Hey, I am currently struggeling a bit with creating challenging an cool combat for my group.
they are 5 players of level 6 and two of them are playing a monk with a lot of possibilities to multi attack. I have not really figured out how to challenge them via combat. Are there any advices or tips you have?
I tried the encounter builder here, but it seemed like even a deadly fight was really not that deadly for them.
What is the problem you are having? The monk deal too much damage? The monk stunning enemies too much?
In general if to take monsters of CR equal to the party as enemies you need a number of monsters equal to the number of players in the party minus 1 to have a deadly combat. So your party of 5x level 6 players can take on 4x CR 6 enemies.
If you increase/decrease the CR then reduce/increase the number of enemies by the same amount:
In the encounter builder, are you making your encounters medium, hard, or deadly?
Unless you're getting in the 6-8 encounter adventuring day that 5e CR was designed around (which hardly anybody actually manages), you actually need to make encounters harder than you think you might need to. Essentially that means that the game designers expected players in, say a dungeon crawl type setting, to get through 6-8 encounters (either fights, traps, or other) before taking a long rest, that would drain player resources and encounters would be more challenging as you have to decide when to spend more and more recourses. Outside of a dungeon crawl in a more narrative-focused game as more people play nowadays, that number of daily encounters is harder to reach as parties spend more time in roleplay or debate, and therefore have more resources to spend during combat, making combat less challenging.
This is why, when making encounters using an encounter generator, I rarely make encounters that aren't Hard or Deadly unless I want to give the players an easy encounter to make them feel heroic. And I usually err on the side of Deadly encounters, because you can always scale back an encounter that's too hard if you overestimate what your party can take, but it's harder to increase the challenge of an encounter on the fly.
I know that's convoluted and I said "encounter" like 100 times, but I hope that helped!
The encounter builder isn't very good because it focuses on raw numbers rather than on the specific qualities of the monsters you use. There's lots of ways to build a good encounter, but one of the easiest is to focus on the roles of different combatants. I break up combatants into 4 types: Strikers, Controllers, Artillery, and Supports (I blatantly plagiarized these categories from Lancer, a mecha RPG that is very good at creating engaging combat). Here's a brief rundown of each role:
Strikers: typically mobile, durable, and high damage, but limited in range. Each individual Striker will balance these properties differently, but the core goal is to get in the enemy's face and make them die before you do. Paladins, Barbarians, Monks, and Fighters (typically) are Strikers. Strikers are best countered by Controllers who keep them from moving and attacking freely.
Controllers: limit the enemy's options by inflicting conditions and punishing certain actions. Controllers are typically less durable than Strikers and have shorter range than Artillery, but come with abilities that make the enemy's life harder. Any magic user can be a controller, but especially Bards and Wizards. Monks have a Controller subtype. Controllers are best countered by Artillery, who can chunk down their limited health from outside their effective range.
Artillery: deal high damage at long range. Artillery are commonly the slowest type and can be fragile, but will balance these attributes with their range and damage. Longbow Fighters, most Sorcerers and Warlocks, and some Wizards are Artillery. Artillery are best countered by Strikers who can sponge their damage, close the distance, and retaliate.
Support: a broad group focus on buffing, healing, or otherwise setting up opportunities for allies. Supports usually have a subtype that helps define their specific functions. Clerics and Druids are Supports with a Striker or Controller subtype depending on their Domain (although a few Druids can be Artillery). Bards are commonly played as Support, and Paladins have a Support subtype. Supports tend to have less direct combat power than other members of their subtype, so their best counter is typically either a counter to their subtype, or a full member of their subtype.
So, understanding that: if your Monks are running roughshod over your encounters, you probably are not running enough Controller monsters. Monks are Striker-Controllers who are best countered by Controller-Strikers, especially paired with Artillery that the Monks must pass the Controllers to reach. I would recommend looking at Gibbering Mouthers or Amber Hulks as part of your next encounter and see how that goes.
