I am currently DMing and we are playing throught Tales from the Yawning Portal. There are 7 members in the party. I don't feel like the players are getting challenged and I want to make it harder. Any suggestions? Adding extra attacks for foes? Adding more foes? I'm trying to stick to the book as much as possible because we're playing online and I bought all the modules to make life easier. Thanks in advance.
One of the nice things about playing virtually versus playing at a physical table is that it's very easy to add more mobs to a confrontation. In real life you need either more miniatures or tokens to put on the board, you have to remember which one is which... a massive pain if it's a group of identical enemies. But digitally you can just copy and paste an icon, you can have the HP as values attached to the icon itself... plus, the more figures there are on the board the more opportunities the players get to feel cool by taking out large groups of them.
The main downside is time sink. The more turns you have to take the longer combat lasts, and it can get kind of tedious. But I think it will be be the best way to quickly add some extra challenge without having to mess with the module too much.
give mobs more hp to make them last longer against 7 PCs****y do that if fights are over too quickly or else it becomes tedious.
let them hit harder ( use average damage or even max damage) thus way players feel threatened but combat isn’t longer and you don’t have to change the module at all to do these things.
if that is not enough you could give them some extras like extra things at half hp (like an action surge, some cool attack they can only do once, explosion on death, …)
they can take it at level 3. On level one that could be very deadly.
there are many more things you could do but that would change a module maybe more than you want.
I am currently DMing and we are playing throught Tales from the Yawning Portal. There are 7 members in the party. I don't feel like the players are getting challenged and I want to make it harder. Any suggestions? Adding extra attacks for foes? Adding more foes? I'm trying to stick to the book as much as possible because we're playing online and I bought all the modules to make life easier. Thanks in advance.
Well, the least-effort solution is to just have underlevel PCs; based on the table of contents (I don't have the actual adventure), you'd probably be plenty challenging if you just run Hidden Shrine at level 4, White Plume Mountain at 5, Dead in Thay at 6, Against the Giants at 7 (guessing currently in Forge of Fury). Keeping levels lower will also be much less of a headache for the DM, and seven players are headache enough. Be wary of things in the module that require specific PC abilities that they won't get until higher level, but based on previous edition versions of those modules I wouldn't expect much like that.
It's generally a hassle to run for large groups, because a group of 7 has 75% higher total health and damage output than a group of 4, and if you boost the monsters the same way you're going to get an awful lot of PCs being oneshotted.
Adding more foes will increase the challenge, but also increase the workload for you. It could possibly bog things down. There are lots of ways:
Adding multi-attack for some or all enemies.
Increasing hit points of bad guys.
Increasing enemy AC.
Increasing attack bonus (Example: from +5 to hit, to +7)
Add ranged attackers, and make them strong enough that your players will feel compelled to deal with them.
Add spellcasters if you haven't.
Run the enemies like they would behave if they were players. Don't just have them act like 1985 video game AI. For example, if a player casts a spell or even looks like a spellcaster, make them the priority target. Especially if they're concentrating on a spell. It's what we would do as a player.
Consider going off-book and introducing enemies that are specifically designed to challenge the specific party members.
As an example, in Campaign 2 of Critical Role when in the last "dungeon", the DM pit enemies that were specifically designed to harm spellcasters with certain abilities and magic designed to counter spells or make it harder for them to use them - this proved very challenging since half the party were spellcasters of some kind.
Enemy spellcasters, particularly Sorcerers with Subtle Spell, can prove difficult since there are spells designed to hamper other spellcasters or to hamper martial enemies.
When in doubt, add Beholders.
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Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond. Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ thisFAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
One wacky approach you can take is to add Class Abilities and Levels to your monsters. A troll on its own is pretty much that- a troll. However, make it a Sorcerer, and suddenly the troll can cast frostbite or thaumaturgy on itself to put out flames that keep it from regenerating. A Giant Spider Barbarian can trap someone in a web, and then Rage on the poor soul it just trapped. A Beholder Bard can have more than one way to charm, frighten, and confuse the players it's pit against! The ideas and combinations are nearly endless!
