So I volunteered to DM for my group and I'm homebrewing this adventure and I've got this combat planned out for the end of Session 1. I keep struggling with how hard to make it, because on the one hand, I don't want it to be trivial when it's supposed to be the big opening bang for the rest of the campaign, but on the other hand, at least two of my players are completely brand-new to D&D and I would really like to not cause a TPK. The fight looks like this as of right now:
Party (all Level 5):
Oath of the Watchers Paladin
Life Cleric
Fiend patron Chainlock
Shadow Magic Sorcerer
Gloom Stalker Ranger
Monsters:
Barbed Devil (x1, CR 5)
Imp (x2, CR 1)
Important NPC homebrew Cultist with the mental stats of a Noble and also Eldritch Blast but zero armor (x1, CR 1/8??)
Now, there are a few points in my party's favor, but they almost all depend on how smart they're playing.
The Paladin's Channel Divinity -- Abjure the Extraplanar. His save DC is 15, so there's a decent chance he could end up denying almost every enemy their attacks for several rounds. Bonus points if he chases them straight into one of the Sorcerer's AOE spells.
The Ranger's Umbral Sight. Now, he can't see inside the area of a darkness spell yet, I might homebrew something for him if he ends up lagging offensively like I fear he might, but RAW it looks like he'd be invisible to every enemy inside that darkness as well because Devil's Sight for monsters has the fiends using Darkvision to see him. The advantage and disadvantage on his attack rolls would just cancel out, and that would make 3/5 players who can attack normally in this area. The Paladin and the Cleric would still be SOL, though, so I'm not sure exactly how much this counts.
The entire party has a reliable way of ignoring the fiends' DRs (force damage, psychic damage, radiant damage, etc.), and they have all their resources available to them because this is going to be the first encounter all session. For example, the Paladin can afford to burn all his spell slots on divine smite--which he's using against fiends. He could crit against the boss and do stupid amounts of damage and have the resources left to do it again next turn. Even the Ranger has zephyr strike.
Buuut there are also some major points in the enemies' favor as well.
Action economy. This fight originally had six imps, not two, because research has taught me that more little monsters can be even more effective than a single big monster. (I toned it down a little once I learned I'd be DMing for five players, not eight.) And the Barbed Devil has triple multiattack with a +6 to hit. Yikes.
DRs + Magic Resistance. Advantage on saving throws against magic is gonna cause problems for the casters, and resistance to nonmagical weapon damage is gonna suck for the martials--especially the Ranger, because zephyr strike just ain't on the same level as divine smite.
The Imps can turn invisible and are probably gonna start combat that way, and as far as I know, the Paladin is the only one with a way of seeing invisible foes. Now, it only lasts until the Imps attack, but as I read it, a) their first attacks would still be at advantage because they're just coming out of invisibility, and b) the Imps could always take the Help action instead to grant other creatures advantage on their attacks and still remain invisible. This would probably be an a-hole move on my part.
And I'm not sure if the fight is balanced, all things considered. I've thought of a few courses of action I could take to address this.
Remove the imps altogether.
Give the party magic weapons beforehand.
Introduce a homebrew mechanic where if the squishy pseudo-Warlock who summoned the fiends dies, the fiends vanish in 1d4 rounds as they're dragged back to the Nine Hells.
The third one is personally my favorite, especially since I've already warned my party that I will be homebrewing many, many things. Of course, it could also be fine as-is, and I'm just overthinking everything like I always do.
Its always hard to assess these things before hand. I'm also not sure what contribution the cultist will have. None of the creatures you have included can cast Darkness so magical darkness isn't likely to be an issue (ie. the devils can see and the PCs can't). This avoids the issue with the PCs having disadvantage to hit the devils that can see in magical darkness.
Umbral Sight works in darkness but not dim light. The usefulness of this will depend on whether the fight is in darkness or not. I'd agree with your interpretation that the devils using darkvision would not see the ranger in the dark though.