Addendum: Another thing that Lancer is very good at is combat objectives other than "murder all these dudes". Consider making your players escort someone, capture an object, or defend a location against waves of foes. These will challenge all your party members, but especially the Monks, who are best at running fast and shoving in faces. Make them do something more complicated and they'll have to think harder about how they apply that raw combat power.
Double Addendum: Rogues are equally good as Strikers and Artillery but they usually have to pick one or the other to focus on. Rangers are either Strikers or Artillery based on their equipment and subclass, with a Controller or Support subtype based on the spells they choose. Artificers do whatever they want. Did I miss anyone? If I missed anyone they're probably a Support.
Put enemies in places the monks can't reach, if they're the problem. Flying is a good start. Or burrowing under and around them. Or spread the enemies out, so the character either have to spread out -- and possibly get surrounded -- or the characters focus on one group while the other enemies do whatever they like.
I made a line of golems to annoy the NINE HELLS OF BAATOR out of every class. as I recall, the Monk-ripper golem was immune to stunning, and anytime it had a status effect it was immune to, it would reflect that back to whoever gave it the effect
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Pronouns: Any/All
About Me: Godless monster in human form bent on extending their natural life to unnatural extremes /general of the goose horde /Moderator of Vinstreb School for the Gifted /holder of the evil storyteller badge of no honor /king of madness /The FBI/ The Archmage of I CAST...!
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Fun Fact: i gain more power the more you post on my forum threads. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
Swarms can be an interesting challenge for monks, depending on the monks' subclasses and levels. Swarms are immune to the Stunned condition, and they have resistance to bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing damage - even from magic weapons. The drawback is that they don't do a tremendous amount of damage, so they're only good against lower-level characters, unless you're willing to homebrew something more potent than the books have to offer.
Swarms can be an interesting challenge for monks, depending on the monks' subclasses and levels. Swarms are immune to the Stunned condition, and they have resistance to bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing damage - even from magic weapons. The drawback is that they don't do a tremendous amount of damage, so they're only good against lower-level characters, unless you're willing to homebrew something more potent than the books have to offer.
There is nothing wrong with them if they are used in conjunction with other enemies.
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?"
I made a line of golems to annoy the NINE HELLS OF BAATOR out of every class. as I recall, the Monk-ripper golem was immune to stunning, and anytime it had a status effect it was immune to, it would reflect that back to whoever gave it the effect
I would be cautious about relying too hard on monsters that resist whatever condition/damage your party is doing. The way to make engaging combat isn't just to negate the specific abilities that you're having trouble with. You might as well just say "stunning strike doesn't exist in my game" if every combat you're rolling out only creatures that resist stun.
Every now and then it's a fun extra challenge to have to overcome an enemy that has a key resistance like that, but too often and the player will just start to feel like they're being specifically targeted in a player vs DM sort of way.
Agreed, the players are having fun with their class schtick. You can occasionally throw something that is immune at them but it shouldn't be common practice.
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?"
My standard guide for creating combat is to remember a few things:
Space - By this I usually mean height and dimensions. I'm talking about the size of area that the player characters are fighting in. If you bottleneck them into a 3ft wide corridor, they aren't passing by each other. That means that its going to limit the tactics of the party. Especially if the enemies have cover of some way of slowing the front person down. Height, especially if the party don't have flight or climb speeds can be equally effective to make an enemy more challenging. Consider the space in which the encounter will occur. That can massively alter the flow of combat.
Obstacles - Rocks, carts, walls, gates, ladders, vines, trees. All of this is good stuff for enemies to hide in, up, on, and behind. It limits line of sight for ranghed casters, and for things like vines, ice, swamp you can make it difficult terrain and thus change the flow of combat again by having the party reconsider their tactics.
Allies - For me this is usually for occupied places like guard houses, or goblin dungeons, but allies being not too far away can mean flanking the player party from behind, the sides, or even above. If the monks rush forward to take down the obvious threat, the enemies' allies act intelligently and go for the slower characters at the rear as a group. Again this can change the dynamics.
Traps - This can be quite challenging if you have the types of characters who rush toward the enemies because it punishes them for doing so, but having enemies be on the other side of a trap, or fleeing in such a way that the party are led into an area that is the enemy's home turf and thus full of traps...few players ever take the time to perception check in combat...so they more easily fall into traps.