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Former Spider Queen of the Spider Guild, and friendly neighborhood scheming creature.
"Made by spiders, for spiders, of spiders."
My pronouns are she/her.
Web Weaver of Everlasting Narrative! (title bestowed by Drummer)
I don’t personally use prefab adventures, so it might be a little different in your case than in mine, but I have found that additional enemies often makes combats take longer without necessarily making them feel more challenging to the players. The more hostile on the field, the longer each round takes, which means each player has longer to wait between turns. The longer they have to wait, the less engaged they get, and the less engaged they are, the longer each player takes for their turn. It often ends up snowballing into tedium.
On the other hand, I have had (what I feel are) more desirable results by giving hostiles buffs like:
Max HP
+1 AC (Sometimes this one backfires. If the PCs can’t hit, the players get frustrated.)
+1 Attack (Sometimes this does too because it also adds additional time onto “the DM’s turn(s).”)
+1 to Attack rolls
Upwardly adjusted Damage rolls (like turning 1d12 into 1d6+6; turning 1d10 into 1d6+4 or even 1d4+6, or turning 1d6 into 2d4, etc.)
Combinations of the above
Increasing HP makes the hostiles more survivable, but not the same way that increasing AC does. Upping AC makes the players feel that their characters are whiff, whiff, whiffing, and then hitting pillows. Upping HP makes the players feel like their characters are lumberjacks/jills, choppin’ lumber, and it’s mighty lumber both a PC and a player can feel mighty for choppin.’ They land blow after blow after blow, and the thing keeps taking it, and giving back too. Mighty might that.
Increasing Attack bonus makes the hostiles more “threatening,” but not the same way as increasing the number of attacks. More attacks means more time spent on enemy turns every round. That can make players feel their PCs are on their back feet, but it can also feel like they’re debris in a hurricane being thrashed about with very little they can do about it. Higher Attack bonuses make them feel like the extra dangerous BBs that only they, the mightiest of heroes can handle, while the other, lesser adventurers make busy with the light work. Higher damage also works, but one has to be careful using both. I usually try to mix them so some hostiles hit lots and some hit hard.
However, I feel like I have had the best outcomes by giving the hostiles special traits, and/or mixing the types of hostiles to keep the players from getting complacent.
When it comes to adding something special, it usually doesn’t have to be much, often just something to catch them off guard is enough. Something like a 1st-Round sudden obscurement, a never before seen “spell-like ability,” or a single legendary action per hostile with no recharge is often enough. (When they can’t know what to expect, they never know what to expect. If one encounter in five is like that they will always be wondering when it will pop up.)
When it comes to mixing different types of hostiles I try to treat it either the same way I would build an army for WH40k, or the way I would build a deck for M:tG if either of those references mean anything to you.
Whenever I approach it like building an army I try to have some fast harassing units to keep their back line characters in melee (archers & warlocks, strikers, controllers, support), burly units with low-volume, high-damage melee attacks (aka OAs scary enough to make them not wanna risk it) or battlefield controllers to lock-up or at least slow down their mobile characters (monks, melee rogues, barbarians), less burly ranged units with either a high-volume of attacks or high attack bonuses to get threaten high AC characters, support units for what I hope is an obvious reason, and often a big scary distraction that will force them to deal with it so they leave the other units that are putting in work alone a bit longer.
When I approach it like deck building I look for “combos” that will present situations they have to deal with in ways other than just chopping everything up. When their standard tactics are suddenly not effective because the fight is unorthodox it confuses them even if it isn’t a particularly threatening encounter, the fact that they didn’t know how to deal with it easily is more than sufficient to make them feel challenged.
