I'm a pretty new DM, and new to D&D. After completing the "Essentials Kit" we started the Dungeon of the Mad Mage a couple months ago, and I'm running into a problem. The encounters are WAY to easy for my players. We have 5 players, LVL 8, Fighter, Wizard, Ranger, Druid, Paladin.
Easy, like they are ending what should be a difficult encounter within 1-3 rounds and misting my hard monsters. I tried to just add more mobs, but now that has led to them gaining more XP and leveling faster and becoming even stronger. How do I make the encounters more challenging without adding more XP to my party? Do I bump up their HP? add more mobs but not give the XP? Im trying to keep it fair, but while learning keeping to the book as much as I can.
Just... don't add extra XP with the extra monsters. Milestone level. ("You cleared this level of the dungeon! Hooray, everyone levels up.") Or, add HP, AC and attack bonus (and damage) to the monsters. Or, just teleport them several levels lower into the dungeon.
1-3 rounds is how long combat is designed to be. Any longer and combat really begins to drag, unless we're taking about a main boss fight.
With a mega dungeon like Mad Mage, you're gonna see encounters that serve different purposes, so not ever encounter is going to present a tough martial challenge, and the characters may breeze through. The purpose of these kinds of encounters, especially in a dungeon so large, is to drain player resources in order to impact later gameplay and really get that feel of stakes raising the longer the game goes on. Basically the weak encounters are there to soak up small amounts of HP, spell slots, ki points, healing potions, etc so that when they fight the tough stuff things are just a little more tense.
If they are somehow getting around the harder stuff, either by correctly anticipating challenges, sneaking around, or being diplomatic, I would say that those are all valid dungeoneering strategies and you shouldn't need to punish them for executing that play style successfully. Just as well, eventually someone won't be sneaky enough or charming enough and they won't miss the big bad. If you do want to maybe goad them into fighting more of the big monsters instead of skirting around them, maybe dangle a carrot in front of them. They see the giant serpent in the room with its tail coiled around a wizard's staff blazing with magic, ripe for the taking if it's guardian was out of the way.
If the problem is more that even those big guys don't last very long against your party, I would ask how often you allow your players to short or long rest? If a party has access to short/ long rest's frequently then those resource draining encounters aren't going to do their job and there's nothing to stop them from pulling out all the stops and using everything they have against the big guy. If they aren't in a position to rest very often then it's a different story. The party needs to think creatively how best to get by with their dwindling resources, and simply nuking any enemy that presents an actual threat with an upcast fireball simply isn't always an option.
Your party might be experiencing what's known as the five-minute-adventuring-day, where they get in one or two fights that take up very little in game time and then call it a day to get their stuff back.
One way around this is to restrict access to resting. They're deep in a hostile dungeon after all, not everyone will always have time to watch an episode of game of thrones and take a load off. Consider using random encounters when your party tries to take a rest in a spot you'd consider dangerous, as monsters stumble across them and interrupt their recuperation. Dont disallow rests altogether, but make them work for it. If they're able to problem solve around being surrounded by monsters and are able to build a makeshift barricade to create a safe space to rest then good for them, they earned that. But otherwise, letting your guard down in a dungeon is dangerous and you should make them feel that.
Once your party has to deal with doing more with less, they should find the general challenge of the game ramp up.
One caveat, if the players are also complaining that things are too easy, you might let them in on this strategy of DMing. Tell them "yeah things have been super easy lately but im going to try something. From now on it's going to be harder to take rests in hostile areas. You still can rest, but if you're not careful or lucky...stuff might happen." That way they are aware that you're trying something to fix a percieved problem at the table and not suddenly just being mean to them or trying to control the game.
How often do they get to take a long rest? Do they have to clear an entire level of the dungeon before resting?
I've played the first 3 to 4 levels of mad mage and the first fight or two were pretty easy but we were using too many resources (I used a fireball on the first encounter and I should have saved it). When we got to the really big battle later in the level I was down to using up the last of my level 3 and 4 slots (I was level 7 or 8) on a horde of creatures in the Xanathar camp. However, that was something like the 5th or 6th combat encounter of the session. After that we retreated to a safer area after completing most of the level to take a long rest. Even then, some creatures wandered by but left.
