So Last night I finally started DM'ing for the very first time! I played with a few new players and some semi experience. In general it went well. I'm currently playing the Sunless Citadel from Tales from the Yawning Portal.
One thing I noticed is how easy the battle were for the group. I ended up with 6 PC and they are going very fast trough the adventure and barely have challenges. I am wondering if there's a rule in DM'ing that I am missing about scaling battles to make it more "balanced" for larger group (6 instead of 4).
How do you guys scale battle if you know you have a larger group? Do you add to the encounter (5 big rat instead of 3? or even 6?) or you just make them tougher (12 hp instead of 7?)?
most adventurers are made for groups of 4-5 people. Add 2-3 opponents per battle and see how your players handle that. Its a learning curve. You need to get a feel of how your players play tactically. As well as which powers they favor to use in situations. Then handwave the fights on the spot. If things go to easy have reinforcements arrive. If things go wrong have troops escape since their morale broke or some other plausible reason. Fights can be really easy if you throw large groups at the players while they have spellcasters with big AoE. While more melee groups would be overwhelmed and crushed. CR in the manual could give you a starting guideline, but don't use it too much.
I run 5-6 people in a group on average, when I'm down to 4 players it's a rare thing, and adjusting the challenge is very tricky. I'll begin by saying that challenge is a very dynamic thing and will change vastly based on a number of different factors. Once you start tweaking these different factors you'll find what types of challenge will make them work, and what types of challenge are simply an exercise in futility.
Environment: Having something about the terrain, weather, flora, fauna, and more that affects the combatants. Poisoned air, smoke, or fog to hamper visibility. Lava pools, deep crevices, pools of acid to give places to toss/drop creatures. Poisonous, venomous, or carnivorous plants to interrupt combat. Geysers or fire gouts to have dynamic dangers, and much, much more.
Example: One of my groups favorite non-combat encounters almost killed them because of the environment. There was a lava flow that was closing in on them from behind as they had to descend from the top of a live volcano. While this was happening there were mini-eruptions that would cause an earthquake, they had to try not to trip and fall prone. There were large rocks being hurled out from the mouth of the volcano which would land randomly, sometimes on/near the players. All the while they had to avoid chasms that had split open, spouts of fire erupting around them, and the various boulders and outcroppings of trees.
Tactics/Strategy: How the creatures are going to think during combat. Not all creatures are going to fight to the death, not all creatures are going to work independently of each other, and not all creatures will ignore the environment they're in. Creatures will run, surrender, or vanish when the fight starts to go bad, use this to make creatures do hit and run tactics, find allies, or sound alarms. Many creatures will work together, surrounding their biggest threats, using abilities in tandem to make the fight go their way, the players aren't the only ones who can come up with combination attacks. All those environmental effects are useable by the creatures as well the players, have them push players into pits, have them hide behind dangerous plants, sneak through the shadows, and use height to their advantage. It's not wrong for you to play the monsters to their strengths, it's wrong to think DM vs Player.
Example: A group of 5 level 6 players I ran encountered 7 Dust Mephits. These are weak creatures that are barely more difficult than a large mosquito, but used properly, they can really change combat. The mephits would fly just out of range of melee, and use their breath attacks to blind the players. They'd summon a new mephit just before dieing (making it 14 mephits in total). They would kamikaze when near death so that they'd blind the players when they exploded. Surrounding the party and attacking from all angles to gain advantage on attacks. Disengaging and flying around the room to avoid being pinned down. This one fight was enough to make the players completely rethink how powerful they were and took a lot more of their effort than fighting 3 Ankhegs at one time.
Stat Block: This collection of information is simply a starting point, you can change anything and everything to fit. If you want to add or remove HP, go for it. If you want to increase the AC, feel free. If you want to give magical abilities to mundane creatures, do it. Anything you want to do to the creatures is fair game. It is a lot more nuanced when you begin to change monsters up as it can drastically change the flow of combat.
Example: I had an evil druid who was splicing together creatures and my 5 adventurers were sent to deal with him. They ran into Displacer Beasts that were spliced with Blink dogs, just 2 of them locked the party down for an entire session due to the mobility and control these creatures had. I ended up nerfing them mid fight because I knew they were too much for the group to handle. They ran into a Choker that was spliced with a Shambling mound, it would hide in trees looking like hanging vines, had the immunities of the mound and the tentacle attacks of the choker. The group handled that fairly well due to some creative combat maneuvers. Lastly they ran into a Troll that was spliced with an Ochre jelly, and that was a daunting fight. It had troll regeneration, acid damage to every attack, immunity to acid (which is a vulnerability normally), and the ability to split just like the jelly. That fight was epic, they ended up with 5 of these trolls before they realized what made it split, had to whittle down these regenerating beasts, and they still had the druid to contend with after the fight.
Play with those ideas in every combat and you'll find combinations that work, combinations that the players will scoff at, and you'll find your favorite way to make combat interesting. The more you make combat feel dynamic, the more epic your players will feel when they emerge victorious.
If you look on pg 82 of the Dungeon Masters guide it has a table that breaks down total enemy experience pools for enemy in relation to the players levels. For example the table says that if you have a group of 7 level 2 players then you have the following recommended exp pools for enemies: EASY : 350, MEDIUM: 700, HARD: 1050, DEADLY: 1400. A monsters experience amount is determined by their CR rating. This gives you a solid starting point from where you can increase or decrease certain attributes like health amount, weapon types, resistances, and special abilities. I recommend trying this to give yourself a feel for how difficult encounters should be within your campaign. I hope this helps and I wish you luck with your campaign.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Good day fellow DM's.
