Hey, I've got a real quick question for you. I recently started DMing for a couple of friends. I'm mostly only doing some one-shots so far to get used to playing as DM and, in order to keep it simple, I usually restrict my players to level 3-5 characters, so I'm not overwhelmed with the amount of skills and spells. Recently however, a somewhat regular player of mine asked me to do some higher level stuff next time and while I don't mind, my games aren't really made for that level range. Is there an easy way to scale enemies to make them more appropriate for my players? I already do a bit of homebrew, for example, while fighting a brown bear in the woods, I'm using the stats for a polar bear instead, who are basically a stronger version of the normal bear, but I can only do that so often. The polar bear already is the strongest version of a bear there is in the manual and I don't just want to "fix" the problem, by simply throwing more enemies at my group. Any tips how to handle the situation? Tank you guys in advance for reading and a nice day to all of you^^
You can always reskin stat blocks of tougher creatures to fit what you're trying to do. Take your bear. If you have a mutant or a primordial bear, you can give it the stat block of a tarrasque. It's still a very strong and deadly bear. Of course, you may want to find a more appropriate creature to reskin, but this should give you an idea.
yeah, as jhfffan said, you can use the statblocks of other monsters, such as owlbears, to simulate this much stronger bear, but I also feel like there is an upper limit to this without an in-universe explanation. It might break the suspension of disbelief when an ordinary bear can take multiple fireballs, divine smites, and magical greataxe hits, and such a situation can make your players feel at least a little bit confused.
I don't just want to "fix" the problem, by simply throwing more enemies at my group. Any tips how to handle the situation?
Question - why don't you want to fix the problem just by throwing more enemies or stronger enemies at the group? It seems natural that higher-level PCs would find a challenge in fighting more or stronger monsters than a low-level group. What's the issue that you're trying to work around?
Quote from ftl>> Question - why don't you want to fix the problem just by throwing more enemies or stronger enemies at the group? It seems natural that higher-level PCs would find a challenge in fighting more or stronger monsters than a low-level group. What's the issue that you're trying to work around?
Dunno. Apart from combat getting tedious if players have to wait for 20 creatures, plus their allies, to all attack before they get their next turn, on top of me as a newbie running the risk of getting overwhelmed with having to keep track of all their stats, health and effects, I guess it’s mostly because I come from a video game background. I guess by now it’s hard coded into me that most boss fights are those epic 1V1 or 4V1 battles, with two to three adds as some extra muscle tops. Having more enemies than that just feels wrong to me. This is something I probably need to get over at some point, but for now, I really, really want to avoid battles turning into these giant slugfests, which are just about surviving numbers but don’t offer any real interesting challenges or combat oppurtunities.
What about just picking stronger enemies? There's monsters all the way up to CR30, so at any level of PC you can pick a sufficiently challenging single enemy or small number of enemies.
Quote from ftl>> Question - why don't you want to fix the problem just by throwing more enemies or stronger enemies at the group? It seems natural that higher-level PCs would find a challenge in fighting more or stronger monsters than a low-level group. What's the issue that you're trying to work around?
Dunno. Apart from combat getting tedious if players have to wait for 20 creatures, plus their allies, to all attack before they get their next turn, on top of me as a newbie running the risk of getting overwhelmed with having to keep track of all their stats, health and effects, I guess it’s mostly because I come from a video game background. I guess by now it’s hard coded into me that most boss fights are those epic 1V1 or 4V1 battles, with two to three adds as some extra muscle tops. Having more enemies than that just feels wrong to me. This is something I probably need to get over at some point, but for now, I really, really want to avoid battles turning into these giant slugfests, which are just about surviving numbers but don’t offer any real interesting challenges or combat oppurtunities.