If I could have used a couple of fireballs and other spells from the entire party on each encounter they would have been much easier. However, when you are in a dungeon, there are consequences to resting and moving in and out of the dungeon is not safe. Areas that were cleared won't stay that way and the Mad Mage is spying on you so there is always the possibility of something showing up. Potentially, the mad mage might decide to dispel a Leomund's Tiny Hut that the character's cast in the dungeon for example. I know there was a statue counterspelling us in one of the other encounters.
Often, making the individual encounters harder is a road to the character blowing even more resources to keep the battle easy then deciding to take a long rest after even fewer encounters. As the DM, you have to make it clear to the players that it doesn't work this way. They can't benefit from more than one long rest every 24 hour period and if they set up camp in a dungeon then it will likely be found and encounters of one kind or another could ensue.
Often, making the individual encounters harder is a road to the character blowing even more resources to keep the battle easy then deciding to take a long rest after even fewer encounters. As the DM, you have to make it clear to the players that it doesn't work this way. They can't benefit from more than one long rest every 24 hour period and if they set up camp in a dungeon then it will likely be found and encounters of one kind or another could ensue.
This is another good point. It's with mentioning that the challenge rating of encounters by the developers is based off of your standard adventuring day containing 7 to 8 encounters (not necessarily combat, but situations that require resources to be spent also). Many players find this unrealistic given that the average group mostly only goes through 2-3 encounters a session, but 1 session does not equal 1 in- game day. If the players get a long rest at the end of every session, then they're likely doing less than half the recommended amount of encounters per adventuring day which could also be why they're breezing through.
One solution there would be to track in game time separately from real time. That means combat really only represents minutes out of your day (note that a round of combat is roughly 6 seconds, and a combat that lasts 10 rounds-- which is ridiculously long for combat-- still only lasts a minute), and come up with a system for tracking time outside of combat so you can account for exploration and roleplay, so you can accurately keep in- game time across multiple sessions. Then, challenges should be paced better and rests will be fewer and further between.
I have my players running Dungeon of the Mad Mage right now, we are very far through, and they are almost done. I have noticed the same thing, made the same mistakes you have. For the people who say it's okay if the players don't have challenging fights in the dungeon. That's wrong. I know from experience. Most of the dungeon's encounters are made to give the players enough XP to level up so slow that they don't get to too high level early in the dungeon. Is this boring? Yes. Is this bad design? Yes, at least I think so. Is it needed for the dungeon to not get out of hand too quickly? Yes as well.
My players did the first 4 levels as a dungeon crawl. It is boring if you don't at least make some challenging fights. As much as the players complain about having to fight a transmuter on level 2 of the dungeon, it is a lot better than having your fighter slash through the 397th goblin in the dungeon, and then next level killing 32 drow. Combat is boring if it is just low level fights. Each level of the dungeon has a "Boss Fight", level one's is the goblinoids with the ettins, level 2's is the goblin bazaar (optional), level 3 is the drow priestess and hobgoblin warlord (either are optional), level 4 is the drow battle, level 5 is the duergar and cloakers. Each level has one battle more challenging than all the others, and normally isn't that challenging either. If you make the battles harder, the XP for killing them will make your characters much higher level than they should.
I have this problem. Our paladin is level 17, and they just finished level 10 of the dungeon. This is mostly my fault, but also the party's fault as well. They killed Xanathar once they got to Skullport, they also killed all the inhabitants of Skullport, they have "killed Manshoon" as well and many of his apprentices and servants. They also went to the Doomvault for a quest given to them by Laeral Silverhand, and have done other small quests that have given them much more XP than they should have. They also fought an archmage that used prismatic spray to banish a party member to Carceri, where they fought Kostchtie, killed him, and got XP for killing a demon lord.
Most of this was my fault, and it does make some great stories, but if you want your party to level as the adventure says, don't change the battles, or if you do want to, either don't award XP for their accomplishments (which I would never do), or use Milestone leveling.