All the devils have resistance to non-magical damage - this means that for the martial characters, their attacks may be less effective. They are also all immune to fire and poison damage which means that the sorcerer and fiend warlock casting fireballs isn't going to work. However, the imps only have 10 hit points and no resistance to force damage. If the warlock has agonizing blast then they could possibly take out both imps in the first round of combat by themselves.
A few spells could also come in quite handy. Protection from Good and Evil is available to the sorcerer, warlock and paladin. If the sorcerer twins it onto two characters then the devils will have disadvantage to hit them.
The barbed devil has 3 attacks but the average damage is pretty low.
Paladin smites are magical damage (radiant) so the creatures do not resist it. The paladin might also have the magic weapon spell though that might be unlikely.
My guess would be that a moderately competent party wouldn't have any trouble with the encounter even with the damage resistances. On the other hand, a party with unlucky rolls or who don't know what they are doing could have a bit of a challenge. However, the paladin channel divinity can take any devils that fail out of the fight for 10 rounds. The creatures don't get another save, they just keep dashing away every round until the effect ends unless they are trapped by the room shape and can't leave without moving closer to the paladin.
In situations like these, where I am uncertain how difficult it will be or how well the characters will use their abilities, it can be useful to use waves. Set the scene up so that there is the possibility of additional creatures coming to assist from another room, through a portal or from some other nearby location that the party hasn't already cleared. Even an escape tunnel in the floor which might have had a couple of guards could be useful. If the party is doing really well, throw in some extra opponents, if they are having trouble then the only creatures that they have to fight are the ones already there. The players will never know whether there were additional creatures nearby that decided to flee instead of join the fight. However, you don't want to add too many extras to the fight - just enough to make it interesting if the party is steam rolling over it.
P.S. Most paladins in chain + shield will have an 18 AC at level 5 - maybe 19 with the defensive fighting style. This means that the +6 to hit will only hit on a 12+ - which is only 45% of the time on average. A level 5 paladin with 14 con should have about 44 hit points on average. The devil does an average of 22 damage in a turn times 0.45 = about 10. So, even attacking only the paladin, it should take the devil about 5 combat rounds to take down just the paladin. The imps and likely the cultist will go down very quickly to the rest of the party and when attention gets focused on the devil, they will do down quickly too ... so I would not expect this party to have much trouble with the encounter at all.
P.P.S. Using the encounter builder - the devil, 2 imps and a cultist vs 5 level 5 characters is only rated as a hard encounter and most of that comes from the multiplier for having 4 creatures without taking into account that the imps are pretty weak.
However, eldritch blast is a pretty powerful NPC ability, especially if you are using it at level 5 with two attacks/round .. depends on how your cultist differs from the NPC cultist stat block.
I wouldn’t worry about it. If you do a TPK have a reason why the monsters capture the party instead of killing them and have the party wake up in chains and see what they do. They will escape, just wait and see how they do it.
For players who know what they're doing, that fight would be a walkover, but I don't know how experienced and optimized your PCs are. Remember
Divine Smite damage is radiant damage, it will be full against everything the devils have.
Eldritch blast damage is force (plus necrotic if using hex), it will be full against everything the devils have.
Magic Missile is force damage and tends to be a staple spell. A level 2 magic missile will reliably oneshot an imp.
Spirit Guardians is radiant; it does have a save but it's enough damage to oneshot everything but the barbed devil.
Your total enemy party damage output (theoretical) is around 60, but its at a pretty low attack bonus so real damage output is in the 20s against front liners, and once the chaff dies that halves. Given that your party likely has on the order of 200 combined hit points and a life cleric, they actually have a long time to beat up the monsters.
Its always hard to assess these things before hand. I'm also not sure what contribution the cultist will have. None of the creatures you have included can cast Darkness so magical darkness isn't likely to be an issue (ie. the devils can see and the PCs can't). This avoids the issue with the PCs having disadvantage to hit the devils that can see in magical darkness.
Umbral Sight works in darkness but not dim light. The usefulness of this will depend on whether the fight is in darkness or not. I'd agree with your interpretation that the devils using darkvision would not see the ranger in the dark though.
