New DM here and I somehow got myself into a party with 9 players and needed some ideas for single bosses/monsters that they can fight at 3rd level. I'm thinking they could maybe take on a Bulette and will probably kill it in one to two round but it can just as easy kill one of them with one attack. Should I just lower its stats or stick to packs of lower Cr monsters?
If your party has healing, and with 9, they should, then it's ok if the monster takes several people down. It's pretty hard to actually die before someone in the group can do a healing word, cure wounds, medicine check/healing kit, lay on hands, or healing potion for at least 1 point and get you back on your feet.
I highly recommend minions, or it will be difficult to come up with something that they won't either blaze through (9 vs 1) or all get TPK'd by. Consider using terrain or a flying monster, something where the party can't mob it, or something with resistances that will cause a good portion of the party to do less damage or have to switch tactics up.
Edit- a were-creature might work well, immunities to non magic weapons should give the party pause for a round or two but with 9 PCs they should be able to apply enough magic attacks to take something down. Were-creatures don't have to use their lycanthropy curse attacks, I think the MM says most use those powers only intentionally and with a purpose but the PCs will still be afraid. Consider a wereboar or tiger or maybe even a werebear.
According to that site a deadly encounter would be 4 Gnolls, 4 Gnoll Hunters and 4 Gnoll Flesh Gnawers.
Or one young black dragon and 2 crocodiles.
Or 6 ogres.
At some point you will need to 'feel out' your players to see what they can do. A group that big will likely be able to handle monster's several CR above what would be considered normal. You will want to avoid just sending one really big creature against that size party. Just one bad guy will get swarmed with so many actions against it.
You might plan several encounters. It's how the CR system is really built to account for. Plan out 3 or four medium or hard encounters and then one deadly and give them a chance to short rest once or twice in between. This is how the CR's for monster's were initially figured. If you just have one great big fight then it will be very hard to figure it since your player's will likely just burn all their resources at once.
In my experience, when designing single big-bads as bosses that the party can throw their entire loadout at, the only real constraining factor is the single-blow damage that the baddie hands out. Action economy is a deceptively huge advantage when even a normal sized party is facing a single foe, and that's going to be exponentially true of a 9-man group. As Mael said, if the party has healing it really doesn't matter how often he knocks players unconscious, because the healer(s) can just pop them back up within three rounds to continue the fight. As long as the party can conceivably churn out enough damage to whittle the bad guy down to half life before running out of healing, you've got a narrative excuse for having it give up and run and call it a "success" for the group... and with a party of 9, i'm sure they can probably muster quite a bit of damage! But if the boss is perma-killing party members by dealing Massive Damage, then there's no real way for the party to overcome that, and even if they do, everyone that dies is going to feel upset.
At 3rd level, your "backline" guys are probably going to have somewhere around 10-15 health, your midline 20ish, and your frontline 30ish. So pick a monster that can't do more than 30 HP in a single blow, and that only has enough attacks to drop two or maybe three characters per round, and your party of 9 should have no problem. Beyond that, maybe try to also shoot for something that doesn't have an unhittable AC (nothing over 20), immunity to physical damage, or the ability to attack while flying out of reach.
More specific suggestions, taken from a variety of themes, none of which should be able to "accidentally" kill a character without you intending to. Looking through statblocks, generally dragons are out (breath weapons hit too hard), as are giants (they don't know their own strength), or high level spellcasters.
Another thing to consider is the size of the party. You can throw a single big baddy at them and they will probably be its undoing. But, to be a fair fight, it will be much stronger and more difficult to land a hit rolling an attack.
Players like to kill stiff and they HATE to miss. Though the big baddy is a daunting foe for them to face, and you know this answer better than we do, do you think your players would have more fun hitting their opponents like 75% of the time if they were weaker but far greater in number than the one single baddy? Or, better yet, have a strong leader to the bunch of little baddies.
A single formidable, yet killable, monster might not be quite as fun as the opportunity for the players to revert back to the status of a ravenous pack of murder hobos for an encounter. Unless you are trying to break them of this.
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Thank you. ChrisW
Ones are righteous. And one day, we just might believe it.
I guess the thing I didn't mention (because I tend to think in terms of melee characters) is that an absurdly high level foe like is basically immune to anything that checks for saves from a low level party. AC doesn't ramp up much with difficulty class but saves really do, and there's no way to pile on with flanking, help actions, etc. to give save spells a boost the same way there is for attack roll spells or physical melee/ranged attacks. Sooo… hopefully everyone isn't casting sacred flame or toll the dead for damage and is able to either use attack rolls or spend their time buffing/healing/helping the rest of the party.
New DM here and I somehow got myself into a party with 9 players and needed some ideas for single bosses/monsters that they can fight at 3rd level. I'm thinking they could maybe take on a Bulette and will probably kill it in one to two round but it can just as easy kill one of them with one attack. Should I just lower its stats or stick to packs of lower Cr monsters?
