I've come into DMing a group of 7 in a mostly homebrewed world. Because of revolving amounts of players, we don't usually have the full 7, but a large fight is coming up that I expect all to show up to. With an average of 5, they've still been tearing through 2 or 3 supposedly deadly encounters before taking a rest, even a deadly where they were slightly outnumbered.
The fight we have coming will be the first milestone for them, marking the end of the first part of the campaign, and they should all be at least level 5, if not one or two leveled to 6 by the time they make it to this fight. There's 2 rangers, 2 rogues, a monk, a fighter, a barbarian, and a wizard. Healing potions are very common in the world, and each of them should have 2 or 3 during this fight. The barbarian has a +1 shield, and I expect the fighter to have a +1 sword and one of the rangers to have a +1 crossbow and the other to have Bracers of Archery. None of the others are expected to have major magic items.
The fight I'd like to run is a Frost Giant Lair, set high in the mountains. After fighting through the labyrinth, they reach an ornate, locked door, which they just discovered the key for. Inside:
1 Frost Giant, CR 8
1 Young Remorhaz, CR 5 OR 1 Mammoth, CR 6
3 Winter Wolves, CR 3
If it helps, from how they have tackled scenarios like this before, I'd expect around half to start clearing the wolves and the Remorhaz/Mammoth, and the barbarian to head straight for the giant. The other 2 will probably slot in with whoever seems to need it the most. The group is about 50/50 with being experienced with D&D or not, so around half my players won't have any working knowledge of the tactical way to approach this.
I want this to be a fairly memorable fight, but I don't want a death right at the end of this chapter. Action economy tells me they'll probably be ok, but the adjusted experience is around 2 1/2 times greater than their "deadly" threshold. If it's too much, how would you go about balancing it? Thanks ahead of time!
You could always just steal some Lair actions from either the Young White Dragon or the Young Silver Dragon if you needed to give your monster team a little more oomph.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
If you need the monsters to be weaker, you could say something like “The Winter Wolves appear to have bruises across their bodies from being beaten” and take away some of their hp.
I've come into DMing a group of 7 in a mostly homebrewed world. Because of revolving amounts of players, we don't usually have the full 7, but a large fight is coming up that I expect all to show up to. With an average of 5, they've still been tearing through 2 or 3 supposedly deadly encounters before taking a rest, even a deadly where they were slightly outnumbered.
The fight we have coming will be the first milestone for them, marking the end of the first part of the campaign, and they should all be at least level 5, if not one or two leveled to 6 by the time they make it to this fight. There's 2 rangers, 2 rogues, a monk, a fighter, a barbarian, and a wizard. Healing potions are very common in the world, and each of them should have 2 or 3 during this fight. The barbarian has a +1 shield, and I expect the fighter to have a +1 sword and one of the rangers to have a +1 crossbow and the other to have Bracers of Archery. None of the others are expected to have major magic items.
The fight I'd like to run is a Frost Giant Lair, set high in the mountains. After fighting through the labyrinth, they reach an ornate, locked door, which they just discovered the key for. Inside:
1 Frost Giant, CR 8
1 Young Remorhaz, CR 5 OR 1 Mammoth, CR 6
3 Winter Wolves, CR 3
If it helps, from how they have tackled scenarios like this before, I'd expect around half to start clearing the wolves and the Remorhaz/Mammoth, and the barbarian to head straight for the giant. The other 2 will probably slot in with whoever seems to need it the most. The group is about 50/50 with being experienced with D&D or not, so around half my players won't have any working knowledge of the tactical way to approach this.
I want this to be a fairly memorable fight, but I don't want a death right at the end of this chapter. Action economy tells me they'll probably be ok, but the adjusted experience is around 2 1/2 times greater than their "deadly" threshold. If it's too much, how would you go about balancing it? Thanks ahead of time!
You could always just steal some Lair actions from either the Young White Dragon or the Young Silver Dragon if you needed to give your monster team a little more oomph.
If you need the monsters to be weaker, you could say something like “The Winter Wolves appear to have bruises across their bodies from being beaten” and take away some of their hp.
I stole my pfp from this person: https://mobile.twitter.com/xelart1/status/1177312449575432193
Oh some good ideas from both, thanks guys :)
Also, don't be afraid to kill a character. The feeling of mortality is something that can dial up the fun, no risk no reward type of thought.