All the devils have resistance to non-magical damage - this means that for the martial characters, their attacks may be less effective. They are also all immune to fire and poison damage which means that the sorcerer and fiend warlock casting fireballs isn't going to work. However, the imps only have 10 hit points and no resistance to force damage. If the warlock has agonizing blast then they could possibly take out both imps in the first round of combat by themselves.
A few spells could also come in quite handy. Protection from Good and Evil is available to the sorcerer, warlock and paladin. If the sorcerer twins it onto two characters then the devils will have disadvantage to hit them.
The barbed devil has 3 attacks but the average damage is pretty low.
Paladin smites are magical damage (radiant) so the creatures do not resist it. The paladin might also have the magic weapon spell though that might be unlikely.
My guess would be that a moderately competent party wouldn't have any trouble with the encounter even with the damage resistances. On the other hand, a party with unlucky rolls or who don't know what they are doing could have a bit of a challenge. However, the paladin channel divinity can take any devils that fail out of the fight for 10 rounds. The creatures don't get another save, they just keep dashing away every round until the effect ends unless they are trapped by the room shape and can't leave without moving closer to the paladin.
In situations like these, where I am uncertain how difficult it will be or how well the characters will use their abilities, it can be useful to use waves. Set the scene up so that there is the possibility of additional creatures coming to assist from another room, through a portal or from some other nearby location that the party hasn't already cleared. Even an escape tunnel in the floor which might have had a couple of guards could be useful. If the party is doing really well, throw in some extra opponents, if they are having trouble then the only creatures that they have to fight are the ones already there. The players will never know whether there were additional creatures nearby that decided to flee instead of join the fight. However, you don't want to add too many extras to the fight - just enough to make it interesting if the party is steam rolling over it.
P.S. Most paladins in chain + shield will have an 18 AC at level 5 - maybe 19 with the defensive fighting style. This means that the +6 to hit will only hit on a 12+ - which is only 45% of the time on average. A level 5 paladin with 14 con should have about 44 hit points on average. The devil does an average of 22 damage in a turn times 0.45 = about 10. So, even attacking only the paladin, it should take the devil about 5 combat rounds to take down just the paladin. The imps and likely the cultist will go down very quickly to the rest of the party and when attention gets focused on the devil, they will do down quickly too ... so I would not expect this party to have much trouble with the encounter at all.
P.P.S. Using the encounter builder - the devil, 2 imps and a cultist vs 5 level 5 characters is only rated as a hard encounter and most of that comes from the multiplier for having 4 creatures without taking into account that the imps are pretty weak.
However, eldritch blast is a pretty powerful NPC ability, especially if you are using it at level 5 with two attacks/round .. depends on how your cultist differs from the NPC cultist stat block.
I haven't really planned out the location of the fight much (I got distracted homebrewing magic weapons as opposed to drawing maps I'm actually gonna need for next Friday, whoops), but adding some areas of bright light where the melee takes place and some areas of true shadow where the Ranger can hide could incentivize tactical thinking early on in the game. Thanks for provoking those thoughts in my brain!! Any magical darkness really depends on what the players decide to do. The Warlock did take Devil's Sight but did not take Agonizing Blast, for some reason, so alas--probably no taking out the imps that easily. (I haven't said anything about it, just like I haven't said anything to the Ranger about putting that 16 into Strength rather than Dexterity when they took the archery fighting style, or the Sorcerer when they maxed out Wisdom before Charisma for some reason, because those are ultimately not my characters to build. I dunno, maybe I should say something.) Checking the character sheets I have access to, I know the Sorcerer doesn't have protection (...), and I'm about 99% certain the Warlock doesn't have it either, so I may end up suggesting that the Cleric and the Paladin prep it that day. I might also suggest to the Paladin that he prep magic weapon, but that's also a Concentration spell, so decisions will have to be made on his part when the time comes. (Variant Human with War Caster is really gonna come in clutch for him, aha!!)