I beg to differ on the slugfest not offering interesting challenges or combat opportunities. I recently had a party that engaged a room with 8 goblins in it. That room had an open passage to a room with 4 goblins in it that I had join them after a round since they would have heard and engaged. Further, the room that the party had cleared and were staging from had a grick (see Cragmaw Castle, it's the southwest room, the kitchen next to it, and the room with the Grick in the center.) The druid cast entangle on the first goblins and they had the paladin block the path to limit their exposure from the ones who saved or weren't able to be targetted. When the adds came down an adjacent hall, they had to deal with them otherwise. However, ingress to their area was limited from that side and they took advantage of it. What really made this fun was they didn't notice that the grick was hiding amongst the statues in a dark, high-ceilinged room. When the last member of the party left, it dropped down and attacked. Now the party (of 2nd level characters) was being pressed on three sides by numbers and one high CR (for them) creature. It taxed their resources to the point that they retreated from the castle with one goblin retreating and another holding a grudge because they killed her "boyfriend" but unable to pursue because she hadn't made her save yet.
The party had a life cleric, a beast conclave revised ranger, a land (forest) druid, a fey patron warlock, and an oath of the ancients paladin that were all 2nd level. There was also a 1st level death cleric NPC. The party is now third level and most of them haven't progressed any further before.
The party tried to use the narrow terrain to their advantage, but that backfired some when they didn't verify that two of the rooms were clear which enabled them to be surrounded. They had numbers keeping them busy on two fronts and a superior enemy attacking on the third front. Their tactics could have been better, but they made good choices usually and were simply challenged by a superior enemy (the castle is intended for 4-5 3rd level characters).
Scale the encounter by adding a few higher level goblinoids to accompany a few of the goblins, put in an upgrade for the grick, and throw in a few traps. That could be challenging for a higher level party, particularly if the effort is organized against them.
Basically, I'm just trying to figure out what's different about your situation. Because you've described something perfectly normal - you don't want to play swarms of enemies, but your PC's characters level up. It's standard for, as the characters go up in level, to encounter stronger and stronger enemies to make the overall DM burden pretty similar - at level 1 they might be fighting a bugbear and some goblins, at level 5 a grick alpha and some gricks, at level 10 a beholder, at level 15 a few giants of the right type, and so on and so forth.
Usually DMs and players don't want to fight like 20 creatures, you're right - in my opinon the sweet spot is between like 3-8 creatures, since single creatures often punch a bit below their difficulty because of action economy and once you get to 10 or so you get too bogged down. But it's not much more difficult to make a level-appropriate encounter of CR10 creatures than it is of CR1 creatures...
I just increase stats. AC, HP, damage die, and so fourth. I just do it when the time come to use the monster. I do not spend a bunch of time trying to figure out everything pregame. I just look over the monster real quick and make the adjustments on the fly most of the time. Often times I will even combine monsters simply by just book marking them in the Monster Manual. Sure, I will go over them but I will not over think it and spend more then 5 min or so. The 5E system is very simple when it comes to this. Hell I will even make up NPC stats on the fly if a player decides to attack them. I can understand the want to use lower level monsters or even higher level. I use lower level stuff all the time. Higher level stuff just need to be treated with a bit more care.
Also, there is a handy chart in the Dungeon Masters guide which lists out expected monster stats by CR. I find this helpful as a guide while scaling monsters to my party.
This may not be the right area to post but it deals with monsters/encounters/enemies. How do you as DM's determine monster behaviour? I am working on an algorithm to determine encounter behavior based on stats and wanted input from other DM's.
This may not be the right area to post but it deals with monsters/encounters/enemies. How do you as DM's determine monster behaviour? I am working on an algorithm to determine encounter behavior based on stats and wanted input from other DM's.
Thanks
I tried coming up with a personality for each creature in the "dungeon" once. It provided some interesting circumstances that differed from the way that the module read. It was quite fun for me, but I needed to organize it a little better.