If I were to restart the Dungeon of the Mad Mage with a different party, I'd have them use the Milestone leveling system just to make this not a problem.
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I'm a pretty new DM, and new to D&D. After completing the "Essentials Kit" we started the Dungeon of the Mad Mage a couple months ago, and I'm running into a problem. The encounters are WAY to easy for my players. We have 5 players, LVL 8, Fighter, Wizard, Ranger, Druid, Paladin.
Easy, like they are ending what should be a difficult encounter within 1-3 rounds and misting my hard monsters. I tried to just add more mobs, but now that has led to them gaining more XP and leveling faster and becoming even stronger. How do I make the encounters more challenging without adding more XP to my party? Do I bump up their HP? add more mobs but not give the XP? Im trying to keep it fair, but while learning keeping to the book as much as I can.
Thanks for any help.
Just... don't add extra XP with the extra monsters. Milestone level. ("You cleared this level of the dungeon! Hooray, everyone levels up.")
Or, add HP, AC and attack bonus (and damage) to the monsters.
Or, just teleport them several levels lower into the dungeon.
1-3 rounds is how long combat is designed to be. Any longer and combat really begins to drag, unless we're taking about a main boss fight.
With a mega dungeon like Mad Mage, you're gonna see encounters that serve different purposes, so not ever encounter is going to present a tough martial challenge, and the characters may breeze through. The purpose of these kinds of encounters, especially in a dungeon so large, is to drain player resources in order to impact later gameplay and really get that feel of stakes raising the longer the game goes on. Basically the weak encounters are there to soak up small amounts of HP, spell slots, ki points, healing potions, etc so that when they fight the tough stuff things are just a little more tense.
If they are somehow getting around the harder stuff, either by correctly anticipating challenges, sneaking around, or being diplomatic, I would say that those are all valid dungeoneering strategies and you shouldn't need to punish them for executing that play style successfully. Just as well, eventually someone won't be sneaky enough or charming enough and they won't miss the big bad. If you do want to maybe goad them into fighting more of the big monsters instead of skirting around them, maybe dangle a carrot in front of them. They see the giant serpent in the room with its tail coiled around a wizard's staff blazing with magic, ripe for the taking if it's guardian was out of the way.
If the problem is more that even those big guys don't last very long against your party, I would ask how often you allow your players to short or long rest? If a party has access to short/ long rest's frequently then those resource draining encounters aren't going to do their job and there's nothing to stop them from pulling out all the stops and using everything they have against the big guy. If they aren't in a position to rest very often then it's a different story. The party needs to think creatively how best to get by with their dwindling resources, and simply nuking any enemy that presents an actual threat with an upcast fireball simply isn't always an option.
Your party might be experiencing what's known as the five-minute-adventuring-day, where they get in one or two fights that take up very little in game time and then call it a day to get their stuff back.
One way around this is to restrict access to resting. They're deep in a hostile dungeon after all, not everyone will always have time to watch an episode of game of thrones and take a load off. Consider using random encounters when your party tries to take a rest in a spot you'd consider dangerous, as monsters stumble across them and interrupt their recuperation. Dont disallow rests altogether, but make them work for it. If they're able to problem solve around being surrounded by monsters and are able to build a makeshift barricade to create a safe space to rest then good for them, they earned that. But otherwise, letting your guard down in a dungeon is dangerous and you should make them feel that.
Once your party has to deal with doing more with less, they should find the general challenge of the game ramp up.
One caveat, if the players are also complaining that things are too easy, you might let them in on this strategy of DMing. Tell them "yeah things have been super easy lately but im going to try something. From now on it's going to be harder to take rests in hostile areas. You still can rest, but if you're not careful or lucky...stuff might happen." That way they are aware that you're trying something to fix a percieved problem at the table and not suddenly just being mean to them or trying to control the game.
How often do they get to take a long rest? Do they have to clear an entire level of the dungeon before resting?