Thanks for the suggestion about adding waves of attackers!! I decided to swap the Barbed Devil out for its summoner variant, and I'll definitely have some guards come running when they hear the commotion (though I'll also give my players a chance to talk them down and avoid another fight depending on how they're feeling--and maybe even get some allies depending on how soon the guards arrive!!). I totally get what you're saying about the Imps and the cultist probably going down in a single round--that was actually my intention!! I wanted to include some squishies in the fight to just soak up turns and prevent everyone from ganging up on the Barbed Devil and steamrolling it in round one. To answer your question, the cultist just gets vanilla eldritch blast--no multiple rays, no agonizing blast bonus damage, just a surprise cantrip for any metagamers that adds a bit of spice to his stat block. I dunno, I might switch his stat block out for the cult fanatic's, because I've realized that my party is probably better off than I thought they were. Both the Paladin and the Cleric have 18 AC, so they're not going down that easily. (Throwback to that encounter where I played a level three Life Cleric and absolutely steamrolled those goblins with spiritual weapon and didn't take a single point of damage the entire encounter. . . Ah, my poor DM.)
I wouldn’t worry about it. If you do a TPK have a reason why the monsters capture the party instead of killing them and have the party wake up in chains and see what they do. They will escape, just wait and see how they do it.
Not exactly what I planned for, but a very intriguing prospect nonetheless!!
For players who know what they're doing, that fight would be a walkover, but I don't know how experienced and optimized your PCs are. Remember
Divine Smite damage is radiant damage, it will be full against everything the devils have.
Eldritch blast damage is force (plus necrotic if using hex), it will be full against everything the devils have.
Magic Missile is force damage and tends to be a staple spell. A level 2 magic missile will reliably oneshot an imp.
Spirit Guardians is radiant; it does have a save but it's enough damage to oneshot everything but the barbed devil.
Your total enemy party damage output (theoretical) is around 60, but its at a pretty low attack bonus so real damage output is in the 20s against front liners, and once the chaff dies that halves. Given that your party likely has on the order of 200 combined hit points and a life cleric, they actually have a long time to beat up the monsters.
Update: Slapped together a new stat block for the cultist NPC--basically mashed together the noble stats with some spellcasting based on the cult fanatic's but switched up for Fiendlock spells and slots instead. Would it be cruel to give him darkness? I wonder if that would piss my players off at me, or if they would take that as permission to use the same trick against enemies later in the campaign (which I am 100% okay with and will homebrew them magic items to help them do it better). Hmm. . .
A good tool to keep in your back pocket is this: not every battle is to the death, even if you're literally evil devils. If it looks like it's going to swing in a TPK direction, have the enemies start dealing non-lethal damage to incapacitate them and bring them back as prisoners to their dread stronghold. Maybe the bad guys are just defending a particular area, and once they've beaten the players back, they don't feel they're worth the effort of killing. Or maybe, as devils, they subdue the party and then offer to make a bargain with them from that position of power.
It's a good "out" for you as a DM when you accidentally make things way too intense.
A good tool to keep in your back pocket is this: not every battle is to the death, even if you're literally evil devils. If it looks like it's going to swing in a TPK direction, have the enemies start dealing non-lethal damage to incapacitate them and bring them back as prisoners to their dread stronghold. Maybe the bad guys are just defending a particular area, and once they've beaten the players back, they don't feel they're worth the effort of killing. Or maybe, as devils, they subdue the party and then offer to make a bargain with them from that position of power.
It's a good "out" for you as a DM when you accidentally make things way too intense.
I'll definitely keep that in mind, thanks!! Any bargaining should be VERY interesting with both an Oath of the Watchers Paladin and an existing Fiendlock in the party.
