I am a 1st time DM and want to know what is the max CR I should throw at a group of 7 3rd levels? (btw I am doing a heavily homebrewed Tyranny of Dragons)
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In the words of the great philosopher, Unicorse, "Aaaannnnd why should I care??"
Best quote from a book ever: "If you love with your eyes, death is forever. If you love with your heart, there is no such thing as parting."- Jonah Cook, Ascendant, Songs of Chaos by Michael R. Miller. Highly recommend
I lot depends on your players / PCs. Are they new players with little knowledge of tactics or experienced players with highly optimised characters? Will they have any magic items? Is the monster laying an ambush or are the players likely to have surprise....
In any case CR is not a particularly good metric. The encounter builder on this site would say a CR8 would be "Hard". People know this generally means trivial, at least for experienced players and/or if they are only having 1 or 2 combats a day but there is a big difference between one CR8 and another and the monster rating are based on 4 character parties. Against 7 either they will have the power to wipe out the party or be extremely easy to kill (most likely both)
At level 3, wizards and sorcers are likely to have around 20 HP and Barbarians about 30
Say you put the party against a young green dragon.
If the dragon wins initiative it is likely to be able to get into a position where it can breath its poison breath over the whole party. On average you would expect around 4 party members ot fail the save, anyone who does is almost certainly unconcious and the squishier party members are likely to be killed outright, even if they make the save the squishy members could be unconcious (if anyone has absorb elements that will reduce this). The suviving players have the choice of healing the unconcious (if they can) or having a couple of attacks at the dragon that will do little harm and the dragon can clean up the rest with 3 attacks in round 2.
If the party do well on initiative they are likely they can spread out so the breath weapon can only get one or two of them, spells like web wil force the dragon to use its action to attempt to move, hidious laughts cast just before its turn (with silvery barbs if it succeeds) will prevent it doing anything on its turn and with 7 party members it wont take long to knock it to 0 hit points.
Action economy is very important rather than putting the party up against a single monster would put thm pu against several, either of roughly of equal power or a boss and minions. If you go the later route make the boss one that doesn't have a hue attack but multiple less powerful ones so you can spread it around or cncentrate fire as you see appropriate, make the monsters quite robust against a large party (I would consider giving the boss max hit points ratherthan average (e.g. a young dragon has an average of 136 HP, 16d10+48, so a young green dragon with 208HP is still a non-homebrew monster).
Seems an innocent question I know, but at least in my games every encounter has a purpose, even if the players don't always pick up on it. It's really easy if your encounters don't have a purpose to simply throw enemies at the group because they 'need' a combat encounter every session. In my most recent session, my party saw from afar a city guard thrown through the air. In the world there aren't many fey creatures about and those that are there are considered evil imperial forces to be overcome. Turns out as they approach a fey had found its way into the city. The point here was not to force a combat encounter but to foreshadow that certain types of creatures are finding their way into the material plane. It's part of the overall unravelling of the world where someone is opening a portal to a specific plane. As a result side effects will occur.
To that end for that party of now 3rd level adventurers I had it be an invisible stalker and a modified version of a redcap.
For your adventure it's difficult to say without knowing where in the adventure structure that the party are, but if you're looking for something particular you could have the party find a nest site where there is an egg of a metallic dragon about to hatch. It could be guarded by several Guard Drake. I'd even be tempted to throw a clock on the encounter so that the egg will actually hatch within a few rounds. The party then have a Silver Dragon Wyrmling hatch from the egg. What happens from there would depend on the party disposition. Maybe the Wyrmling appears curious of the party and might imprint. Maybe the party are going to feel that it needs to be killed before it becomes a threat. Maybe the party realise that they need to get to the Wyrmling before a Guard drake does so that the Wyrmling sides with them rather than the dragon cult. Either way it could make for an interesting encounter. In this case the intention (at least to me) would be to highlight the fact that metallic dragons are rising back into the world again.
I lot depends on your players / PCs. Are they new players with little knowledge of tactics or experienced players with highly optimised characters? Will they have any magic items? Is the monster laying an ambush or are the players likely to have surprise....
I have 3 newbies and 4 experienced. One of the newbies has done some research, the others have just really learned from the campaign. There are magic items and most encounters are not surprises or ambushes.
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In the words of the great philosopher, Unicorse, "Aaaannnnd why should I care??"
Best quote from a book ever: "If you love with your eyes, death is forever. If you love with your heart, there is no such thing as parting."- Jonah Cook, Ascendant, Songs of Chaos by Michael R. Miller. Highly recommend
Throw a camp full of goblins at them. Easy if you can hit them and find the goblins. They have bonus action to hide. I put 8 goblins in a camp against my party of 5, and they had a rough time keeping up with them. Most of the goblins would hit with short bow and then hide. Add some wolves, and the complexity can increase substantially. I am a big fan of many smaller creatures using planned tactics. Have the goblins entice the party toward a trap. Have some riding wolves, ride by attack and disengage and retreat.
