context: i am planning a a christmas one-shot 5 months (at the time this post goes out) in advance and i decided to make the character level for the oneshot 15, which is the same level as my bbeg's CR, should i lower it?
Depends how many other opponents and environmental hazards the party will be facing. A fresh party should have little difficulty with an opponent of the same CR. A party that’s already been through multiple other encounters with minimal opportunity to refresh their resources, meeting the BBEG in their lair with additional hazards and minions should have more of a challenge.
[spoiler] However, CR 15 is probably not much of a challenge for a level 15 party. In Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen, the final day of the adventure includes, sequentially, two CR 14 and a CR 11 riding a CR 10, having already met a number of CR 7 and 8 creatures, and at least one CR 10. The party is level 11 for this. Oh, and there’s a CR 19, but a lot of the plot is about NOT fighting them. [/spoiler]
Balancing high level encounters requires understanding the party and their capabilities - how many characters, what classes, what spells, what special abilities. In addition, the BBEG can never (or almost never) stand alone. Even with legendary actions and saves, a level 15 party can fairly easily (most of the time) defeat very powerful single opponents and often groups. In my home campaign, a group of 6 level 16 characters defeated a Molydeus demon (CR21). The same party also defeated a group of demons after that consisting of 2 Mariliths (CR 16), Marilith General (CR18 - 3rd party - Monster Manual Expanded), and a couple of other lower CR demons.
In this case, the party is far from optimized but they have a few tools ... a monk who likes to use stun and can be quite successful at it in particular plus access to spells like Banishment (Cleric and a Warlock) even though the party has no wizard, sorcerer or bard which can all be exceptionally effective at that level. The party also usually works together and can take advantage of terrain when the option is available.
Finally, if you are a bit uncertain of the balance and don't want to risk a TPK, a good tactic is to use reinforcements from nearby areas or perhaps summoned/called/portaled in which can be used to balance an encounter on the fly. If the encounter is already challenging then the reinforcements never arrive, if it is proving too easy then perhaps one or more waves of reinforcements show up.
In any case, depending on your party composition and number of characters, most level 15 parties won't have any problem with a CR15 creature, it may even be trivial.
Another way to get a rough idea of encounter balance is to use an encounter building tool.
For example, on D&D Beyond, a CR 15 Adult Bronze Dragon is considered an Easy encounter for 5 x level 15 characters (and that doesn't include character class and magic items).
So ... I'd say a level 15 party of 5 against a CR15 isn't going to be a challenge. Even with a party size of 3 ... the encounter is only rated as hard.
On the other hand, if the dragon breathes, everyone fails their save, the dragon breath recharges and it breathes again and the dragon uses decent tactics staying flying while the party is composed mostly of melee specialists ... then the fight is likely to go much worse for the party. So - luck, magic items and party composition are all factors to consider.
How experienced are the players? If they're new to D&D, I wouldn't have them at 15 -- or even 8-9 -- they'll have too many powers and won't know what to do. I'd start them at 1. Maybe 3 tops.
Now, if they know what they're doing, any level can work. But either way, I'd start with who's playing, set the character level from there, and then the BBEG based on the character level.
How experienced are the players? If they're new to D&D, I wouldn't have them at 15 -- or even 8-9 -- they'll have too many powers and won't know what to do. I'd start them at 1. Maybe 3 tops.
I agree entirely with this, completely new players level 1 is probablty best but level 3 can work especially if they have played other TTRPG or if you have a mixture of new and experianced players.
Even with moderately experianced players (players you have played a campaign or two and a few one shots) having a hgh level one shot can really slow things down. If a player has played a campaign the features ar eintroduced slowly so there are only a few that have not been used enough to need a check on the rules (or read and learnt on level up. If a player is playing a sorcerer (for example) for the first time they are likely to need to look up the what spell slots they can swap for SP before deciding whether to use font of magic, check thir metamagics before every spell they cast to see if / how they are best enhanced, many of the spells might be new to them as well, they wont have off pat which of their spells are most appropriate for the situation (a level 15 sorcerer with have 24 spells known for the most popular subclasses plus any they get from race or feats) and that is befor ewe get onto sub class features,
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context: i am planning a a christmas one-shot 5 months (at the time this post goes out) in advance and i decided to make the character level for the oneshot 15, which is the same level as my bbeg's CR, should i lower it?