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So I volunteered to DM for my group and I'm homebrewing this adventure and I've got this combat planned out for the end of Session 1. I keep struggling with how hard to make it, because on the one hand, I don't want it to be trivial when it's supposed to be the big opening bang for the rest of the campaign, but on the other hand, at least two of my players are completely brand-new to D&D and I would really like to not cause a TPK. The fight looks like this as of right now:
Party (all Level 5):
Monsters:
Now, there are a few points in my party's favor, but they almost all depend on how smart they're playing.
yet, I might homebrew something for him if he ends up lagging offensively like I fear he might, but RAW it looks like he'd be invisible to every enemy inside that darkness as well because Devil's Sight for monsters has the fiends using Darkvision to see him. The advantage and disadvantage on his attack rolls would just cancel out, and that would make 3/5 players who can attack normally in this area. The Paladin and the Cleric would still be SOL, though, so I'm not sure exactly how much this counts.Buuut there are also some major points in the enemies' favor as well.
And I'm not sure if the fight is balanced, all things considered. I've thought of a few courses of action I could take to address this.
The third one is personally my favorite, especially since I've already warned my party that I will be homebrewing many, many things. Of course, it could also be fine as-is, and I'm just overthinking everything like I always do.
Thoughts?
Its always hard to assess these things before hand. I'm also not sure what contribution the cultist will have. None of the creatures you have included can cast Darkness so magical darkness isn't likely to be an issue (ie. the devils can see and the PCs can't). This avoids the issue with the PCs having disadvantage to hit the devils that can see in magical darkness.
Umbral Sight works in darkness but not dim light. The usefulness of this will depend on whether the fight is in darkness or not. I'd agree with your interpretation that the devils using darkvision would not see the ranger in the dark though.
All the devils have resistance to non-magical damage - this means that for the martial characters, their attacks may be less effective. They are also all immune to fire and poison damage which means that the sorcerer and fiend warlock casting fireballs isn't going to work. However, the imps only have 10 hit points and no resistance to force damage. If the warlock has agonizing blast then they could possibly take out both imps in the first round of combat by themselves.
A few spells could also come in quite handy. Protection from Good and Evil is available to the sorcerer, warlock and paladin. If the sorcerer twins it onto two characters then the devils will have disadvantage to hit them.
The barbed devil has 3 attacks but the average damage is pretty low.
Paladin smites are magical damage (radiant) so the creatures do not resist it. The paladin might also have the magic weapon spell though that might be unlikely.
My guess would be that a moderately competent party wouldn't have any trouble with the encounter even with the damage resistances. On the other hand, a party with unlucky rolls or who don't know what they are doing could have a bit of a challenge. However, the paladin channel divinity can take any devils that fail out of the fight for 10 rounds. The creatures don't get another save, they just keep dashing away every round until the effect ends unless they are trapped by the room shape and can't leave without moving closer to the paladin.
In situations like these, where I am uncertain how difficult it will be or how well the characters will use their abilities, it can be useful to use waves. Set the scene up so that there is the possibility of additional creatures coming to assist from another room, through a portal or from some other nearby location that the party hasn't already cleared. Even an escape tunnel in the floor which might have had a couple of guards could be useful. If the party is doing really well, throw in some extra opponents, if they are having trouble then the only creatures that they have to fight are the ones already there. The players will never know whether there were additional creatures nearby that decided to flee instead of join the fight. However, you don't want to add too many extras to the fight - just enough to make it interesting if the party is steam rolling over it.
P.S. Most paladins in chain + shield will have an 18 AC at level 5 - maybe 19 with the defensive fighting style. This means that the +6 to hit will only hit on a 12+ - which is only 45% of the time on average. A level 5 paladin with 14 con should have about 44 hit points on average. The devil does an average of 22 damage in a turn times 0.45 = about 10. So, even attacking only the paladin, it should take the devil about 5 combat rounds to take down just the paladin. The imps and likely the cultist will go down very quickly to the rest of the party and when attention gets focused on the devil, they will do down quickly too ... so I would not expect this party to have much trouble with the encounter at all.
P.P.S. Using the encounter builder - the devil, 2 imps and a cultist vs 5 level 5 characters is only rated as a hard encounter and most of that comes from the multiplier for having 4 creatures without taking into account that the imps are pretty weak.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/encounter-builder
However, eldritch blast is a pretty powerful NPC ability, especially if you are using it at level 5 with two attacks/round .. depends on how your cultist differs from the NPC cultist stat block.