Numbers - By this I mean the number of enemies. 50 basic skeletons, are far more deadly than a lich in 5e. With 50 skeletons, the average level 8 party are dead in 5 rounds. Whereas the lich will be dead in 5 rounds with the same party. Number of enemies can be far more challenging that their CR. Many DMs, myself included will frequently shy away from such encounters because of the huge workload that is required to run such an encounter. They are however one of the best ways to really challenge a party.
Ultimately though D&D 5e is a game of 'push the button to win'. D&D heavily weights player choice over world building, encounter building, or anything else. The players are more than 70% of the time going to succeed if one follows everything in the PHB and DMG. That's just the game we're playing here. Having seen the 2024 PHB it is even more clear to me that the game is reducing even further into a 'push button to win' type system. Having played other systems with regularity over my 25+ years of gaming, there are better systems out there if you want to provide a challenge to players. I'd advise looking at them and stealing rules for implementation into your games if that is what you're after. I for example have a no reacting to reactions house rule. In my games you simply cannot counterspell a counterspell. That for me alters the dynamic enough to keep things interesting.
As a DM you might also explore optional rules. Every time I start a new campaign with a group, I suggest different optional rules (like feats, or slow healing, or healer's kits) and see if the party want that challenge. If your party express a desire for challenge, take a look at the PHB and DMG for optional rules that might provide the challenge that you want.
Do not forget however, D&D 5e (and 2024) is built to allow the player characters to suceed in almost everything. They are fantasy superheroes and rarely, if ever, expected to fail.
I'm currently writing a blog that's aimed at creating interesting combat ideas for each monster, to let them maximize their abilities in interesting manners. (Also, suggesting appropriate team-ups for each monster.) I've written nearly a hundered articles, and covered nearly ninety monsters (from the beginning of the monster manual, until the end of chromatic dragons), so far.
Check me out on dragonencounters.com
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM, writer, and blog master of https://dragonencounters.com/ a blog dedicated to providing unusual, worthwhile encounters for each monster, making each one unique.
Also, suggestions for which monsters might be found together (for people tired of dungeons full of one humanoid race, and perhaps a few beasts and undead.)
Hey, I am currently struggeling a bit with creating challenging an cool combat for my group.
they are 5 players of level 6 and two of them are playing a monk with a lot of possibilities to multi attack. I have not really figured out how to challenge them via combat. Are there any advices or tips you have?
I tried the encounter builder here, but it seemed like even a deadly fight was really not that deadly for them.
Thanks in advance :)
First... The adventure day. The game is made for 6-8 combat encounters per day. Any less and challenging the players becomes harder and harder. You need things to use resources. You can substitute in non combat encounters but they need to use resources.
My next recommendation is to learn some probability. If you are only going to have one encounter per day, then have those monsters deal a lot more damage.
Here is what I did with my level 5 PCs. Have one monster that nearly one shots the PCs with about 100 HP and has 3 attacks with 60-70% hit chance. I have a twighlight cleric so you may need to be more careful. Then a secondary threat that does decent damage also at 100 hp with at least two attacks also in the 55-65% range. Then have some low level 15-20 hp monsters that only make 1 attack each. They can be at 40-50% chance to hit.
The important thing is to know how long it's going to take the party to take down the main threat. With a party of 4 you want him to take out a PC on round one. (If you know he is going to die in 2.5 rounds) Limited use abilities that increase his damage is good to help with that.
You only need to scare the PCs in the first round . You should already know which round the PCs are going to kill the main threat on. Use smaller encounters prior to the big one to judge their damage potential. I had similar HP monsters that dealt less damage the session prior to the Bbeg battle as a test run.
Thanks, this already helps in understanding the encounter building better.
Usually its because both monks can do so much attacks on their turns + plus the whole stun and damage stuff :D
Flying creatures with range or reach can also help. An oni who can fly naturally, has 10ft reach and can turn invisible. Don't rely as much on a single creature. If you know a creature is going to get stunned have a couple extra creatures. So maybe have six orcs instead of 4 for example. Have a barrier to the the Bbeg, such as minions around them.
