My game that's been run for 3 years or so is going well, but they have reached level 11 and i am finding it hard for them to feel threatened or in danger in encounters now. the party composition is a dwarf paladin, dwarf cleric, wood elf range,r half orc fighter, and a Drow rogue. they are about to attempt to sneak into Darkhold threw an elaborate cave system I need advice on encounters and traps that work thematically that can bring that since of danger back into the game. Any help would be appreciated and thank you in advance.
An elaborate cavern system sounds like an ideal place to stage some threatening combat encoutners and other hazards. First, though, a couple questions to help to dig deeper into your problem.
1. What's your typical encounter building process? Do you use the standard XP and CR tables in the DMG?
2. How many encounters does the party have to deal with per day? How many short and long rests do they typically take?
3. How does the party generally approach encounters? Are there any particular tactics they almost always rely on?
4. What was the most recent encounter the party had that you considered to be challenging?
Traps are wonderful, from the trip wire to the elaborate, but don't forget natural hazards. Loose footholds, falling debris, sink holes, and more are useful to make the environment difficult. Encounters should also take those hazards into account, if the denizens of the cavern know of these things, they'll use them. Remember, they're in a dangerous place, short/long rests come with the risk of being caught off guard by the things that lurk. This will help with resource depletion and deter them from abusing the resting system (if they're the type). This is also a great place to implement guerrilla tactics, hit and run, as well as flanking opportunities. Treat it like Hide and Seek, only there's more people looking than hiding. If you're looking for something more specific, I'm sure we can come up with a few ideas.
1. What's your typical encounter building process? Do you use the standard XP and CR tables in the DMG?:
i do use stranded xp and cr tables based on party level, but sometimes i think the narrative is more important then balance but i am quite scared of doing a unintentional TPK so i may hold back because our party has bad memory's of unfair TPK's back in the before times when i was a player.
2. How many encounters does the party have to deal with per day? How many short and long rests do they typically take?
not many they seem to run and heal as much as possible like 1-3 i would like to fix this but don't know how without making combat take up much of the session
3. How does the party generally approach encounters? Are there any particular tactics they almost always rely on?
the cleric healing them and the half orc socking up damage with his crazy AC while the paladin deals so much to kill everything
4. What was the most recent encounter the party had that you considered to be challenging?
Probably the end of a volcano dungeon where they had to fight a adult red dragon as level 7 they did it but beryl and with some illusion wizard help
Thanks I think giving some dangers to rests should make them feel that they are in a unsafe place. And yes i was thinking of ways to deal with the party's way of thinking that if they die the cleric will get them back up like some enemy's or traps that negate the safety net or make it less reliable.
Don't be afraid of killing players, there is so much in the game to make death not permanent that it shouldn't be a huge risk anymore. With short rest hit dice, cleric heals, death saving throws, spare the dying, medicine checks, and more, you shouldn't see a TPK, even if you do kill one or two players. On top of that, you can always let them get away if fights go really south.
DMThac0 already hit the nail on the head with making rests more dangerous/difficult and with adding environmental hazards to the cavern. I'd also add that if the characters clear out several rooms and then rest, it's quite possible some of those rooms could be populated with monsters again by the time they return. Another way to make the party less inclined to rest is to introduce some sort of time limit to the adventure, at the end of which some undesirable consequence occurs (whether that being failure to complete a quest or another setback).
The difficulty rating of combat encounters is based on the idea that the party is facing 6-8 medium or hard encounters per day. Since your party is facing much less than that (only 1-3), it makes sense that they're not being challenged. You could increase the number of encounters in a day, but if you're worried about combat taking up too much time, you can also increase the difficulty of the individual encounters.
As a general rule, I find that if the party is resting more often, the actual difficulty of an individual encounter is one rating lower than expected (so deadly encounters become hard, and so on), so you can probably increase the deadliness of the individual encounters without threatening the party with a TPK. If they're facing only 1 or 2 combat encounters in a day, then you can even increase the difficulty to something beyond deadly. This is a delicate balance, but a good rule of thumb is around +20% XP to the deadly threshold.