I've played the first 3 to 4 levels of mad mage and the first fight or two were pretty easy but we were using too many resources (I used a fireball on the first encounter and I should have saved it). When we got to the really big battle later in the level I was down to using up the last of my level 3 and 4 slots (I was level 7 or 8) on a horde of creatures in the Xanathar camp. However, that was something like the 5th or 6th combat encounter of the session. After that we retreated to a safer area after completing most of the level to take a long rest. Even then, some creatures wandered by but left.
If I could have used a couple of fireballs and other spells from the entire party on each encounter they would have been much easier. However, when you are in a dungeon, there are consequences to resting and moving in and out of the dungeon is not safe. Areas that were cleared won't stay that way and the Mad Mage is spying on you so there is always the possibility of something showing up. Potentially, the mad mage might decide to dispel a Leomund's Tiny Hut that the character's cast in the dungeon for example. I know there was a statue counterspelling us in one of the other encounters.
Often, making the individual encounters harder is a road to the character blowing even more resources to keep the battle easy then deciding to take a long rest after even fewer encounters. As the DM, you have to make it clear to the players that it doesn't work this way. They can't benefit from more than one long rest every 24 hour period and if they set up camp in a dungeon then it will likely be found and encounters of one kind or another could ensue.
This is another good point. It's with mentioning that the challenge rating of encounters by the developers is based off of your standard adventuring day containing 7 to 8 encounters (not necessarily combat, but situations that require resources to be spent also). Many players find this unrealistic given that the average group mostly only goes through 2-3 encounters a session, but 1 session does not equal 1 in- game day. If the players get a long rest at the end of every session, then they're likely doing less than half the recommended amount of encounters per adventuring day which could also be why they're breezing through.
One solution there would be to track in game time separately from real time. That means combat really only represents minutes out of your day (note that a round of combat is roughly 6 seconds, and a combat that lasts 10 rounds-- which is ridiculously long for combat-- still only lasts a minute), and come up with a system for tracking time outside of combat so you can account for exploration and roleplay, so you can accurately keep in- game time across multiple sessions. Then, challenges should be paced better and rests will be fewer and further between.
What floor are they on right now?
I have my players running Dungeon of the Mad Mage right now, we are very far through, and they are almost done. I have noticed the same thing, made the same mistakes you have. For the people who say it's okay if the players don't have challenging fights in the dungeon. That's wrong. I know from experience. Most of the dungeon's encounters are made to give the players enough XP to level up so slow that they don't get to too high level early in the dungeon. Is this boring? Yes. Is this bad design? Yes, at least I think so. Is it needed for the dungeon to not get out of hand too quickly? Yes as well.
My players did the first 4 levels as a dungeon crawl. It is boring if you don't at least make some challenging fights. As much as the players complain about having to fight a transmuter on level 2 of the dungeon, it is a lot better than having your fighter slash through the 397th goblin in the dungeon, and then next level killing 32 drow. Combat is boring if it is just low level fights. Each level of the dungeon has a "Boss Fight", level one's is the goblinoids with the ettins, level 2's is the goblin bazaar (optional), level 3 is the drow priestess and hobgoblin warlord (either are optional), level 4 is the drow battle, level 5 is the duergar and cloakers. Each level has one battle more challenging than all the others, and normally isn't that challenging either. If you make the battles harder, the XP for killing them will make your characters much higher level than they should.
I have this problem. Our paladin is level 17, and they just finished level 10 of the dungeon. This is mostly my fault, but also the party's fault as well. They killed Xanathar once they got to Skullport, they also killed all the inhabitants of Skullport, they have "killed Manshoon" as well and many of his apprentices and servants. They also went to the Doomvault for a quest given to them by Laeral Silverhand, and have done other small quests that have given them much more XP than they should have. They also fought an archmage that used prismatic spray to banish a party member to Carceri, where they fought Kostchtie, killed him, and got XP for killing a demon lord.
Most of this was my fault, and it does make some great stories, but if you want your party to level as the adventure says, don't change the battles, or if you do want to, either don't award XP for their accomplishments (which I would never do), or use Milestone leveling.
If I were to restart the Dungeon of the Mad Mage with a different party, I'd have them use the Milestone leveling system just to make this not a problem.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms