So my PCs (5 players total) are breezing through most encounters although there have actually been a couple of close calls in the earlier game during Vogler, but anyway we just stopped mid fight at Wheelwatch outpost as the Dragonel was revealed. A couple have said that it’s not challenging enough so I think I’m about to bring the pain.
Dragonels are now going to have breath weapons, and I’m gonna spice up the stat blocks of the enemies, and add more spell casting draconians with an expanded spell book. They will either love it or regret what they said, but his should be interesting. Challenge accepted, get ready for it.
Quite a few of the earlier missions are relatively straightforward, particularly if the party is well-rested. Wheelwatch Outpost felt challenging, though that might have been their perception of the risk more than the risk itself. Other combat encounters seem to be more to advance the story than to pose a significant challenge.
The party’s just entered the City of Lost Names. Of the encounters they’ve had before that, it’s not always been the expected ones that have felt most challenging. Blue Maw Cave and Wind’s End both looked fairly trivial beforehand yet proved stiffer fights than anticipated. I found exploiting the environmental factors and really trying to understand the monsters’ stat blocks increased the challenge significantly.
Oh that’s interesting, I wouldn’t have thought Blue Maw Cave would be all that of a challenge either. I’m just going to tweak a few stat blocks I think, and add some more officer type draconians that have additional variety and abilities suck as the dragon army officers and go from there.
All WotC published content is ridiculously easy as written, they balance things to be doable for brand new players running unoptimized characters. If your players are experienced and even remotely know how to optimize their characters, you will need to modify any WotC adventures to be significantly harder if you want to see any sort of challenge.
You can add more hp, add more damage dice, add more minions, all of these are good options.
Personally I wouldn't give dragonnels a breath weapon because the point of them is to focus on the rider rather than being a key challenge themselves . I 'd just replace them with a dragon if I wanted a breath weapon and a dragon may not even need a rider.
Generally there are a few options to make enemies stronger interesting ways.
One option is to occasionally elementally charge an enemy by giving them an elemental damage aura and immunity to that element. You can also use effects like warding wind or any of the investitures to get a similar effect
Give them consumables to use like an alchemist fire arrow that on a hit does the effects of Alchemist's Fire (flask), a dagger that the first time it stabs inflicts [Tooltip Not Found] and any of the poisons
Use other generic npc stat blocks like archer or the wizard stat blocks
For more specifics:
A poison that inflicts enemies abound or confusion suits the sivak draconian it can either be a powder thrown in an area or inflicted on their first attack. It should add some confusion. Also giving a sneaky enemy like this a surprise attack to do if they trick the party is always fun. A powerful stab like a dagger with a high level inflict wounds would work too and they could then steal the face of who ever they stab for drama.
If you want a melee dragonnel rider give them the charge ability of a rhinoceros and have it act at the same time as the dragonnel. The dragonnel dashes in and out giving them a total of 120ft movement with no opportunity attacks the officer attacks using charge potentially knocking them prone then it uses command to get soldiers to attack prone enemies.
Alternatively for a ranged officer take the archer give them the command action and alchemist fire arrows that ignite enemies. They keep out of range most of the party and harass them.
As there are multiple dragon army officers if the alarm has sounded you could have the archer on the roof of a building and the swooper at the same time.
Finally lock down any buildings they haven't cleared once the alarm is off and have them be attacked from the roof by some soldiers if they try to get in.
So my PCs (5 players total) are breezing through most encounters although there have actually been a couple of close calls in the earlier game during Vogler, but anyway we just stopped mid fight at Wheelwatch outpost as the Dragonel was revealed. A couple have said that it’s not challenging enough so I think I’m about to bring the pain.
Dragonels are now going to have breath weapons, and I’m gonna spice up the stat blocks of the enemies, and add more spell casting draconians with an expanded spell book. They will either love it or regret what they said, but his should be interesting. Challenge accepted, get ready for it.
Any other recommendations?
The group I DM have always regretted saying its too easy. Usually that next session is brutal lol
Quite a few of the earlier missions are relatively straightforward, particularly if the party is well-rested. Wheelwatch Outpost felt challenging, though that might have been their perception of the risk more than the risk itself. Other combat encounters seem to be more to advance the story than to pose a significant challenge.
The party’s just entered the City of Lost Names. Of the encounters they’ve had before that, it’s not always been the expected ones that have felt most challenging. Blue Maw Cave and Wind’s End both looked fairly trivial beforehand yet proved stiffer fights than anticipated. I found exploiting the environmental factors and really trying to understand the monsters’ stat blocks increased the challenge significantly.
Oh that’s interesting, I wouldn’t have thought Blue Maw Cave would be all that of a challenge either. I’m just going to tweak a few stat blocks I think, and add some more officer type draconians that have additional variety and abilities suck as the dragon army officers and go from there.
All WotC published content is ridiculously easy as written, they balance things to be doable for brand new players running unoptimized characters. If your players are experienced and even remotely know how to optimize their characters, you will need to modify any WotC adventures to be significantly harder if you want to see any sort of challenge.
You can add more hp, add more damage dice, add more minions, all of these are good options.
Personally I wouldn't give dragonnels a breath weapon because the point of them is to focus on the rider rather than being a key challenge themselves . I 'd just replace them with a dragon if I wanted a breath weapon and a dragon may not even need a rider.
Generally there are a few options to make enemies stronger interesting ways.
For more specifics:
Nice, thank you all for the encouragement I think these are very insightful and useful! Much appreciated!