There are also ways you can challenge your PCs just by adjusting the tactics of your monsters and the encounter terrain. If your party relies on the half-orc fighter being a tank, then introduce some monsters that can get behind the front lines to attack more vulnerable party members. Have intelligent monsters attack the cleric when they notice how much healing the cleric provides. Introduce difficult terrain to stop the paladin and the fighter from easily getting into melee range and place some monsters with ranged attacks behind these barriers. Introduce other terrain that synergizes well with the monsters but hinders the PCs.
You don't need to counter every tactic the party employs, but the key is to make them think differently about how they engage with each encounter. Don't let them abuse the same tactics over and over again. Each encounter should be its own puzzle to solve.
An additional method in order to decrease the number of rests that the party takes between encounters is to add a sense of urgency to their actions. If in game their characters only have a limited time to accomplish their objectives (stereotypical examples could be trying to stop a ritual from being completed, or needing to rescue someone that has been kidnapped with the kidnappers fleeing the city with their prisoner) can encourage them to move forward. By impressing upon the players that there is a limited time to accomplish their objective, while not letting them know exactly how long (since they they will really math up how much time they have for rests), it can force them to act slightly more rashly in order to accomplish it.
Another thing to do is that if they do hesitate and rest too much, then they may fail their objective. Perhaps the ritual completes in order to summon a powerful entity to reinforce the cult's forces, or the kidnappers escape meaning that now the characters must find some way to track them down through the wilderness and into their fortress, or else simply lose the kidnapped individual. If you actually keep to the timelines of these events then the players will begin to worry more regarding the possibility of events moving past without them if they wait too long, which can encourage them to act with more desperation and heal less, which gives you the opportunity to stretch their resources thinner which can lead to more challenge for them as well.
My game that's been run for 3 years or so is going well, but they have reached level 11 and i am finding it hard for them to feel threatened or in danger in encounters now. the party composition is a dwarf paladin, dwarf cleric, wood elf range,r half orc fighter, and a Drow rogue. they are about to attempt to sneak into Darkhold threw an elaborate cave system I need advice on encounters and traps that work thematically that can bring that since of danger back into the game. Any help would be appreciated and thank you in advance.
Ethan R. Lyon
An elaborate cavern system sounds like an ideal place to stage some threatening combat encoutners and other hazards. First, though, a couple questions to help to dig deeper into your problem.
1. What's your typical encounter building process? Do you use the standard XP and CR tables in the DMG?
2. How many encounters does the party have to deal with per day? How many short and long rests do they typically take?
3. How does the party generally approach encounters? Are there any particular tactics they almost always rely on?
4. What was the most recent encounter the party had that you considered to be challenging?
Traps are wonderful, from the trip wire to the elaborate, but don't forget natural hazards. Loose footholds, falling debris, sink holes, and more are useful to make the environment difficult. Encounters should also take those hazards into account, if the denizens of the cavern know of these things, they'll use them. Remember, they're in a dangerous place, short/long rests come with the risk of being caught off guard by the things that lurk. This will help with resource depletion and deter them from abusing the resting system (if they're the type). This is also a great place to implement guerrilla tactics, hit and run, as well as flanking opportunities. Treat it like Hide and Seek, only there's more people looking than hiding. If you're looking for something more specific, I'm sure we can come up with a few ideas.
1. What's your typical encounter building process? Do you use the standard XP and CR tables in the DMG?:
i do use stranded xp and cr tables based on party level, but sometimes i think the narrative is more important then balance but i am quite scared of doing a unintentional TPK so i may hold back because our party has bad memory's of unfair TPK's back in the before times when i was a player.
