So we are playing the Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk. Been playing for almost a year and approaching the end. Throughout the entire campaign i have been having a really hard time not killing the party. It seams like the encounter are overly difficult. I am using the new 2024 monster manual but but it seam like the damage per round my players are putting out just cant handle the hit points of the monster in the encounter. Forcing me to sometime half there hit points just to make it winnable and not take hours.
I am coming off of Playing pathfinder 1E so maybe this is just normal for DND. But one thing i have notices is the loot pools pretty much amount to gold. And not a lot of magic weapons. Do DnD modules expect me to add more weapons to the loot or are the player suppose to be shopping more.
Or is this just a balance issue with encounter in modules written before the 2024 rules. I looked at the 5E manual and it does not look significantly different so i am thinking this is not the issue.
For some reason prewritten modules are always very light on loot, they don’t even follow the guidelines for loot laid out in the 2024 DMG despite being by the same people, so yes feel free to be a bit more generous.
As for difficulty I’ve played through Phandelver and Below as the DM and didn’t find it particularly difficult but I played it with 2014 rules. You say you’re using the 2024 Monster Manual, are your players all using 2024 characters? If not that might be the problem. Also how many players? Most prewritten modules are designed for 4 or 5 players so if you’ve only got 3 that would also throw the balance out. If everything looks like it should be working it could just be that your players aren’t playing optimally (I don’t mean that judgementally, I’m a terrible player) so would struggle more than the does everything right players that designers often have in mind, in that case don’t be afraid to dial the encounters back. It’s a core skill of being a DM to adjust things up or down for your players
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So we are playing the Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk. Been playing for almost a year and approaching the end. Throughout the entire campaign i have been having a really hard time not killing the party. It seams like the encounter are overly difficult. I am using the new 2024 monster manual but but it seam like the damage per round my players are putting out just cant handle the hit points of the monster in the encounter. Forcing me to sometime half there hit points just to make it winnable and not take hours.
I am coming off of Playing pathfinder 1E so maybe this is just normal for DND. But one thing i have notices is the loot pools pretty much amount to gold. And not a lot of magic weapons. Do DnD modules expect me to add more weapons to the loot or are the player suppose to be shopping more.
Or is this just a balance issue with encounter in modules written before the 2024 rules. I looked at the 5E manual and it does not look significantly different so i am thinking this is not the issue.
Any advice would be helpful.
For some reason prewritten modules are always very light on loot, they don’t even follow the guidelines for loot laid out in the 2024 DMG despite being by the same people, so yes feel free to be a bit more generous.
As for difficulty I’ve played through Phandelver and Below as the DM and didn’t find it particularly difficult but I played it with 2014 rules. You say you’re using the 2024 Monster Manual, are your players all using 2024 characters? If not that might be the problem. Also how many players? Most prewritten modules are designed for 4 or 5 players so if you’ve only got 3 that would also throw the balance out. If everything looks like it should be working it could just be that your players aren’t playing optimally (I don’t mean that judgementally, I’m a terrible player) so would struggle more than the does everything right players that designers often have in mind, in that case don’t be afraid to dial the encounters back. It’s a core skill of being a DM to adjust things up or down for your players