Biggest issue you are probably having is allowing them all of their ki points by having only a couple of encounters. Just increasing encounters should help some. Just remember the more encounters you have the weaker each individual encounter needs to be. The fewer encounters the stronger encounters need to be.
In my experience the first two rounds make the encounter. You just need the PCs to think their lives are in danger for one or two rounds and they will think the encounter was a challenge. (The game assumes encounters will only last 3-4 rounds). Which also means if you have a single encounter per day, monsters tend to not be strong enough to deal with the PCs.
Thanks, this already helps in understanding the encounter building better.
Usually its because both monks can do so much attacks on their turns + plus the whole stun and damage stuff :D
If stun is the problem the best solution is having multiple enemies and a diversity of enemies. A couple big beefy enemies that are likely to resist the stun, a few highly maneuverable enemies who are hard to get into melee with but susceptible to stunning, and one or two enemies that can debuff the monks so their attacks are less effective should make for a much more challenging combat.
Thanks, this already helps in understanding the encounter building better.
Usually its because both monks can do so much attacks on their turns + plus the whole stun and damage stuff :D
Take the players character sheets, print them out and do some mock fights to see how strong they are.
Part of the problem with balancing encounters is that DM's are usually not that "in tune" with the strengths of the player characters, so they are often "surprised" at the table with what the players can do. Practicing fighting with their characters in a mock battle at home can remedy this a great deal, as well as help you figure out what the parties weaknesses are.
I usually do this when I start having trouble balancing fights like this, it helps a lot.
Be flexible and keep things open enough that you can on the fly alter matters to increase the challenge. If it was just about creating the perfect setups in advance for the encounters to be right on their own, there would be no need for GMs. As all encounters could be algorithm generated and automated for a group of PCs. What would we be needed for if not to be the live DJ at the club reading the floor vibe and mixing in the right tracks at the right time to meet that vibe?
As an RNG play out game, even the most perfectly mathed out encounter, is just knowing the odds of outcomes not the actual outcomes. I keep some off screen baddies ready to roll in and help out if things are not holding up as hoped. But i avoid reliable ruts, sometimes they do just mop the floor with them. Sometimes they even get to see the reserves fleeing instead of rushing in, cause they don't want none of what they just saw.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Hey,
I am currently struggeling a bit with creating challenging an cool combat for my group.
they are 5 players of level 6 and two of them are playing a monk with a lot of possibilities to multi attack.
I have not really figured out how to challenge them via combat. Are there any advices or tips you have?
I tried the encounter builder here, but it seemed like even a deadly fight was really not that deadly for them.
Thanks in advance :)
What is the problem you are having? The monk deal too much damage? The monk stunning enemies too much?
In general if to take monsters of CR equal to the party as enemies you need a number of monsters equal to the number of players in the party minus 1 to have a deadly combat. So your party of 5x level 6 players can take on 4x CR 6 enemies.
If you increase/decrease the CR then reduce/increase the number of enemies by the same amount:
E.g. 5x CR 5 enemies, 6x CR 4 enemies, 3x CR 7 enemies, 2x CR 8 enemies or 1x CR 9 enemy.
Note that these are based on skilled players with level-appropriate magic items.
In the encounter builder, are you making your encounters medium, hard, or deadly?
Unless you're getting in the 6-8 encounter adventuring day that 5e CR was designed around (which hardly anybody actually manages), you actually need to make encounters harder than you think you might need to. Essentially that means that the game designers expected players in, say a dungeon crawl type setting, to get through 6-8 encounters (either fights, traps, or other) before taking a long rest, that would drain player resources and encounters would be more challenging as you have to decide when to spend more and more recourses. Outside of a dungeon crawl in a more narrative-focused game as more people play nowadays, that number of daily encounters is harder to reach as parties spend more time in roleplay or debate, and therefore have more resources to spend during combat, making combat less challenging.