2. How many encounters does the party have to deal with per day? How many short and long rests do they typically take?
not many they seem to run and heal as much as possible like 1-3 i would like to fix this but don't know how without making combat take up much of the session
3. How does the party generally approach encounters? Are there any particular tactics they almost always rely on?
the cleric healing them and the half orc socking up damage with his crazy AC while the paladin deals so much to kill everything
4. What was the most recent encounter the party had that you considered to be challenging?
Probably the end of a volcano dungeon where they had to fight a adult red dragon as level 7 they did it but beryl and with some illusion wizard help
Ethan R. Lyon
Thanks I think giving some dangers to rests should make them feel that they are in a unsafe place. And yes i was thinking of ways to deal with the party's way of thinking that if they die the cleric will get them back up like some enemy's or traps that negate the safety net or make it less reliable.
Ethan R. Lyon
Don't be afraid of killing players, there is so much in the game to make death not permanent that it shouldn't be a huge risk anymore. With short rest hit dice, cleric heals, death saving throws, spare the dying, medicine checks, and more, you shouldn't see a TPK, even if you do kill one or two players. On top of that, you can always let them get away if fights go really south.
DMThac0 already hit the nail on the head with making rests more dangerous/difficult and with adding environmental hazards to the cavern. I'd also add that if the characters clear out several rooms and then rest, it's quite possible some of those rooms could be populated with monsters again by the time they return. Another way to make the party less inclined to rest is to introduce some sort of time limit to the adventure, at the end of which some undesirable consequence occurs (whether that being failure to complete a quest or another setback).
The difficulty rating of combat encounters is based on the idea that the party is facing 6-8 medium or hard encounters per day. Since your party is facing much less than that (only 1-3), it makes sense that they're not being challenged. You could increase the number of encounters in a day, but if you're worried about combat taking up too much time, you can also increase the difficulty of the individual encounters.
As a general rule, I find that if the party is resting more often, the actual difficulty of an individual encounter is one rating lower than expected (so deadly encounters become hard, and so on), so you can probably increase the deadliness of the individual encounters without threatening the party with a TPK. If they're facing only 1 or 2 combat encounters in a day, then you can even increase the difficulty to something beyond deadly. This is a delicate balance, but a good rule of thumb is around +20% XP to the deadly threshold.
There are also ways you can challenge your PCs just by adjusting the tactics of your monsters and the encounter terrain. If your party relies on the half-orc fighter being a tank, then introduce some monsters that can get behind the front lines to attack more vulnerable party members. Have intelligent monsters attack the cleric when they notice how much healing the cleric provides. Introduce difficult terrain to stop the paladin and the fighter from easily getting into melee range and place some monsters with ranged attacks behind these barriers. Introduce other terrain that synergizes well with the monsters but hinders the PCs.
You don't need to counter every tactic the party employs, but the key is to make them think differently about how they engage with each encounter. Don't let them abuse the same tactics over and over again. Each encounter should be its own puzzle to solve.
Two words......Great. Wyrm. And you have it go after them with impunity.
An additional method in order to decrease the number of rests that the party takes between encounters is to add a sense of urgency to their actions. If in game their characters only have a limited time to accomplish their objectives (stereotypical examples could be trying to stop a ritual from being completed, or needing to rescue someone that has been kidnapped with the kidnappers fleeing the city with their prisoner) can encourage them to move forward. By impressing upon the players that there is a limited time to accomplish their objective, while not letting them know exactly how long (since they they will really math up how much time they have for rests), it can force them to act slightly more rashly in order to accomplish it.
Another thing to do is that if they do hesitate and rest too much, then they may fail their objective. Perhaps the ritual completes in order to summon a powerful entity to reinforce the cult's forces, or the kidnappers escape meaning that now the characters must find some way to track them down through the wilderness and into their fortress, or else simply lose the kidnapped individual. If you actually keep to the timelines of these events then the players will begin to worry more regarding the possibility of events moving past without them if they wait too long, which can encourage them to act with more desperation and heal less, which gives you the opportunity to stretch their resources thinner which can lead to more challenge for them as well.
thanks everyone i will be implementing many of these tactics to help especially by not being afraid to kill them.
Ethan R. Lyon