Depends how many other opponents and environmental hazards the party will be facing. A fresh party should have little difficulty with an opponent of the same CR. A party that’s already been through multiple other encounters with minimal opportunity to refresh their resources, meeting the BBEG in their lair with additional hazards and minions should have more of a challenge.
[spoiler] However, CR 15 is probably not much of a challenge for a level 15 party. In Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen, the final day of the adventure includes, sequentially, two CR 14 and a CR 11 riding a CR 10, having already met a number of CR 7 and 8 creatures, and at least one CR 10. The party is level 11 for this.
Oh, and there’s a CR 19, but a lot of the plot is about NOT fighting them. [/spoiler]
Balancing high level encounters requires understanding the party and their capabilities - how many characters, what classes, what spells, what special abilities. In addition, the BBEG can never (or almost never) stand alone. Even with legendary actions and saves, a level 15 party can fairly easily (most of the time) defeat very powerful single opponents and often groups. In my home campaign, a group of 6 level 16 characters defeated a Molydeus demon (CR21). The same party also defeated a group of demons after that consisting of 2 Mariliths (CR 16), Marilith General (CR18 - 3rd party - Monster Manual Expanded), and a couple of other lower CR demons.
In this case, the party is far from optimized but they have a few tools ... a monk who likes to use stun and can be quite successful at it in particular plus access to spells like Banishment (Cleric and a Warlock) even though the party has no wizard, sorcerer or bard which can all be exceptionally effective at that level. The party also usually works together and can take advantage of terrain when the option is available.
Finally, if you are a bit uncertain of the balance and don't want to risk a TPK, a good tactic is to use reinforcements from nearby areas or perhaps summoned/called/portaled in which can be used to balance an encounter on the fly. If the encounter is already challenging then the reinforcements never arrive, if it is proving too easy then perhaps one or more waves of reinforcements show up.
In any case, depending on your party composition and number of characters, most level 15 parties won't have any problem with a CR15 creature, it may even be trivial.
Another way to get a rough idea of encounter balance is to use an encounter building tool.
For example, on D&D Beyond, a CR 15 Adult Bronze Dragon is considered an Easy encounter for 5 x level 15 characters (and that doesn't include character class and magic items).
https://www.dndbeyond.com/encounter-builder
Another one is Kobold Fight Club which also considers this an easy encounter.
https://koboldplus.club/
So ... I'd say a level 15 party of 5 against a CR15 isn't going to be a challenge. Even with a party size of 3 ... the encounter is only rated as hard.
On the other hand, if the dragon breathes, everyone fails their save, the dragon breath recharges and it breathes again and the dragon uses decent tactics staying flying while the party is composed mostly of melee specialists ... then the fight is likely to go much worse for the party. So - luck, magic items and party composition are all factors to consider.
If your chosen final boss is CR 15, and doesn't have multiple fairly strong allies in the fight... I suggest a party level of 8-9.
ok thanks
How experienced are the players? If they're new to D&D, I wouldn't have them at 15 -- or even 8-9 -- they'll have too many powers and won't know what to do. I'd start them at 1. Maybe 3 tops.
Now, if they know what they're doing, any level can work. But either way, I'd start with who's playing, set the character level from there, and then the BBEG based on the character level.
ok
A one-shot for new players doesn't have to level 1, but I wouldn't suggest more than about level 3 with a CR 4-5 boss.
I agree entirely with this, completely new players level 1 is probablty best but level 3 can work especially if they have played other TTRPG or if you have a mixture of new and experianced players.
Even with moderately experianced players (players you have played a campaign or two and a few one shots) having a hgh level one shot can really slow things down. If a player has played a campaign the features ar eintroduced slowly so there are only a few that have not been used enough to need a check on the rules (or read and learnt on level up. If a player is playing a sorcerer (for example) for the first time they are likely to need to look up the what spell slots they can swap for SP before deciding whether to use font of magic, check thir metamagics before every spell they cast to see if / how they are best enhanced, many of the spells might be new to them as well, they wont have off pat which of their spells are most appropriate for the situation (a level 15 sorcerer with have 24 spells known for the most popular subclasses plus any they get from race or feats) and that is befor ewe get onto sub class features,