I wouldn’t worry about it. If you do a TPK have a reason why the monsters capture the party instead of killing them and have the party wake up in chains and see what they do. They will escape, just wait and see how they do it.
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For players who know what they're doing, that fight would be a walkover, but I don't know how experienced and optimized your PCs are. Remember
I haven't really planned out the location of the fight much (I got distracted homebrewing magic weapons as opposed to drawing maps I'm actually gonna need for next Friday, whoops), but adding some areas of bright light where the melee takes place and some areas of true shadow where the Ranger can hide could incentivize tactical thinking early on in the game. Thanks for provoking those thoughts in my brain!! Any magical darkness really depends on what the players decide to do. The Warlock did take Devil's Sight but did not take Agonizing Blast, for some reason, so alas--probably no taking out the imps that easily. (I haven't said anything about it, just like I haven't said anything to the Ranger about putting that 16 into Strength rather than Dexterity when they took the archery fighting style, or the Sorcerer when they maxed out Wisdom before Charisma for some reason, because those are ultimately not my characters to build. I dunno, maybe I should say something.) Checking the character sheets I have access to, I know the Sorcerer doesn't have protection (...), and I'm about 99% certain the Warlock doesn't have it either, so I may end up suggesting that the Cleric and the Paladin prep it that day. I might also suggest to the Paladin that he prep magic weapon, but that's also a Concentration spell, so decisions will have to be made on his part when the time comes. (Variant Human with War Caster is really gonna come in clutch for him, aha!!)
Thanks for the suggestion about adding waves of attackers!! I decided to swap the Barbed Devil out for its summoner variant, and I'll definitely have some guards come running when they hear the commotion (though I'll also give my players a chance to talk them down and avoid another fight depending on how they're feeling--and maybe even get some allies depending on how soon the guards arrive!!). I totally get what you're saying about the Imps and the cultist probably going down in a single round--that was actually my intention!! I wanted to include some squishies in the fight to just soak up turns and prevent everyone from ganging up on the Barbed Devil and steamrolling it in round one. To answer your question, the cultist just gets vanilla eldritch blast--no multiple rays, no agonizing blast bonus damage, just a surprise cantrip for any metagamers that adds a bit of spice to his stat block. I dunno, I might switch his stat block out for the cult fanatic's, because I've realized that my party is probably better off than I thought they were. Both the Paladin and the Cleric have 18 AC, so they're not going down that easily. (Throwback to that encounter where I played a level three Life Cleric and absolutely steamrolled those goblins with spiritual weapon and didn't take a single point of damage the entire encounter. . . Ah, my poor DM.)
Not exactly what I planned for, but a very intriguing prospect nonetheless!!
. . . Maybe I can add more imps.
I think I can add more imps. :]
Thanks, everyone!!
Update: Slapped together a new stat block for the cultist NPC--basically mashed together the noble stats with some spellcasting based on the cult fanatic's but switched up for Fiendlock spells and slots instead. Would it be cruel to give him darkness? I wonder if that would piss my players off at me, or if they would take that as permission to use the same trick against enemies later in the campaign (which I am 100% okay with and will homebrew them magic items to help them do it better). Hmm. . .
A good tool to keep in your back pocket is this: not every battle is to the death, even if you're literally evil devils. If it looks like it's going to swing in a TPK direction, have the enemies start dealing non-lethal damage to incapacitate them and bring them back as prisoners to their dread stronghold. Maybe the bad guys are just defending a particular area, and once they've beaten the players back, they don't feel they're worth the effort of killing. Or maybe, as devils, they subdue the party and then offer to make a bargain with them from that position of power.
It's a good "out" for you as a DM when you accidentally make things way too intense.
I'll definitely keep that in mind, thanks!! Any bargaining should be VERY interesting with both an Oath of the Watchers Paladin and an existing Fiendlock in the party.