That's why I want to develop an algorithm. For instance, the difference in social construct of goblins and kobolds. The different intelligence levels, etc. Something along the lines of:
Intelligence =/> 13, creature hides in ambush,
Intelligence =/< 12, creature makes noise while hiding... but for all stats in different situations.
yeah one important thing is to understand the various parts of a statblock that might define how a given creature acts.
for instance, goblins, despite being only averagely smart, foolish, and weak-willed, have the Nimble Escape feature and not proficiency, but expertise in Stealth, a +6, which is whopping for a CR 1/4 creature. Thusly, they intrinsically know how to be sneaky, even if they're not very better in other areas.
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Hey, I've got a real quick question for you. I recently started DMing for a couple of friends. I'm mostly only doing some one-shots so far to get used to playing as DM and, in order to keep it simple, I usually restrict my players to level 3-5 characters, so I'm not overwhelmed with the amount of skills and spells. Recently however, a somewhat regular player of mine asked me to do some higher level stuff next time and while I don't mind, my games aren't really made for that level range. Is there an easy way to scale enemies to make them more appropriate for my players?
I already do a bit of homebrew, for example, while fighting a brown bear in the woods, I'm using the stats for a polar bear instead, who are basically a stronger version of the normal bear, but I can only do that so often. The polar bear already is the strongest version of a bear there is in the manual and I don't just want to "fix" the problem, by simply throwing more enemies at my group. Any tips how to handle the situation?
Tank you guys in advance for reading and a nice day to all of you^^
You can always reskin stat blocks of tougher creatures to fit what you're trying to do. Take your bear. If you have a mutant or a primordial bear, you can give it the stat block of a tarrasque. It's still a very strong and deadly bear. Of course, you may want to find a more appropriate creature to reskin, but this should give you an idea.
Do this. It's fast. it's easy. And you will end up with vetted stats that are already somewhat balanced for a given CR.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
yeah, as jhfffan said, you can use the statblocks of other monsters, such as owlbears, to simulate this much stronger bear, but I also feel like there is an upper limit to this without an in-universe explanation. It might break the suspension of disbelief when an ordinary bear can take multiple fireballs, divine smites, and magical greataxe hits, and such a situation can make your players feel at least a little bit confused.
Question - why don't you want to fix the problem just by throwing more enemies or stronger enemies at the group? It seems natural that higher-level PCs would find a challenge in fighting more or stronger monsters than a low-level group. What's the issue that you're trying to work around?
Dunno. Apart from combat getting tedious if players have to wait for 20 creatures, plus their allies, to all attack before they get their next turn, on top of me as a newbie running the risk of getting overwhelmed with having to keep track of all their stats, health and effects, I guess it’s mostly because I come from a video game background.
I guess by now it’s hard coded into me that most boss fights are those epic 1V1 or 4V1 battles, with two to three adds as some extra muscle tops. Having more enemies than that just feels wrong to me.
This is something I probably need to get over at some point, but for now, I really, really want to avoid battles turning into these giant slugfests, which are just about surviving numbers but don’t offer any real interesting challenges or combat oppurtunities.
What about just picking stronger enemies? There's monsters all the way up to CR30, so at any level of PC you can pick a sufficiently challenging single enemy or small number of enemies.
I beg to differ on the slugfest not offering interesting challenges or combat opportunities. I recently had a party that engaged a room with 8 goblins in it. That room had an open passage to a room with 4 goblins in it that I had join them after a round since they would have heard and engaged. Further, the room that the party had cleared and were staging from had a grick (see Cragmaw Castle, it's the southwest room, the kitchen next to it, and the room with the Grick in the center.) The druid cast entangle on the first goblins and they had the paladin block the path to limit their exposure from the ones who saved or weren't able to be targetted. When the adds came down an adjacent hall, they had to deal with them otherwise. However, ingress to their area was limited from that side and they took advantage of it. What really made this fun was they didn't notice that the grick was hiding amongst the statues in a dark, high-ceilinged room. When the last member of the party left, it dropped down and attacked. Now the party (of 2nd level characters) was being pressed on three sides by numbers and one high CR (for them) creature. It taxed their resources to the point that they retreated from the castle with one goblin retreating and another holding a grudge because they killed her "boyfriend" but unable to pursue because she hadn't made her save yet.
The party had a life cleric, a beast conclave revised ranger, a land (forest) druid, a fey patron warlock, and an oath of the ancients paladin that were all 2nd level. There was also a 1st level death cleric NPC. The party is now third level and most of them haven't progressed any further before.
The party tried to use the narrow terrain to their advantage, but that backfired some when they didn't verify that two of the rooms were clear which enabled them to be surrounded. They had numbers keeping them busy on two fronts and a superior enemy attacking on the third front. Their tactics could have been better, but they made good choices usually and were simply challenged by a superior enemy (the castle is intended for 4-5 3rd level characters).
Scale the encounter by adding a few higher level goblinoids to accompany a few of the goblins, put in an upgrade for the grick, and throw in a few traps. That could be challenging for a higher level party, particularly if the effort is organized against them.
Basically, I'm just trying to figure out what's different about your situation. Because you've described something perfectly normal - you don't want to play swarms of enemies, but your PC's characters level up. It's standard for, as the characters go up in level, to encounter stronger and stronger enemies to make the overall DM burden pretty similar - at level 1 they might be fighting a bugbear and some goblins, at level 5 a grick alpha and some gricks, at level 10 a beholder, at level 15 a few giants of the right type, and so on and so forth.
Usually DMs and players don't want to fight like 20 creatures, you're right - in my opinon the sweet spot is between like 3-8 creatures, since single creatures often punch a bit below their difficulty because of action economy and once you get to 10 or so you get too bogged down. But it's not much more difficult to make a level-appropriate encounter of CR10 creatures than it is of CR1 creatures...
I just increase stats. AC, HP, damage die, and so fourth. I just do it when the time come to use the monster. I do not spend a bunch of time trying to figure out everything pregame. I just look over the monster real quick and make the adjustments on the fly most of the time. Often times I will even combine monsters simply by just book marking them in the Monster Manual. Sure, I will go over them but I will not over think it and spend more then 5 min or so. The 5E system is very simple when it comes to this. Hell I will even make up NPC stats on the fly if a player decides to attack them. I can understand the want to use lower level monsters or even higher level. I use lower level stuff all the time. Higher level stuff just need to be treated with a bit more care.
Check out this video from Matt Colville. I really like this method of encounter design, and he also touches on how to play with monster stats.
https://youtu.be/y_zl8WWaSyI
Also, there is a handy chart in the Dungeon Masters guide which lists out expected monster stats by CR. I find this helpful as a guide while scaling monsters to my party.
This may not be the right area to post but it deals with monsters/encounters/enemies. How do you as DM's determine monster behaviour? I am working on an algorithm to determine encounter behavior based on stats and wanted input from other DM's.
Thanks
I tried coming up with a personality for each creature in the "dungeon" once. It provided some interesting circumstances that differed from the way that the module read. It was quite fun for me, but I needed to organize it a little better.
That's why I want to develop an algorithm. For instance, the difference in social construct of goblins and kobolds. The different intelligence levels, etc. Something along the lines of:
Intelligence =/> 13, creature hides in ambush,
Intelligence =/< 12, creature makes noise while hiding... but for all stats in different situations.
There's a fun blog about this! http://themonstersknow.com/
Basically, a guy going through different monsters and, based on their stats and their physiology, coming up with how they'd probably act in combat.
yeah one important thing is to understand the various parts of a statblock that might define how a given creature acts.
for instance, goblins, despite being only averagely smart, foolish, and weak-willed, have the Nimble Escape feature and not proficiency, but expertise in Stealth, a +6, which is whopping for a CR 1/4 creature. Thusly, they intrinsically know how to be sneaky, even if they're not very better in other areas.