I think party of 7 against a single enemy will be too easy.
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I am a 1st time DM and want to know what is the max CR I should throw at a group of 7 3rd levels? (btw I am doing a heavily homebrewed Tyranny of Dragons)
In the words of the great philosopher, Unicorse, "Aaaannnnd why should I care??"
Best quote from a book ever: "If you love with your eyes, death is forever. If you love with your heart, there is no such thing as parting."- Jonah Cook, Ascendant, Songs of Chaos by Michael R. Miller. Highly recommend
I lot depends on your players / PCs. Are they new players with little knowledge of tactics or experienced players with highly optimised characters? Will they have any magic items? Is the monster laying an ambush or are the players likely to have surprise....
In any case CR is not a particularly good metric. The encounter builder on this site would say a CR8 would be "Hard". People know this generally means trivial, at least for experienced players and/or if they are only having 1 or 2 combats a day but there is a big difference between one CR8 and another and the monster rating are based on 4 character parties. Against 7 either they will have the power to wipe out the party or be extremely easy to kill (most likely both)
At level 3, wizards and sorcers are likely to have around 20 HP and Barbarians about 30
Say you put the party against a young green dragon.
If the dragon wins initiative it is likely to be able to get into a position where it can breath its poison breath over the whole party. On average you would expect around 4 party members ot fail the save, anyone who does is almost certainly unconcious and the squishier party members are likely to be killed outright, even if they make the save the squishy members could be unconcious (if anyone has absorb elements that will reduce this). The suviving players have the choice of healing the unconcious (if they can) or having a couple of attacks at the dragon that will do little harm and the dragon can clean up the rest with 3 attacks in round 2.
If the party do well on initiative they are likely they can spread out so the breath weapon can only get one or two of them, spells like web wil force the dragon to use its action to attempt to move, hidious laughts cast just before its turn (with silvery barbs if it succeeds) will prevent it doing anything on its turn and with 7 party members it wont take long to knock it to 0 hit points.
Action economy is very important rather than putting the party up against a single monster would put thm pu against several, either of roughly of equal power or a boss and minions. If you go the later route make the boss one that doesn't have a hue attack but multiple less powerful ones so you can spread it around or cncentrate fire as you see appropriate, make the monsters quite robust against a large party (I would consider giving the boss max hit points ratherthan average (e.g. a young dragon has an average of 136 HP, 16d10+48, so a young green dragon with 208HP is still a non-homebrew monster).
What is the purpose of the encounter?
Seems an innocent question I know, but at least in my games every encounter has a purpose, even if the players don't always pick up on it. It's really easy if your encounters don't have a purpose to simply throw enemies at the group because they 'need' a combat encounter every session. In my most recent session, my party saw from afar a city guard thrown through the air. In the world there aren't many fey creatures about and those that are there are considered evil imperial forces to be overcome. Turns out as they approach a fey had found its way into the city. The point here was not to force a combat encounter but to foreshadow that certain types of creatures are finding their way into the material plane. It's part of the overall unravelling of the world where someone is opening a portal to a specific plane. As a result side effects will occur.
To that end for that party of now 3rd level adventurers I had it be an invisible stalker and a modified version of a redcap.
For your adventure it's difficult to say without knowing where in the adventure structure that the party are, but if you're looking for something particular you could have the party find a nest site where there is an egg of a metallic dragon about to hatch. It could be guarded by several Guard Drake. I'd even be tempted to throw a clock on the encounter so that the egg will actually hatch within a few rounds. The party then have a Silver Dragon Wyrmling hatch from the egg. What happens from there would depend on the party disposition. Maybe the Wyrmling appears curious of the party and might imprint. Maybe the party are going to feel that it needs to be killed before it becomes a threat. Maybe the party realise that they need to get to the Wyrmling before a Guard drake does so that the Wyrmling sides with them rather than the dragon cult. Either way it could make for an interesting encounter. In this case the intention (at least to me) would be to highlight the fact that metallic dragons are rising back into the world again.
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I have 3 newbies and 4 experienced. One of the newbies has done some research, the others have just really learned from the campaign. There are magic items and most encounters are not surprises or ambushes.
In the words of the great philosopher, Unicorse, "Aaaannnnd why should I care??"
Best quote from a book ever: "If you love with your eyes, death is forever. If you love with your heart, there is no such thing as parting."- Jonah Cook, Ascendant, Songs of Chaos by Michael R. Miller. Highly recommend
My players HATED the phase spider they fought. It was nice to keep them on their toes with coming up with a strategy to defeat it.
Throw a camp full of goblins at them. Easy if you can hit them and find the goblins. They have bonus action to hide. I put 8 goblins in a camp against my party of 5, and they had a rough time keeping up with them. Most of the goblins would hit with short bow and then hide. Add some wolves, and the complexity can increase substantially. I am a big fan of many smaller creatures using planned tactics. Have the goblins entice the party toward a trap. Have some riding wolves, ride by attack and disengage and retreat.
I think party of 7 against a single enemy will be too easy.