I find myself being the advocate for harsh and inhospitable terrain. Adding in difficult terrain or terrain effects that can inflict conditions make any combat encounter more dynamic. I might try to find locations to slip these into the adventure when possible. If the opportunity arrises to harass your PCs while they are stuck in a pit trap, do it. Every 4 HP sling stone counts.
Understandably, if you are trying to stick to just what's in the book, you will find that things can become rather stale. When the adventure is designed for a party of 4 or 5 and you are running for 7, there is going to be a noticeable imbalance in the action economy. This will get worse as the PCs gain in power and you don't adjust the encounters. Throwing minion types (same as normal mob but only 1 HP, and save for half turns into save for none) at the party can lead to combat slog. The suggestion for adding multiattack was mentioned somewhere in the growing list of replies and will add challenge but also threaten to bog things down.
Meat grinder warning...
One tactic that I've been running at my table is to take your most common monster in your adventure. Sunless Citadel has Kobolds, so we can use them. I create a "Dungeon Pool" of harrassment mobs to throw at the party as they are walking around and exploring the dungeon/wilderness/city. How it works: the pool consists of 10 mobs per PC, in your case it would be 70. After any trap activation, combat engagement or 2nd or 3rd minute spent in a room, roll d100. If the result is lower than the number in the pool, deduct 3-6 mobs from the pool and throw them at the party. When the pool reaches 10 or 20, your choice, it never drops lower than that number as, in this case, there would always be about 10 Kobolds roaming around somewhere.
This does get lethal later in the adventure. Use sparingly.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I like adding in lair actions, if the party is going to fight something in their home
They don't have to be huge attacks either, just something that fits the monster and the setting. My current party ran into a manticore and her two bratty teenage sons in a cave -- Mama Manticore got lair actions that allowed her to use her tail spikes to dislodge stalactites and loose rocks from the ceiling (DEX save or 3d6 bludgeoning damage in a 20-foot square, which then became difficult terrain) and also use her wings to buffet people towards a big crevasse in the floor (STR save or pushed 10 feet)
Assume the monsters know their local terrain, and will use it to their advantage
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Another classic way of simplifying the combat: use glass cannon monsters. Dead monsters aren't complicated to run, nor are dead/unconscious PCs. Popup Flameskull attacks are a good way to start.
There are many things you can do to make encounters harder. I think they have likely been covered in the rest of the thread. (more hit points, adding more creatures etc)
However, be wary of making things too hard.
1) Players sometimes really like to have some easy victories
2) If it is too hard it can easily become a TPK as soon as characters start dropping
You also need to ask yourself WHY things are too easy for your group. The most common explanation is typically the one encounter adventuring day. The party uses all their resources on the first fight which is then really EASY as a result. They then decide that since they are out of spell slots, it is too dangerous to continue so they retreat to a fortified location or leave the area entirely, have a nice overnight rest and come back the next day for another single encounter. In this case, the issue is not the encounter difficulty but the DM structuring the adventure and the adventuring day so that the party just gets to long rest whenever they want. If instead the party had to deal with 3-5 encounters with at most 1-2 short rests in between before getting a chance to long rest then they have to make their resources last longer, each encounter is a bit more difficult and you might not find the need to make the encounters much more difficult.
Other reasons for needing more challenging encounters include giving out too many or too powerful magic items, using generous starting stats so that the characters start off above the power curve, knowledgeable players who optimize their characters and/or play tactically, monsters or NPCs that behave unintelligently (for example, if the players save heals for when the characters are down then an intelligent opponent will realize that they need to kill a downed character to make them stay down - on the other hand, a beast or other hungry animal eg wolves - might decide to attack unconscious characters because they are hungry) .. either of these approaches can significantly increase the risk of encounters though the DM should make sure to let the players know how the world works. If the players are used to the DM having creatures only attack characters who are conscious it can come as a shock when one attacks an incapacitated character and kills them (it only takes a couple of hits against an unconscious character to kill them since for a melee attack within 5', a hit against an unconscious character counts as a critical hit which is 2 automatic failed death saves).
