Another thing to do occasionally is not have all the monsters arrive at the same time. This generally allows PCs to handle a bit more than they otherwise could (you can basically treat them as separate encounters that add up for difficulty), but favors at will abilities and, depending on wave separation, ongoing damage effects.
If your PCs are even slightly optimised and you are having them have just a few encounters each day, they should all be deadly, and don't use low CRs in there, that's all.
I've been trying to follow the daily XP Thresholds listed in the DMG along with the DDB Encounter tool so I 'thought' I was properly balancing my encounters. I may look at this party and hit a constant Deadly to see how things play out but also manage to not give a TPK scenario.
Try this when punching in values to the Encounter Calculator. Add 1 level of experience to the chars (pretend they are level 6). Then create a Deadly encounter. Create another one. Those should be the first two encounters of the day (assuming the day is not one where the party is to meet the BBEG. All bets are off then).
Since you are using grids, are you using the DMG optional rule for diagonals, so that you have a circular shape to your fireball?
It allows more realistic distances to be measured for diagonals, and ends up with circular areas of damage for fireballs instead of simply covering a 40 x 40 ft square!
Again, I'm using Roll20, but I do have AOE templates so I have a circle measured out for the 20 feet. (At least in theory.)
Another thing to do occasionally is not have all the monsters arrive at the same time. This generally allows PCs to handle a bit more than they otherwise could (you can basically treat them as separate encounters that add up for difficulty), but favors at will abilities and, depending on wave separation, ongoing damage effects.
I have not done the wave approach with the encounters and in the last one, I think it could have benefited from that approach.
So instead of thinking about direct counters to these abilities think about more passive ones.
I had a player that was using the sleep spell every encounter and it was making them a bit samey. So I gave the group of a goblins they encountered next cages full of animals with lower hp than the goblins.
if an area effect spell is causing issues then try having innocent bystanders, flammable terrain or explosives nearby. Don’t get annoyed at your players doing the same thing, use it to throw situations at them that force them out if the box, just don’t use anti magic spells.
The other thing to look at is making sure Monsters have decent DEX or some other bonus to help them win initiative. I find that often, DEX is not that high on monsters and the players tend to prioritize it because it gets them both AC (often) and initiative bonus (plus skill bonuses in many areas monsters don't care about, DEX saves, etc). Monsters get natural AC so many monster stat blocks leave the monsters weak on DEX. This also, without some sort of special ability, leaves them on average low in the initiative order. That means that whatever formation they may be in when combat begins, they will be in when the fireballer or the shatterer lets loose.
To remedy this, you need the monsters to go up higher in the initiative order. Pick some with higher DEXes, or with feats that give them + to initiative. This will let them move around before the magical alpha-strike and they can then reposition to prevent being AOE'ed to death.
This and the waves mentioned above... you can use one trick with that. Cluster some weaklings (who are basically decoys) in a nice fat AOE radius, just begging to be hit with those AOEs. OK, the CR 1/4 skeletons get blown to bits. NOW the Mummies come out, after the AOEs have been wasted on the decoys.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I also like to use a fake out when a party is getting over confident - like instead of -
small encounter - small encounter - small encounter - Big encounter
small encounter - small encounter - seems like a big encounter - small encounter - big encounter
i had a party face a low level blue dragon that was full of pomp and circumstance and acting like it was a lot higher level to make sure they popped of some top level spells and once a day item buffs. So they had to think out the box when they fought the current chapters end boss.
I also like to use a fake out when a party is getting over confident - like instead of -
small encounter - small encounter - small encounter - Big encounter
small encounter - small encounter - seems like a big encounter - small encounter - big encounter
i had a party face a low level blue dragon that was full of pomp and circumstance and acting like it was a lot higher level to make sure they popped of some top level spells and once a day item buffs. So they had to think out the box when they fought the current chapters end boss.
One I like to use is to have the encounter suddenly change on them. If the part thinks they are dealing with something relatively lightweight and act cocky and get sloppy, and then all of a sudden a completely different encounter comes in from the side and attacks both the Party and their foe that’s an interesting look to see on their faces, lemme tell ya. One round their casually wading through some Gobbos or something and then all of a sudden on the second round somewhere in the middle of the initiative order a tribe of Hill Giants bursts into the clearing and immediately closes the distance and attacks that makes sudden very aware that they should not treat combat casually.
