have fun with and players love rolling those damage dice!
Using https://donjon.bin.sh/5e/calc/enc_size.html encounter calculator, this is a breakdown of 7 5th level character numbers of CR creatures.
I went with 5th so you could always scale down the encounters to balance out your mix of 4th/5th level characters.