What I do is ignore how many HP the monsters have. I keep them alive as long as it looks like everyone is having fun and then I let the players kill them. I don’t drop any PCs to 0 HP when I’m doing this, or if I do I let them kill the monsters with the first or second hit after one PC is dropped to 0 HP so the players don’t get frustrated or feel like I’m trying to kill their characters.
The other thing that I do is sometimes I let the PCs have a super easy win. They’re heroes after all, they’re much better than average. So they will steamroll over some fights easily. PCs should take out any patrol of city guards in almost any city without breaking a sweat after they hit 3rd or 4th level for example.
What I do is ignore how many HP the monsters have. I keep them alive as long as it looks like everyone is having fun and then I let the players kill them. I don’t drop any PCs to 0 HP when I’m doing this, or if I do I let them kill the monsters with the first or second hit after one PC is dropped to 0 HP so the players don’t get frustrated or feel like I’m trying to kill their characters.
The other thing that I do is sometimes I let the PCs have a super easy win. They’re heroes after all, they’re much better than average. So they will steamroll over some fights easily. PCs should take out any patrol of city guards in almost any city without breaking a sweat after they hit 3rd or 4th level for example.
As a new DM and asking for advice from other DM's, I'm finding that "fudging" is a common strategy for balancing. This issue I have with that is most players are smart enough to pick up on that, eventually. At some point they are going to know you're not going to let them die, and combat encounters lose a big part of their suspense and tension. At session 0 I let my players know that I'm rooting for them, but I'm also going to challenge them, and I will absolutely let them die if it comes down to that.
Adjusting the HP and such on the fly in the middle of combat makes it less of a game, and more just make believe. At that point the dice no longer matter.
On the flip side, if you can get away with it and your players never catch on, from their perspective nothing has changed and none of the fun is lost.
Bosses in dungeons don't just sit around, waiting for the adventurers in the final chamber of the dungeon. They should watch the players, see their strategies, and react accordingly. Giffyglyph's Darker Dungeons has a Dread Point system that works wonders for this. There's other useful tips in there as well for making campaigns nice and spicy!
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Former Spider Queen of the Spider Guild, and friendly neighborhood scheming creature.
"Made by spiders, for spiders, of spiders."
My pronouns are she/her.
Web Weaver of Everlasting Narrative! (title bestowed by Drummer)
I would investigate at making encounters more entertaining in the process too. There are a lot of resource out there about it. You can change the dynamic of battles in many ways even without adding or removing monsters.
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Check out The Monsters Know What They’re Doing. It’s in book form now and I think the blog is still out there. Has great suggestions for tactics and I found some interesting ideas about abilities I had really forgotten about. Can also use it as a baseline before adding other things, like making them “action oriented monsters” like Matt Colleville talks about. I’m running an old 1e module converted to 5e and mobs are common. Have to change it up or it’s like “sigh…15 more orcs.” Numbers aren’t always the answer.
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I am currently DMing and we are playing throught Tales from the Yawning Portal. There are 7 members in the party. I don't feel like the players are getting challenged and I want to make it harder. Any suggestions? Adding extra attacks for foes? Adding more foes? I'm trying to stick to the book as much as possible because we're playing online and I bought all the modules to make life easier. Thanks in advance.
Oh yeah, currently the players are level 3.
One of the nice things about playing virtually versus playing at a physical table is that it's very easy to add more mobs to a confrontation. In real life you need either more miniatures or tokens to put on the board, you have to remember which one is which... a massive pain if it's a group of identical enemies. But digitally you can just copy and paste an icon, you can have the HP as values attached to the icon itself... plus, the more figures there are on the board the more opportunities the players get to feel cool by taking out large groups of them.
The main downside is time sink. The more turns you have to take the longer combat lasts, and it can get kind of tedious. But I think it will be be the best way to quickly add some extra challenge without having to mess with the module too much.