Keep in mind, if that second threat is a pushover then that will only make them worse moving forward. So you can’t just start with an easy encounter and then it’s suddenly it becomes a Hard encounter. It has to be something that genuinely puts some fear back into them. And I don’t mean “oh no” Kinda scary. I mean like Very Deadly and her brothers just rolled up on their tea party for murder and crumpets, but they’re all outta crumpets. Like, try dropping one of them unconscious immediately (or at least close to it) kinda scary.
I play with minis and maps (or used to in the before times) so I was forced to use waves because I didn't have enough minis.
I huge mass of skeletons and zombies with ghouls and ghasts thrown in can use up resources also. "Sure you blow away ..25 of them. The hole is instantly filled with 30 more.
Close the range. You don't have to have encounters start at 60 or more feet. Dungeons are prime ground for encounters at 30 feet or less.
Have an enemy caster reflect the fireball (or whatever) back. "WHAT?!" Yeah. You're the GM make it happen, just rarely.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Also, it'd be a darn shame if the creatures being attacked by the fireball absorbed energy from fire rather than being harmed by it. You just gave the whole group of them 8d6 temporary hit points. Oops.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Also, it'd be a darn shame if the creatures being attacked by the fireball absorbed energy from fire rather than being harmed by it. You just gave the whole group of them 8d6 temporary hit points. Oops.
Surprising people with "Congratulations, your power is useless" is a somewhat obnoxious thing to do, though a non-surprise version is okay to do occasionally (something like 12xMagma Mephit will make Fireball irrelevant, and between pretty good durability and the ability to spread out in 3d, they can just absorb the other spells and keep going).
A large percentage of the challenge is the combat field, honestly. My DM almost TPK'd our OP level 7 party with two Shambling Mounds because he pincered us single-file in a sewer. We couldn't move without risking an attack of opportunity from at least one of the creatures (that is, those of us who weren't swallowed or pinned against a wall), and our ranged fighters had to fight in melee. It was awful.
One of the scariest fights I've ever survived involved my halfling running in pitch black away from an awakened mammoth. Half the party had darkvision and half did not, so the party had to split their efforts between attacking the baddie and helping get us blind ones to safety. All this to say: consider throwing environmental curveballs at your players. Use visibility (darkness, fog, foliage) to the baddies' advantage. Use cover. Send mages their way to cast Silence and Counterspell to let the martial classes shine. Make the party fight nature (avalanche, flooding river, quicksand, wildfire) as they're also fighting a monster. If they have to split their focus between the ground they're standing on and the guys trying to kill them, it suddenly becomes a test of strategy and survival.
Surprising people with "Congratulations, your power is useless" is a somewhat obnoxious thing to do
Well if the casters are going to open every battle with an AOE fireball, just mindlessly, I think it is fair game to make that "tactic" (if you can call it that) backfire once in a while.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Surprising people with "Congratulations, your power is useless" is a somewhat obnoxious thing to do
Well if the casters are going to open every battle with an AOE fireball, just mindlessly, I think it is fair game to make that "tactic" (if you can call it that) backfire once in a while.
Or the area, including the area the caster is standing on, has a flammable liquid soaked into the ground. The DM can even warn the players that there is a strong odour of pitch in the air.
I also like to use a fake out when a party is getting over confident - like instead of -
small encounter - small encounter - small encounter - Big encounter
small encounter - small encounter - seems like a big encounter - small encounter - big encounter
i had a party face a low level blue dragon that was full of pomp and circumstance and acting like it was a lot higher level to make sure they popped of some top level spells and once a day item buffs. So they had to think out the box when they fought the current chapters end boss.
Don’t forget also: BBEG… then small encounter, small encounter, small encounter…
When people see the BBEG they assume they can use all of their abilities in some crazy alpha strike. But little did they know that the PCs aren’t out of the woods yet…
Also, it'd be a darn shame if the creatures being attacked by the fireball absorbed energy from fire rather than being harmed by it. You just gave the whole group of them 8d6 temporary hit points. Oops.
Surprising people with "Congratulations, your power is useless" is a somewhat obnoxious thing to do, though a non-surprise version is okay to do occasionally (something like 12xMagma Mephit will make Fireball irrelevant, and between pretty good durability and the ability to spread out in 3d, they can just absorb the other spells and keep going).
I never thought I would have to say this to you as I hold you in high regard, but Horse Poopy.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with something like that every once in a while. Throwing them a curveball periodically is good for the game.
Open call out to the whole forum please! Drop a comment if you would be so kind. (Hare is an open invitation to @me if I’m wrong on this one!)
Who here can tell me about one of those times when everybody did the same stuff you always did and it worked just like always?