So Last night I finally started DM'ing for the very first time! I played with a few new players and some semi experience. In general it went well. I'm currently playing the Sunless Citadel from Tales from the Yawning Portal.
One thing I noticed is how easy the battle were for the group. I ended up with 6 PC and they are going very fast trough the adventure and barely have challenges. I am wondering if there's a rule in DM'ing that I am missing about scaling battles to make it more "balanced" for larger group (6 instead of 4).
How do you guys scale battle if you know you have a larger group? Do you add to the encounter (5 big rat instead of 3? or even 6?) or you just make them tougher (12 hp instead of 7?)?
Thanks for your help!
-A
most adventurers are made for groups of 4-5 people. Add 2-3 opponents per battle and see how your players handle that. Its a learning curve. You need to get a feel of how your players play tactically. As well as which powers they favor to use in situations. Then handwave the fights on the spot. If things go to easy have reinforcements arrive. If things go wrong have troops escape since their morale broke or some other plausible reason. Fights can be really easy if you throw large groups at the players while they have spellcasters with big AoE. While more melee groups would be overwhelmed and crushed. CR in the manual could give you a starting guideline, but don't use it too much.
http://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder
I run 5-6 people in a group on average, when I'm down to 4 players it's a rare thing, and adjusting the challenge is very tricky. I'll begin by saying that challenge is a very dynamic thing and will change vastly based on a number of different factors. Once you start tweaking these different factors you'll find what types of challenge will make them work, and what types of challenge are simply an exercise in futility.
Environment: Having something about the terrain, weather, flora, fauna, and more that affects the combatants. Poisoned air, smoke, or fog to hamper visibility. Lava pools, deep crevices, pools of acid to give places to toss/drop creatures. Poisonous, venomous, or carnivorous plants to interrupt combat. Geysers or fire gouts to have dynamic dangers, and much, much more.
Example: One of my groups favorite non-combat encounters almost killed them because of the environment. There was a lava flow that was closing in on them from behind as they had to descend from the top of a live volcano. While this was happening there were mini-eruptions that would cause an earthquake, they had to try not to trip and fall prone. There were large rocks being hurled out from the mouth of the volcano which would land randomly, sometimes on/near the players. All the while they had to avoid chasms that had split open, spouts of fire erupting around them, and the various boulders and outcroppings of trees.
Tactics/Strategy: How the creatures are going to think during combat. Not all creatures are going to fight to the death, not all creatures are going to work independently of each other, and not all creatures will ignore the environment they're in. Creatures will run, surrender, or vanish when the fight starts to go bad, use this to make creatures do hit and run tactics, find allies, or sound alarms. Many creatures will work together, surrounding their biggest threats, using abilities in tandem to make the fight go their way, the players aren't the only ones who can come up with combination attacks. All those environmental effects are useable by the creatures as well the players, have them push players into pits, have them hide behind dangerous plants, sneak through the shadows, and use height to their advantage. It's not wrong for you to play the monsters to their strengths, it's wrong to think DM vs Player.
Example: A group of 5 level 6 players I ran encountered 7 Dust Mephits. These are weak creatures that are barely more difficult than a large mosquito, but used properly, they can really change combat. The mephits would fly just out of range of melee, and use their breath attacks to blind the players. They'd summon a new mephit just before dieing (making it 14 mephits in total). They would kamikaze when near death so that they'd blind the players when they exploded. Surrounding the party and attacking from all angles to gain advantage on attacks. Disengaging and flying around the room to avoid being pinned down. This one fight was enough to make the players completely rethink how powerful they were and took a lot more of their effort than fighting 3 Ankhegs at one time.
Stat Block: This collection of information is simply a starting point, you can change anything and everything to fit. If you want to add or remove HP, go for it. If you want to increase the AC, feel free. If you want to give magical abilities to mundane creatures, do it. Anything you want to do to the creatures is fair game. It is a lot more nuanced when you begin to change monsters up as it can drastically change the flow of combat.
Example: I had an evil druid who was splicing together creatures and my 5 adventurers were sent to deal with him. They ran into Displacer Beasts that were spliced with Blink dogs, just 2 of them locked the party down for an entire session due to the mobility and control these creatures had. I ended up nerfing them mid fight because I knew they were too much for the group to handle.
They ran into a Choker that was spliced with a Shambling mound, it would hide in trees looking like hanging vines, had the immunities of the mound and the tentacle attacks of the choker. The group handled that fairly well due to some creative combat maneuvers.
Lastly they ran into a Troll that was spliced with an Ochre jelly, and that was a daunting fight. It had troll regeneration, acid damage to every attack, immunity to acid (which is a vulnerability normally), and the ability to split just like the jelly. That fight was epic, they ended up with 5 of these trolls before they realized what made it split, had to whittle down these regenerating beasts, and they still had the druid to contend with after the fight.
Play with those ideas in every combat and you'll find combinations that work, combinations that the players will scoff at, and you'll find your favorite way to make combat interesting. The more you make combat feel dynamic, the more epic your players will feel when they emerge victorious.
If you look on pg 82 of the Dungeon Masters guide it has a table that breaks down total enemy experience pools for enemy in relation to the players levels. For example the table says that if you have a group of 7 level 2 players then you have the following recommended exp pools for enemies: EASY : 350, MEDIUM: 700, HARD: 1050, DEADLY: 1400. A monsters experience amount is determined by their CR rating. This gives you a solid starting point from where you can increase or decrease certain attributes like health amount, weapon types, resistances, and special abilities. I recommend trying this to give yourself a feel for how difficult encounters should be within your campaign. I hope this helps and I wish you luck with your campaign.