I’m DMing a campaign for a party of all level 10 players. There are 6 players, and I want to make the combat challenging without nearly killing everyone. What monsters should I use?
There are literally hundreds of options….I’m not sure how to help you if you don’t provide some additional info. What is the party made up of? Where are they (in a city? In a desert? Underground?)? What is your campaign about? Do you want one big bad creature or a group (or an army)?
barring getting more info, look at the DMG guidance on setting up encounter difficulties or use the encounter builder here to test out some creatures. You are probably shooting for a “hard” rating (or “deadly” if they are fully rested and you plan on letting them rest again shortly after)
It kind of depends on what you want to do. If you want "challenging without nearly killing everyone, you need to tell me which level of challenge you mean. Deadly means just what it says, it's possible that everyone could die. Nearly would probably be Hard, but there's still a chance that one of them could die. Medium is where it's pretty sure none of them will die.
I used the Encounter Builder tool, and I picked Goblins. It takes 48 of them for a Medium encounter, but it could be over in a few second if someone uses a fireball, and the odds are pretty good that someone among those 6 level 10 players can do that. That could be fun, but it's hardly a challenge. I'd like to help, but as usual, I'd need some more information. What level of challenge are you looking for, and what are the classes if the characters?
The BBEG is and artificer player character that wants to destroy the world for no reason. The players all control two characters that they are forced to swap between periodically by making a saving throw. Multiclassing and home brew is encouraged
I'm sorry then, as much as I'd like to help out, I really can't do it. Now the only thing I know is that one of them is an Artificer, and that it's a PvP game. I don't know the other classes involved, and I don't allow PvP in my games.
Based on the extremely limited information you have provided, and assuming the creatures are allied with the BBEG, I would look at possibly some kind of Iron Golem with some minions in the CR 3-4 range. Maybe stone defenders or iron cobras?
All of this is kind of murky since you are encouraging homebrew and doing PvP. This may be too easy or too hard and it's kind of impossible to tell. Best of Luck with this, but this is the only help I'll be able to offer
With 6 PCs it definitely isn't worth sending just a single creature against them. The party will have so many more actions per round than the enemy that it won't last long at all.
With 6 PCs it definitely isn't worth sending just a single creature against them. The party will have so many more actions per round than the enemy that it won't last long at all.
It's possible, but it basically means a monsters whose action is "I kill a PC" and whose legendary actions amount to "and then I kill another PC".
An adult green supported by two stodgy minions like Trolls would provide a decent encounter, but double the dragon's hit points or it will probably go down to focus fire in 1-2 turns.
But honestly, if the PCs are randomly changing controller, the fight is so weird that I honestly don't know.
im currently dming a lvl 10 group of 6. theres a paladin, a cleric, a rogue, an artificer, a barbarian, and a wizard. the setting is a coliseum that tempus teleported them to. their first encounter was 9 goblins and a hobgoblin war chief. the second one theyre on now is 4 manticores. 1 is dead and 3 are flying. i should also mention that that group age ranges from 13-17. so im trying not to go to hard on them. theyre saving grace is they dont die die. if they “die” they come back after a long rest.
I highly recommend this site when deciding what monsters will fit for your party in an encounter: https://koboldplus.club/ It can randomly and instantly generate some really interesting monsters according to how difficult you would like it for your adventurers and how many they will fight (boss, boss with minions, horde, etc). If you want the encounter to be challenging but not a total party kill, I suggest setting the encounter difficulty to medium, as unless you're dividing the damage equally between everyone at least one or two players will fall if you set the difficulty to hard.
I’m DMing a campaign for a party of all level 10 players. There are 6 players, and I want to make the combat challenging without nearly killing everyone. What monsters should I use?
There are literally hundreds of options….I’m not sure how to help you if you don’t provide some additional info. What is the party made up of? Where are they (in a city? In a desert? Underground?)? What is your campaign about? Do you want one big bad creature or a group (or an army)?
barring getting more info, look at the DMG guidance on setting up encounter difficulties or use the encounter builder here to test out some creatures. You are probably shooting for a “hard” rating (or “deadly” if they are fully rested and you plan on letting them rest again shortly after)
It kind of depends on what you want to do. If you want "challenging without nearly killing everyone, you need to tell me which level of challenge you mean. Deadly means just what it says, it's possible that everyone could die. Nearly would probably be Hard, but there's still a chance that one of them could die. Medium is where it's pretty sure none of them will die.
I used the Encounter Builder tool, and I picked Goblins. It takes 48 of them for a Medium encounter, but it could be over in a few second if someone uses a fireball, and the odds are pretty good that someone among those 6 level 10 players can do that. That could be fun, but it's hardly a challenge. I'd like to help, but as usual, I'd need some more information. What level of challenge are you looking for, and what are the classes if the characters?
<Insert clever signature here>
The BBEG is and artificer player character that wants to destroy the world for no reason. The players all control two characters that they are forced to swap between periodically by making a saving throw. Multiclassing and home brew is encouraged
I'm sorry then, as much as I'd like to help out, I really can't do it. Now the only thing I know is that one of them is an Artificer, and that it's a PvP game. I don't know the other classes involved, and I don't allow PvP in my games.
<Insert clever signature here>
Based on the extremely limited information you have provided, and assuming the creatures are allied with the BBEG, I would look at possibly some kind of Iron Golem with some minions in the CR 3-4 range. Maybe stone defenders or iron cobras?
All of this is kind of murky since you are encouraging homebrew and doing PvP. This may be too easy or too hard and it's kind of impossible to tell. Best of Luck with this, but this is the only help I'll be able to offer
Thanks!
With 6 PCs it definitely isn't worth sending just a single creature against them. The party will have so many more actions per round than the enemy that it won't last long at all.
It's possible, but it basically means a monsters whose action is "I kill a PC" and whose legendary actions amount to "and then I kill another PC".
An adult green supported by two stodgy minions like Trolls would provide a decent encounter, but double the dragon's hit points or it will probably go down to focus fire in 1-2 turns.
But honestly, if the PCs are randomly changing controller, the fight is so weird that I honestly don't know.
im currently dming a lvl 10 group of 6. theres a paladin, a cleric, a rogue, an artificer, a barbarian, and a wizard. the setting is a coliseum that tempus teleported them to. their first encounter was 9 goblins and a hobgoblin war chief. the second one theyre on now is 4 manticores. 1 is dead and 3 are flying. i should also mention that that group age ranges from 13-17. so im trying not to go to hard on them. theyre saving grace is they dont die die. if they “die” they come back after a long rest.
I highly recommend this site when deciding what monsters will fit for your party in an encounter: https://koboldplus.club/
It can randomly and instantly generate some really interesting monsters according to how difficult you would like it for your adventurers and how many they will fight (boss, boss with minions, horde, etc).
If you want the encounter to be challenging but not a total party kill, I suggest setting the encounter difficulty to medium, as unless you're dividing the damage equally between everyone at least one or two players will fall if you set the difficulty to hard.
Enjoy!!
hi my name is an inside joke please bear with me
Mindflayers are scary at all levels. Throw in some decent cr2 or cr3 minions and you have a good fight.