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Some ideas.
give mobs more hp to make them last longer against 7 PCs****y do that if fights are over too quickly or else it becomes tedious.
let them hit harder ( use average damage or even max damage) thus way players feel threatened but combat isn’t longer and you don’t have to change the module at all to do these things.
if that is not enough you could give them some extras like extra things at half hp (like an action surge, some cool attack they can only do once, explosion on death, …)
they can take it at level 3. On level one that could be very deadly.
there are many more things you could do but that would change a module maybe more than you want.
Love the idea of max damage. Never thought about that.
Well, the least-effort solution is to just have underlevel PCs; based on the table of contents (I don't have the actual adventure), you'd probably be plenty challenging if you just run Hidden Shrine at level 4, White Plume Mountain at 5, Dead in Thay at 6, Against the Giants at 7 (guessing currently in Forge of Fury). Keeping levels lower will also be much less of a headache for the DM, and seven players are headache enough. Be wary of things in the module that require specific PC abilities that they won't get until higher level, but based on previous edition versions of those modules I wouldn't expect much like that.
It's generally a hassle to run for large groups, because a group of 7 has 75% higher total health and damage output than a group of 4, and if you boost the monsters the same way you're going to get an awful lot of PCs being oneshotted.
Adding more foes will increase the challenge, but also increase the workload for you. It could possibly bog things down. There are lots of ways:
Adding multi-attack for some or all enemies.
Increasing hit points of bad guys.
Increasing enemy AC.
Increasing attack bonus (Example: from +5 to hit, to +7)
Add ranged attackers, and make them strong enough that your players will feel compelled to deal with them.
Add spellcasters if you haven't.
Run the enemies like they would behave if they were players. Don't just have them act like 1985 video game AI. For example, if a player casts a spell or even looks like a spellcaster, make them the priority target. Especially if they're concentrating on a spell. It's what we would do as a player.
Consider going off-book and introducing enemies that are specifically designed to challenge the specific party members.
As an example, in Campaign 2 of Critical Role when in the last "dungeon", the DM pit enemies that were specifically designed to harm spellcasters with certain abilities and magic designed to counter spells or make it harder for them to use them - this proved very challenging since half the party were spellcasters of some kind.
Enemy spellcasters, particularly Sorcerers with Subtle Spell, can prove difficult since there are spells designed to hamper other spellcasters or to hamper martial enemies.
When in doubt, add Beholders.
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
One wacky approach you can take is to add Class Abilities and Levels to your monsters. A troll on its own is pretty much that- a troll. However, make it a Sorcerer, and suddenly the troll can cast frostbite or thaumaturgy on itself to put out flames that keep it from regenerating. A Giant Spider Barbarian can trap someone in a web, and then Rage on the poor soul it just trapped. A Beholder Bard can have more than one way to charm, frighten, and confuse the players it's pit against! The ideas and combinations are nearly endless!
Former Spider Queen of the Spider Guild, and friendly neighborhood scheming creature.
"Made by spiders, for spiders, of spiders."
My pronouns are she/her.
Web Weaver of Everlasting Narrative! (title bestowed by Drummer)
I don’t personally use prefab adventures, so it might be a little different in your case than in mine, but I have found that additional enemies often makes combats take longer without necessarily making them feel more challenging to the players. The more hostile on the field, the longer each round takes, which means each player has longer to wait between turns. The longer they have to wait, the less engaged they get, and the less engaged they are, the longer each player takes for their turn. It often ends up snowballing into tedium.
On the other hand, I have had (what I feel are) more desirable results by giving hostiles buffs like:
+1 AC(Sometimes this one backfires. If the PCs can’t hit, the players get frustrated.)+1 Attack(Sometimes this does too because it also adds additional time onto “the DM’s turn(s).”)Increasing HP makes the hostiles more survivable, but not the same way that increasing AC does. Upping AC makes the players feel that their characters are whiff, whiff, whiffing, and then hitting pillows. Upping HP makes the players feel like their characters are lumberjacks/jills, choppin’ lumber, and it’s mighty lumber both a PC and a player can feel mighty for choppin.’ They land blow after blow after blow, and the thing keeps taking it, and giving back too. Mighty might that.
