I'm running the first session for a group I just started. It's sort of a rotating table, but there are going to be 9 players tomorrow probably. I was going to do the Vine Shine encounter from the Wildemount book, which has them fighting a group of vine blights. The problem is that they only have 26 hp, but also hit like a ton of bricks if you're a level 1 player. Should I just jack up their HP and lower the damage? Or would it be better to pick something else with a softer hit and just up its hp? I don't need combat to take a ton of rounds, but I don't want the things to be dead before everyone gets to go, and I don't want to be running 18 vines.
Thoughts for this specific encounter would be welcome, or, since I anticipate this problem again in the future, general advice for how to handle?
A vine blight only hits for an average of 9, plenty of level 1 characters will still be up after one hit, and they aren't terribly accurate, and it's not like being down is dead. I don't recommend trying to use solo bosses against parties that big, instead just design two encounters that are appropriate for a party of 4-5 and add them together.
I agree. I wouldn’t throw a big opponent against them, I’d throw a bunch of weak opponents against them. Unfortunately that probably means running more opponents than you want to run, but they won’t last very long.
Consider a few twig blight Then add a central mass that can do a few things like:
spawn more twig blights
hit chars with a leafy tentacle
grapple chars and pull them towards the mass
Treat it as an action oriented monster and not just a bag of health, so that you can introduce the new chars into making choices. You can arbitrarily adjust health or treat the twig blights as 1hp minions.
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
Like half the people who said they were going to play didn't end up showing up. So 5 blights against 5 players. I have never rolled worse in my entire life, so I did a grand total of like 15 points of damage during the whole combat, and they took them apart pretty handily. They fought well; I was frustrated as all hell but that's the dice for you. Session over all went really well though.
I was prepared to give them some help if things were really going down the tubes, but with how I was rolling, (like I rolled above a 10 like 3 times the entire damn fight), they really had nothing to fear. One of the players cast bane on them, and it never even mattered because I didn't get close to hitting, and I think only 2 of them missed hitting the vines all combat. I think I need to check my dice, because it was *bad*. lol. I rolled pretty horribly my last session too, with my other group fighting a mimic.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I'm running the first session for a group I just started. It's sort of a rotating table, but there are going to be 9 players tomorrow probably. I was going to do the Vine Shine encounter from the Wildemount book, which has them fighting a group of vine blights. The problem is that they only have 26 hp, but also hit like a ton of bricks if you're a level 1 player. Should I just jack up their HP and lower the damage? Or would it be better to pick something else with a softer hit and just up its hp? I don't need combat to take a ton of rounds, but I don't want the things to be dead before everyone gets to go, and I don't want to be running 18 vines.
Thoughts for this specific encounter would be welcome, or, since I anticipate this problem again in the future, general advice for how to handle?
A vine blight only hits for an average of 9, plenty of level 1 characters will still be up after one hit, and they aren't terribly accurate, and it's not like being down is dead. I don't recommend trying to use solo bosses against parties that big, instead just design two encounters that are appropriate for a party of 4-5 and add them together.
I agree. I wouldn’t throw a big opponent against them, I’d throw a bunch of weak opponents against them. Unfortunately that probably means running more opponents than you want to run, but they won’t last very long.
Professional computer geek
Consider a few twig blight Then add a central mass that can do a few things like:
Treat it as an action oriented monster and not just a bag of health, so that you can introduce the new chars into making choices. You can arbitrarily adjust health or treat the twig blights as 1hp minions.
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
Nothing wrong with vine blights per se, 3-5 of them would be a reasonable challenge.
I agree 100%
If you have access to the encounter builder/combat tracker, it can help manage things too.
Like half the people who said they were going to play didn't end up showing up. So 5 blights against 5 players. I have never rolled worse in my entire life, so I did a grand total of like 15 points of damage during the whole combat, and they took them apart pretty handily. They fought well; I was frustrated as all hell but that's the dice for you. Session over all went really well though.
Heh. A level 1 fighter is slightly better than even odds against a vine blight but most other classes are less than even odds, so they did get lucky.
I was prepared to give them some help if things were really going down the tubes, but with how I was rolling, (like I rolled above a 10 like 3 times the entire damn fight), they really had nothing to fear. One of the players cast bane on them, and it never even mattered because I didn't get close to hitting, and I think only 2 of them missed hitting the vines all combat. I think I need to check my dice, because it was *bad*. lol. I rolled pretty horribly my last session too, with my other group fighting a mimic.