As a relatively new DM I've been experimenting with encounters for my players, a group of four 6th level adventurers (a Warlock, Sorcerer/Warlock, Druid/Cleric, and Barbarian) and they recently started experimenting with the Druid's summon animals spell, which turned my chimera encounter into basically a joke. They just summoned 8 elk and charged it, resulting in it being surrounded then used a dissonant whispers to make it flee, procing several opportunity attacks from the elk and it died literally before it got a second turn. I applauded their creativity on that one to pin it down but moving forward I've now been wondering how to balance encounters.
The main issue being, if I scale them expecting the summons, but they don't use it, then I've now setup my players to get swarmed and almost force them to use the summons, or if concentration gets broken on it then they're pretty screwed. If I don't do something though, and single boss encounter the same strategy is likely going to be just as effective even with legendary actions. Any advice on how to keep combat challenging but without risking a TPK on the party?
So if you want to negate the summons there could be a few ways to go about it:
Change up the terrain: Make it so that even if the druid summons elk they will have a hard time getting to the target, narrow bridges, gorges, pits, ledges and so forth narrow down the options and ability to surround a creature like that.
Bring in some casters or creatures with area of effect abilities, they want to bring out cannon fodder then let them, it will just be wasted spell slot when the wizard they are fighting fireballs the whole lot of elks before they can act.
Antimagic fields could be a thing, especially if your druid keeps doing this a lot, intelligent enemies would have heard of it and would be prepared accordingly
Dont be afraid to swarm them! At 6th level and four of them you can throw roughly 18 1/4 CR enemies at them before you start reaching deadly EXP levels, throw in one higher CR creature and give him a bunch of flunkies to mop up things like the elks, a necromancer with a large group of undead minions, an orc warchief with a number of orcs at his command.
These are just the options i can think of off the top of my head, hopefully some of them help :)
Thanks! I really like the idea of terrain and kind of like a chokepoint as well as several cannon fodder mobs to combat the summons but wouldn't pose too much of a threat to the players themselves also giving them a choice between taking out the fodder or the main threat at the risk of being swarmed themselves. I'll give these suggestions a try and see how it turns out! The anti magic field is a good idea though I don't want to make them feel like I've crippled 3/4 of our party but may take something similar and throw up a wall of some sort that basically forces the summons to kill themselves to reach the target but still allows the spellcasters to maintain their ranged fighting style; but wouldn't have thought of that without the anti magic field suggestion!
You don’t have to use the monster stats from the book. I adjust things like HP, AC, # of Attacks, Saves, etc. all the time. There’s no reason a Wyvern can’t have 320 HP, AC 16, and a 15’ reach on its tail. (As a recent example I have used.)
You don’t have to use the monster stats from the book. I adjust things like HP, AC, # of Attacks, Saves, etc. all the time. There’s no reason a Wyvern can’t have 320 HP, AC 16, and a 15’ reach on its tail. (As a recent example I have used.)
"The legendary wyvern Kalthraxis the Indomitable!" You just created a Monster Hunter style side quest, my dude!
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Hey community,
As a relatively new DM I've been experimenting with encounters for my players, a group of four 6th level adventurers (a Warlock, Sorcerer/Warlock, Druid/Cleric, and Barbarian) and they recently started experimenting with the Druid's summon animals spell, which turned my chimera encounter into basically a joke. They just summoned 8 elk and charged it, resulting in it being surrounded then used a dissonant whispers to make it flee, procing several opportunity attacks from the elk and it died literally before it got a second turn. I applauded their creativity on that one to pin it down but moving forward I've now been wondering how to balance encounters.
The main issue being, if I scale them expecting the summons, but they don't use it, then I've now setup my players to get swarmed and almost force them to use the summons, or if concentration gets broken on it then they're pretty screwed. If I don't do something though, and single boss encounter the same strategy is likely going to be just as effective even with legendary actions. Any advice on how to keep combat challenging but without risking a TPK on the party?
So if you want to negate the summons there could be a few ways to go about it:
These are just the options i can think of off the top of my head, hopefully some of them help :)
Thanks! I really like the idea of terrain and kind of like a chokepoint as well as several cannon fodder mobs to combat the summons but wouldn't pose too much of a threat to the players themselves also giving them a choice between taking out the fodder or the main threat at the risk of being swarmed themselves. I'll give these suggestions a try and see how it turns out! The anti magic field is a good idea though I don't want to make them feel like I've crippled 3/4 of our party but may take something similar and throw up a wall of some sort that basically forces the summons to kill themselves to reach the target but still allows the spellcasters to maintain their ranged fighting style; but wouldn't have thought of that without the anti magic field suggestion!
Not a problem, glad i could help :)
You don’t have to use the monster stats from the book. I adjust things like HP, AC, # of Attacks, Saves, etc. all the time. There’s no reason a Wyvern can’t have 320 HP, AC 16, and a 15’ reach on its tail. (As a recent example I have used.)
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"The legendary wyvern Kalthraxis the Indomitable!" You just created a Monster Hunter style side quest, my dude!