Who here can tell me about that one time when you were fighting this one thing, and then all of a sudden it turned out to this other thing, and it was all like “AAAAHHH,” and your whole party was like “AAAHHH,” and then you all thought maybe it was gonna be all “game over man” but then that one party member pulled that amazing thing out their butt and you were all like “WOAH,” it was like UUUHHH, and then you all kicked it’s ass?
D&D is never about “this campaign.” D&D is about that right there.^^^
There is nothing wrong with tossing new and surprising elements in, it just shouldn't be "I am now going to ambush you with something that specifically targets your character and makes you negatively useful, and you have no way of realizing it's there". Something that absorbs fire is fine, just make it something you could realistically figure out, or could have a reasonable chance of recovering from your mistake. For example, Brown Mold in previous edition grew if you hit it with fire, which could turn a small patch into a huge problem, but if you screwed up and did that, it wasn't going to chase you down, so you could recover.
+1 for Waves of creatures. +1 for creature transformations. +1 for giving every planned encounter scaled "lair actions".
My party (6 - 3rd level) just completed a spider themed encounter in a forest: There were 2 Giant Spiders. One arrived in the second round, the other released 4 modified Swarm of Spiders upon being killed. Periodically, the party had to make dex checks to avoid getting snared by webbing shot from the canopy (raising them 10ft above the ground). Those that got caught also had to roll against poison from countless diminutive spiders that descended upon them. This ensured that about half of the party was dangling and subject to continuous minor damage during any given round, while the other half of the party had to prioritize between fighting the spiders or freeing their allies.
Lair actions can be anything from repositioning the party to conjuring more hostile creatures. It keeps the encounter dynamics and gives the DM options to scale the difficulty on the fly. In a city, that might translate to someone calling for guards, or for innocent people to wander into the line of fire. In a dungeon, it could be structural damage or a gas leak. At the very least, it makes otherwise straightforward combats interesting and gives everyone an opportunity to participate.
If you’re only running three encounters per long rest (the minimum), they should all be Deadly. Any fewer or less challenging than that, and spellcasters can and will blow other classes out of the water as they burn a day’s worth of spells on only a few fights.
I am definitely on the side of elements on the battle field that can be investigated, perceived or learnt from that counter repetitive behaviour over secret information that the DM knows so they can scream gotcha!
think about it from a verisimilitude standpoint point -
situation a ) a bunch of creatures that absorb fire and become more powerful
situation b) a bunch of creatures that have numerous cages containing magical lawful good animals from the woods
In both the wizard casts fireball
situation a) the outcome is massively immersion breaking, these creatures are no longer part of the story, they are a trap, but not a trap placed by the BBEG but by the DM. The player has nothing to learn, gain or develop from this apart from sometimes the DM is out to get them. You ground them in the mechanical elements.
situation b) sure the wizard saved the day but at what cost? As you survey the scene and see the roasted corpses of innocent’s how does this effect the player? How does it effect the party. Is their character remorseful, have they learned a lesson about the responsibility of great power. Maybe they don’t care at all but the Druid in the party is furious, now as a DM you have character arcs to develop about a wizards decent into power at the loss of humanity.
One of the most overlooked things in threads like this is a very simple fact
D&D is not just a tactical combat game that sometimes has RP (although sone prefer it that way)
Reading this thread a lot if the solutions being offered have to do with that approach. If you want your players to look at the most optimal way to win a combat encounter at any cost then approach it that way. If you want your players to want to approach different situations differently you have to motivate them to do so. Not with tricks and traps but with story and narrative.
it sounds like in your OP you are getting bored with encounters that they maximise their way to victory through. Give them a reason not to
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Another thing to do occasionally is not have all the monsters arrive at the same time. This generally allows PCs to handle a bit more than they otherwise could (you can basically treat them as separate encounters that add up for difficulty), but favors at will abilities and, depending on wave separation, ongoing damage effects.
Try this when punching in values to the Encounter Calculator. Add 1 level of experience to the chars (pretend they are level 6). Then create a Deadly encounter. Create another one. Those should be the first two encounters of the day (assuming the day is not one where the party is to meet the BBEG. All bets are off then).
Again, I'm using Roll20, but I do have AOE templates so I have a circle measured out for the 20 feet. (At least in theory.)
I have not done the wave approach with the encounters and in the last one, I think it could have benefited from that approach.
So instead of thinking about direct counters to these abilities think about more passive ones.
I had a player that was using the sleep spell every encounter and it was making them a bit samey. So I gave the group of a goblins they encountered next cages full of animals with lower hp than the goblins.
if an area effect spell is causing issues then try having innocent bystanders, flammable terrain or explosives nearby. Don’t get annoyed at your players doing the same thing, use it to throw situations at them that force them out if the box, just don’t use anti magic spells.