This is why, when making encounters using an encounter generator, I rarely make encounters that aren't Hard or Deadly unless I want to give the players an easy encounter to make them feel heroic. And I usually err on the side of Deadly encounters, because you can always scale back an encounter that's too hard if you overestimate what your party can take, but it's harder to increase the challenge of an encounter on the fly.
I know that's convoluted and I said "encounter" like 100 times, but I hope that helped!
The encounter builder isn't very good because it focuses on raw numbers rather than on the specific qualities of the monsters you use. There's lots of ways to build a good encounter, but one of the easiest is to focus on the roles of different combatants. I break up combatants into 4 types: Strikers, Controllers, Artillery, and Supports (I blatantly plagiarized these categories from Lancer, a mecha RPG that is very good at creating engaging combat). Here's a brief rundown of each role:
Strikers: typically mobile, durable, and high damage, but limited in range. Each individual Striker will balance these properties differently, but the core goal is to get in the enemy's face and make them die before you do. Paladins, Barbarians, Monks, and Fighters (typically) are Strikers. Strikers are best countered by Controllers who keep them from moving and attacking freely.
Controllers: limit the enemy's options by inflicting conditions and punishing certain actions. Controllers are typically less durable than Strikers and have shorter range than Artillery, but come with abilities that make the enemy's life harder. Any magic user can be a controller, but especially Bards and Wizards. Monks have a Controller subtype. Controllers are best countered by Artillery, who can chunk down their limited health from outside their effective range.
Artillery: deal high damage at long range. Artillery are commonly the slowest type and can be fragile, but will balance these attributes with their range and damage. Longbow Fighters, most Sorcerers and Warlocks, and some Wizards are Artillery. Artillery are best countered by Strikers who can sponge their damage, close the distance, and retaliate.
Support: a broad group focus on buffing, healing, or otherwise setting up opportunities for allies. Supports usually have a subtype that helps define their specific functions. Clerics and Druids are Supports with a Striker or Controller subtype depending on their Domain (although a few Druids can be Artillery). Bards are commonly played as Support, and Paladins have a Support subtype. Supports tend to have less direct combat power than other members of their subtype, so their best counter is typically either a counter to their subtype, or a full member of their subtype.
So, understanding that: if your Monks are running roughshod over your encounters, you probably are not running enough Controller monsters. Monks are Striker-Controllers who are best countered by Controller-Strikers, especially paired with Artillery that the Monks must pass the Controllers to reach. I would recommend looking at Gibbering Mouthers or Amber Hulks as part of your next encounter and see how that goes.
Addendum: Another thing that Lancer is very good at is combat objectives other than "murder all these dudes". Consider making your players escort someone, capture an object, or defend a location against waves of foes. These will challenge all your party members, but especially the Monks, who are best at running fast and shoving in faces. Make them do something more complicated and they'll have to think harder about how they apply that raw combat power.
Double Addendum: Rogues are equally good as Strikers and Artillery but they usually have to pick one or the other to focus on. Rangers are either Strikers or Artillery based on their equipment and subclass, with a Controller or Support subtype based on the spells they choose. Artificers do whatever they want. Did I miss anyone? If I missed anyone they're probably a Support.
Put enemies in places the monks can't reach, if they're the problem. Flying is a good start. Or burrowing under and around them. Or spread the enemies out, so the character either have to spread out -- and possibly get surrounded -- or the characters focus on one group while the other enemies do whatever they like.
I made a line of golems to annoy the NINE HELLS OF BAATOR out of every class. as I recall, the Monk-ripper golem was immune to stunning, and anytime it had a status effect it was immune to, it would reflect that back to whoever gave it the effect
Pronouns: Any/All
About Me: Godless monster in human form bent on extending their natural life to unnatural extremes /general of the goose horde /Moderator of Vinstreb School for the Gifted /holder of the evil storyteller badge of no honor /king of madness /The FBI/ The Archmage of I CAST...!
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Fun Fact: i gain more power the more you post on my forum threads. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
Swarms can be an interesting challenge for monks, depending on the monks' subclasses and levels. Swarms are immune to the Stunned condition, and they have resistance to bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing damage - even from magic weapons. The drawback is that they don't do a tremendous amount of damage, so they're only good against lower-level characters, unless you're willing to homebrew something more potent than the books have to offer.