If your party has healing, and with 9, they should, then it's ok if the monster takes several people down. It's pretty hard to actually die before someone in the group can do a healing word, cure wounds, medicine check/healing kit, lay on hands, or healing potion for at least 1 point and get you back on your feet.
I highly recommend minions, or it will be difficult to come up with something that they won't either blaze through (9 vs 1) or all get TPK'd by. Consider using terrain or a flying monster, something where the party can't mob it, or something with resistances that will cause a good portion of the party to do less damage or have to switch tactics up.
Edit- a were-creature might work well, immunities to non magic weapons should give the party pause for a round or two but with 9 PCs they should be able to apply enough magic attacks to take something down. Were-creatures don't have to use their lycanthropy curse attacks, I think the MM says most use those powers only intentionally and with a purpose but the PCs will still be afraid. Consider a wereboar or tiger or maybe even a werebear.
That's very useful, thank you!
Try Kobold Fight Club. http://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder
According to that site a deadly encounter would be 4 Gnolls, 4 Gnoll Hunters and 4 Gnoll Flesh Gnawers.
Or one young black dragon and 2 crocodiles.
Or 6 ogres.
At some point you will need to 'feel out' your players to see what they can do. A group that big will likely be able to handle monster's several CR above what would be considered normal. You will want to avoid just sending one really big creature against that size party. Just one bad guy will get swarmed with so many actions against it.
You might plan several encounters. It's how the CR system is really built to account for. Plan out 3 or four medium or hard encounters and then one deadly and give them a chance to short rest once or twice in between. This is how the CR's for monster's were initially figured. If you just have one great big fight then it will be very hard to figure it since your player's will likely just burn all their resources at once.
Current Characters I am playing: Dr Konstantin van Wulf | Taegen Willowrun | Mad Magnar
Check out my homebrew: Items | Monsters | Spells | Subclasses | Feats
In my experience, when designing single big-bads as bosses that the party can throw their entire loadout at, the only real constraining factor is the single-blow damage that the baddie hands out. Action economy is a deceptively huge advantage when even a normal sized party is facing a single foe, and that's going to be exponentially true of a 9-man group. As Mael said, if the party has healing it really doesn't matter how often he knocks players unconscious, because the healer(s) can just pop them back up within three rounds to continue the fight. As long as the party can conceivably churn out enough damage to whittle the bad guy down to half life before running out of healing, you've got a narrative excuse for having it give up and run and call it a "success" for the group... and with a party of 9, i'm sure they can probably muster quite a bit of damage! But if the boss is perma-killing party members by dealing Massive Damage, then there's no real way for the party to overcome that, and even if they do, everyone that dies is going to feel upset.
At 3rd level, your "backline" guys are probably going to have somewhere around 10-15 health, your midline 20ish, and your frontline 30ish. So pick a monster that can't do more than 30 HP in a single blow, and that only has enough attacks to drop two or maybe three characters per round, and your party of 9 should have no problem. Beyond that, maybe try to also shoot for something that doesn't have an unhittable AC (nothing over 20), immunity to physical damage, or the ability to attack while flying out of reach.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
More specific suggestions, taken from a variety of themes, none of which should be able to "accidentally" kill a character without you intending to. Looking through statblocks, generally dragons are out (breath weapons hit too hard), as are giants (they don't know their own strength), or high level spellcasters.
Githyanki Supreme Commander!
Vampire!
A Warlord!
Horned Devil!
Aboleth!
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Another thing to consider is the size of the party. You can throw a single big baddy at them and they will probably be its undoing. But, to be a fair fight, it will be much stronger and more difficult to land a hit rolling an attack.
Players like to kill stiff and they HATE to miss. Though the big baddy is a daunting foe for them to face, and you know this answer better than we do, do you think your players would have more fun hitting their opponents like 75% of the time if they were weaker but far greater in number than the one single baddy? Or, better yet, have a strong leader to the bunch of little baddies.
A single formidable, yet killable, monster might not be quite as fun as the opportunity for the players to revert back to the status of a ravenous pack of murder hobos for an encounter. Unless you are trying to break them of this.
Thank you.
ChrisW
Ones are righteous. And one day, we just might believe it.
All super awesome replies/suggestions. This is going to really make this easier for me and more enjoyable for the party. Thank you
I guess the thing I didn't mention (because I tend to think in terms of melee characters) is that an absurdly high level foe like is basically immune to anything that checks for saves from a low level party. AC doesn't ramp up much with difficulty class but saves really do, and there's no way to pile on with flanking, help actions, etc. to give save spells a boost the same way there is for attack roll spells or physical melee/ranged attacks. Sooo… hopefully everyone isn't casting sacred flame or toll the dead for damage and is able to either use attack rolls or spend their time buffing/healing/helping the rest of the party.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.