Increasing Attack bonus makes the hostiles more “threatening,” but not the same way as increasing the number of attacks. More attacks means more time spent on enemy turns every round. That can make players feel their PCs are on their back feet, but it can also feel like they’re debris in a hurricane being thrashed about with very little they can do about it. Higher Attack bonuses make them feel like the extra dangerous BBs that only they, the mightiest of heroes can handle, while the other, lesser adventurers make busy with the light work. Higher damage also works, but one has to be careful using both. I usually try to mix them so some hostiles hit lots and some hit hard.
However, I feel like I have had the best outcomes by giving the hostiles special traits, and/or mixing the types of hostiles to keep the players from getting complacent.
When it comes to adding something special, it usually doesn’t have to be much, often just something to catch them off guard is enough. Something like a 1st-Round sudden obscurement, a never before seen “spell-like ability,” or a single legendary action per hostile with no recharge is often enough. (When they can’t know what to expect, they never know what to expect. If one encounter in five is like that they will always be wondering when it will pop up.)
When it comes to mixing different types of hostiles I try to treat it either the same way I would build an army for WH40k, or the way I would build a deck for M:tG if either of those references mean anything to you.
I hope that helps.
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I find myself being the advocate for harsh and inhospitable terrain. Adding in difficult terrain or terrain effects that can inflict conditions make any combat encounter more dynamic. I might try to find locations to slip these into the adventure when possible. If the opportunity arrises to harass your PCs while they are stuck in a pit trap, do it. Every 4 HP sling stone counts.
Understandably, if you are trying to stick to just what's in the book, you will find that things can become rather stale. When the adventure is designed for a party of 4 or 5 and you are running for 7, there is going to be a noticeable imbalance in the action economy. This will get worse as the PCs gain in power and you don't adjust the encounters. Throwing minion types (same as normal mob but only 1 HP, and save for half turns into save for none) at the party can lead to combat slog. The suggestion for adding multiattack was mentioned somewhere in the growing list of replies and will add challenge but also threaten to bog things down.
Meat grinder warning...
One tactic that I've been running at my table is to take your most common monster in your adventure. Sunless Citadel has Kobolds, so we can use them. I create a "Dungeon Pool" of harrassment mobs to throw at the party as they are walking around and exploring the dungeon/wilderness/city. How it works: the pool consists of 10 mobs per PC, in your case it would be 70. After any trap activation, combat engagement or 2nd or 3rd minute spent in a room, roll d100. If the result is lower than the number in the pool, deduct 3-6 mobs from the pool and throw them at the party. When the pool reaches 10 or 20, your choice, it never drops lower than that number as, in this case, there would always be about 10 Kobolds roaming around somewhere.
This does get lethal later in the adventure. Use sparingly.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I like adding in lair actions, if the party is going to fight something in their home
They don't have to be huge attacks either, just something that fits the monster and the setting. My current party ran into a manticore and her two bratty teenage sons in a cave -- Mama Manticore got lair actions that allowed her to use her tail spikes to dislodge stalactites and loose rocks from the ceiling (DEX save or 3d6 bludgeoning damage in a 20-foot square, which then became difficult terrain) and also use her wings to buffet people towards a big crevasse in the floor (STR save or pushed 10 feet)
Assume the monsters know their local terrain, and will use it to their advantage
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Another classic way of simplifying the combat: use glass cannon monsters. Dead monsters aren't complicated to run, nor are dead/unconscious PCs. Popup Flameskull attacks are a good way to start.
There are many things you can do to make encounters harder. I think they have likely been covered in the rest of the thread. (more hit points, adding more creatures etc)
However, be wary of making things too hard.