The other thing to look at is making sure Monsters have decent DEX or some other bonus to help them win initiative. I find that often, DEX is not that high on monsters and the players tend to prioritize it because it gets them both AC (often) and initiative bonus (plus skill bonuses in many areas monsters don't care about, DEX saves, etc). Monsters get natural AC so many monster stat blocks leave the monsters weak on DEX. This also, without some sort of special ability, leaves them on average low in the initiative order. That means that whatever formation they may be in when combat begins, they will be in when the fireballer or the shatterer lets loose.
To remedy this, you need the monsters to go up higher in the initiative order. Pick some with higher DEXes, or with feats that give them + to initiative. This will let them move around before the magical alpha-strike and they can then reposition to prevent being AOE'ed to death.
This and the waves mentioned above... you can use one trick with that. Cluster some weaklings (who are basically decoys) in a nice fat AOE radius, just begging to be hit with those AOEs. OK, the CR 1/4 skeletons get blown to bits. NOW the Mummies come out, after the AOEs have been wasted on the decoys.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I also like to use a fake out when a party is getting over confident - like instead of -
small encounter - small encounter - small encounter - Big encounter
small encounter - small encounter - seems like a big encounter - small encounter - big encounter
i had a party face a low level blue dragon that was full of pomp and circumstance and acting like it was a lot higher level to make sure they popped of some top level spells and once a day item buffs. So they had to think out the box when they fought the current chapters end boss.
One I like to use is to have the encounter suddenly change on them. If the part thinks they are dealing with something relatively lightweight and act cocky and get sloppy, and then all of a sudden a completely different encounter comes in from the side and attacks both the Party and their foe that’s an interesting look to see on their faces, lemme tell ya. One round their casually wading through some Gobbos or something and then all of a sudden on the second round somewhere in the middle of the initiative order a tribe of Hill Giants bursts into the clearing and immediately closes the distance and attacks that makes sudden very aware that they should not treat combat casually.
Keep in mind, if that second threat is a pushover then that will only make them worse moving forward. So you can’t just start with an easy encounter and then it’s suddenly it becomes a Hard encounter. It has to be something that genuinely puts some fear back into them. And I don’t mean “oh no” Kinda scary. I mean like Very Deadly and her brothers just rolled up on their tea party for murder and crumpets, but they’re all outta crumpets. Like, try dropping one of them unconscious immediately (or at least close to it) kinda scary.
Memento Morì.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
I play with minis and maps (or used to in the before times) so I was forced to use waves because I didn't have enough minis.
I huge mass of skeletons and zombies with ghouls and ghasts thrown in can use up resources also. "Sure you blow away ..25 of them. The hole is instantly filled with 30 more.
Close the range. You don't have to have encounters start at 60 or more feet. Dungeons are prime ground for encounters at 30 feet or less.
Have an enemy caster reflect the fireball (or whatever) back. "WHAT?!" Yeah. You're the GM make it happen, just rarely.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Also, it'd be a darn shame if the creatures being attacked by the fireball absorbed energy from fire rather than being harmed by it. You just gave the whole group of them 8d6 temporary hit points. Oops.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Surprising people with "Congratulations, your power is useless" is a somewhat obnoxious thing to do, though a non-surprise version is okay to do occasionally (something like 12xMagma Mephit will make Fireball irrelevant, and between pretty good durability and the ability to spread out in 3d, they can just absorb the other spells and keep going).
A large percentage of the challenge is the combat field, honestly. My DM almost TPK'd our OP level 7 party with two Shambling Mounds because he pincered us single-file in a sewer. We couldn't move without risking an attack of opportunity from at least one of the creatures (that is, those of us who weren't swallowed or pinned against a wall), and our ranged fighters had to fight in melee. It was awful.
One of the scariest fights I've ever survived involved my halfling running in pitch black away from an awakened mammoth. Half the party had darkvision and half did not, so the party had to split their efforts between attacking the baddie and helping get us blind ones to safety. All this to say: consider throwing environmental curveballs at your players. Use visibility (darkness, fog, foliage) to the baddies' advantage. Use cover. Send mages their way to cast Silence and Counterspell to let the martial classes shine. Make the party fight nature (avalanche, flooding river, quicksand, wildfire) as they're also fighting a monster. If they have to split their focus between the ground they're standing on and the guys trying to kill them, it suddenly becomes a test of strategy and survival.