1) Players sometimes really like to have some easy victories
2) If it is too hard it can easily become a TPK as soon as characters start dropping
You also need to ask yourself WHY things are too easy for your group. The most common explanation is typically the one encounter adventuring day. The party uses all their resources on the first fight which is then really EASY as a result. They then decide that since they are out of spell slots, it is too dangerous to continue so they retreat to a fortified location or leave the area entirely, have a nice overnight rest and come back the next day for another single encounter. In this case, the issue is not the encounter difficulty but the DM structuring the adventure and the adventuring day so that the party just gets to long rest whenever they want. If instead the party had to deal with 3-5 encounters with at most 1-2 short rests in between before getting a chance to long rest then they have to make their resources last longer, each encounter is a bit more difficult and you might not find the need to make the encounters much more difficult.
Other reasons for needing more challenging encounters include giving out too many or too powerful magic items, using generous starting stats so that the characters start off above the power curve, knowledgeable players who optimize their characters and/or play tactically, monsters or NPCs that behave unintelligently (for example, if the players save heals for when the characters are down then an intelligent opponent will realize that they need to kill a downed character to make them stay down - on the other hand, a beast or other hungry animal eg wolves - might decide to attack unconscious characters because they are hungry) .. either of these approaches can significantly increase the risk of encounters though the DM should make sure to let the players know how the world works. If the players are used to the DM having creatures only attack characters who are conscious it can come as a shock when one attacks an incapacitated character and kills them (it only takes a couple of hits against an unconscious character to kill them since for a melee attack within 5', a hit against an unconscious character counts as a critical hit which is 2 automatic failed death saves).
What I do is ignore how many HP the monsters have. I keep them alive as long as it looks like everyone is having fun and then I let the players kill them. I don’t drop any PCs to 0 HP when I’m doing this, or if I do I let them kill the monsters with the first or second hit after one PC is dropped to 0 HP so the players don’t get frustrated or feel like I’m trying to kill their characters.
The other thing that I do is sometimes I let the PCs have a super easy win. They’re heroes after all, they’re much better than average. So they will steamroll over some fights easily. PCs should take out any patrol of city guards in almost any city without breaking a sweat after they hit 3rd or 4th level for example.
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As a new DM and asking for advice from other DM's, I'm finding that "fudging" is a common strategy for balancing. This issue I have with that is most players are smart enough to pick up on that, eventually. At some point they are going to know you're not going to let them die, and combat encounters lose a big part of their suspense and tension. At session 0 I let my players know that I'm rooting for them, but I'm also going to challenge them, and I will absolutely let them die if it comes down to that.
Adjusting the HP and such on the fly in the middle of combat makes it less of a game, and more just make believe. At that point the dice no longer matter.
On the flip side, if you can get away with it and your players never catch on, from their perspective nothing has changed and none of the fun is lost.
You could try running waves of enemies. Then let the PCs use resources and make it difficult to rest. Use difficult terrain to your advantage.
Read up on Tucker's kobolds. Use those ideas on a variety of other low level threats. Play intelligent enemies smart.
Bosses in dungeons don't just sit around, waiting for the adventurers in the final chamber of the dungeon. They should watch the players, see their strategies, and react accordingly. Giffyglyph's Darker Dungeons has a Dread Point system that works wonders for this. There's other useful tips in there as well for making campaigns nice and spicy!
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I would investigate at making encounters more entertaining in the process too. There are a lot of resource out there about it. You can change the dynamic of battles in many ways even without adding or removing monsters.
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Check out The Monsters Know What They’re Doing. It’s in book form now and I think the blog is still out there. Has great suggestions for tactics and I found some interesting ideas about abilities I had really forgotten about. Can also use it as a baseline before adding other things, like making them “action oriented monsters” like Matt Colleville talks about. I’m running an old 1e module converted to 5e and mobs are common. Have to change it up or it’s like “sigh…15 more orcs.” Numbers aren’t always the answer.