Well if the casters are going to open every battle with an AOE fireball, just mindlessly, I think it is fair game to make that "tactic" (if you can call it that) backfire once in a while.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Or the area, including the area the caster is standing on, has a flammable liquid soaked into the ground. The DM can even warn the players that there is a strong odour of pitch in the air.
Don’t forget also: BBEG… then small encounter, small encounter, small encounter…
When people see the BBEG they assume they can use all of their abilities in some crazy alpha strike. But little did they know that the PCs aren’t out of the woods yet…
This really makes people start to think 🙂
I never thought I would have to say this to you as I hold you in high regard, but Horse Poopy.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with something like that every once in a while. Throwing them a curveball periodically is good for the game.
Open call out to the whole forum please! Drop a comment if you would be so kind. (Hare is an open invitation to @me if I’m wrong on this one!)
Who here can tell me about one of those times when everybody did the same stuff you always did and it worked just like always?
Who here can tell me about that one time when you were fighting this one thing, and then all of a sudden it turned out to this other thing, and it was all like “AAAAHHH,” and your whole party was like “AAAHHH,” and then you all thought maybe it was gonna be all “game over man” but then that one party member pulled that amazing thing out their butt and you were all like “WOAH,” it was like UUUHHH, and then you all kicked it’s ass?
D&D is never about “this campaign.” D&D is about that right there.^^^
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
There is nothing wrong with tossing new and surprising elements in, it just shouldn't be "I am now going to ambush you with something that specifically targets your character and makes you negatively useful, and you have no way of realizing it's there". Something that absorbs fire is fine, just make it something you could realistically figure out, or could have a reasonable chance of recovering from your mistake. For example, Brown Mold in previous edition grew if you hit it with fire, which could turn a small patch into a huge problem, but if you screwed up and did that, it wasn't going to chase you down, so you could recover.
+1 for Waves of creatures.
+1 for creature transformations.
+1 for giving every planned encounter scaled "lair actions".
My party (6 - 3rd level) just completed a spider themed encounter in a forest: There were 2 Giant Spiders. One arrived in the second round, the other released 4 modified Swarm of Spiders upon being killed. Periodically, the party had to make dex checks to avoid getting snared by webbing shot from the canopy (raising them 10ft above the ground). Those that got caught also had to roll against poison from countless diminutive spiders that descended upon them. This ensured that about half of the party was dangling and subject to continuous minor damage during any given round, while the other half of the party had to prioritize between fighting the spiders or freeing their allies.
Lair actions can be anything from repositioning the party to conjuring more hostile creatures. It keeps the encounter dynamics and gives the DM options to scale the difficulty on the fly. In a city, that might translate to someone calling for guards, or for innocent people to wander into the line of fire. In a dungeon, it could be structural damage or a gas leak. At the very least, it makes otherwise straightforward combats interesting and gives everyone an opportunity to participate.
If you’re only running three encounters per long rest (the minimum), they should all be Deadly. Any fewer or less challenging than that, and spellcasters can and will blow other classes out of the water as they burn a day’s worth of spells on only a few fights.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
I am definitely on the side of elements on the battle field that can be investigated, perceived or learnt from that counter repetitive behaviour over secret information that the DM knows so they can scream gotcha!
think about it from a verisimilitude standpoint point -
situation a ) a bunch of creatures that absorb fire and become more powerful
situation b) a bunch of creatures that have numerous cages containing magical lawful good animals from the woods
In both the wizard casts fireball
situation a) the outcome is massively immersion breaking, these creatures are no longer part of the story, they are a trap, but not a trap placed by the BBEG but by the DM. The player has nothing to learn, gain or develop from this apart from sometimes the DM is out to get them. You ground them in the mechanical elements.
situation b) sure the wizard saved the day but at what cost? As you survey the scene and see the roasted corpses of innocent’s how does this effect the player? How does it effect the party. Is their character remorseful, have they learned a lesson about the responsibility of great power. Maybe they don’t care at all but the Druid in the party is furious, now as a DM you have character arcs to develop about a wizards decent into power at the loss of humanity.
One of the most overlooked things in threads like this is a very simple fact
D&D is not just a tactical combat game that sometimes has RP (although sone prefer it that way)
Reading this thread a lot if the solutions being offered have to do with that approach. If you want your players to look at the most optimal way to win a combat encounter at any cost then approach it that way. If you want your players to want to approach different situations differently you have to motivate them to do so. Not with tricks and traps but with story and narrative.
it sounds like in your OP you are getting bored with encounters that they maximise their way to victory through. Give them a reason not to