There is nothing wrong with them if they are used in conjunction with other enemies.
"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
I would be cautious about relying too hard on monsters that resist whatever condition/damage your party is doing. The way to make engaging combat isn't just to negate the specific abilities that you're having trouble with. You might as well just say "stunning strike doesn't exist in my game" if every combat you're rolling out only creatures that resist stun.
Every now and then it's a fun extra challenge to have to overcome an enemy that has a key resistance like that, but too often and the player will just start to feel like they're being specifically targeted in a player vs DM sort of way.
Agreed, the players are having fun with their class schtick. You can occasionally throw something that is immune at them but it shouldn't be common practice.
"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
My standard guide for creating combat is to remember a few things:
Space - By this I usually mean height and dimensions. I'm talking about the size of area that the player characters are fighting in. If you bottleneck them into a 3ft wide corridor, they aren't passing by each other. That means that its going to limit the tactics of the party. Especially if the enemies have cover of some way of slowing the front person down. Height, especially if the party don't have flight or climb speeds can be equally effective to make an enemy more challenging. Consider the space in which the encounter will occur. That can massively alter the flow of combat.
Obstacles - Rocks, carts, walls, gates, ladders, vines, trees. All of this is good stuff for enemies to hide in, up, on, and behind. It limits line of sight for ranghed casters, and for things like vines, ice, swamp you can make it difficult terrain and thus change the flow of combat again by having the party reconsider their tactics.
Allies - For me this is usually for occupied places like guard houses, or goblin dungeons, but allies being not too far away can mean flanking the player party from behind, the sides, or even above. If the monks rush forward to take down the obvious threat, the enemies' allies act intelligently and go for the slower characters at the rear as a group. Again this can change the dynamics.
Traps - This can be quite challenging if you have the types of characters who rush toward the enemies because it punishes them for doing so, but having enemies be on the other side of a trap, or fleeing in such a way that the party are led into an area that is the enemy's home turf and thus full of traps...few players ever take the time to perception check in combat...so they more easily fall into traps.
Numbers - By this I mean the number of enemies. 50 basic skeletons, are far more deadly than a lich in 5e. With 50 skeletons, the average level 8 party are dead in 5 rounds. Whereas the lich will be dead in 5 rounds with the same party. Number of enemies can be far more challenging that their CR. Many DMs, myself included will frequently shy away from such encounters because of the huge workload that is required to run such an encounter. They are however one of the best ways to really challenge a party.
Ultimately though D&D 5e is a game of 'push the button to win'. D&D heavily weights player choice over world building, encounter building, or anything else. The players are more than 70% of the time going to succeed if one follows everything in the PHB and DMG. That's just the game we're playing here. Having seen the 2024 PHB it is even more clear to me that the game is reducing even further into a 'push button to win' type system. Having played other systems with regularity over my 25+ years of gaming, there are better systems out there if you want to provide a challenge to players. I'd advise looking at them and stealing rules for implementation into your games if that is what you're after. I for example have a no reacting to reactions house rule. In my games you simply cannot counterspell a counterspell. That for me alters the dynamic enough to keep things interesting.
As a DM you might also explore optional rules. Every time I start a new campaign with a group, I suggest different optional rules (like feats, or slow healing, or healer's kits) and see if the party want that challenge. If your party express a desire for challenge, take a look at the PHB and DMG for optional rules that might provide the challenge that you want.
Do not forget however, D&D 5e (and 2024) is built to allow the player characters to suceed in almost everything. They are fantasy superheroes and rarely, if ever, expected to fail.
DM session planning template - My version of maps for 'Lost Mine of Phandelver' - Send your party to The Circus - Other DM Resources - Maps, Tokens, Quests - 'Better' Player Character Injury Tables?
Actor, Writer, Director & Teacher by day - GM/DM in my off hours.
I'm currently writing a blog that's aimed at creating interesting combat ideas for each monster, to let them maximize their abilities in interesting manners. (Also, suggesting appropriate team-ups for each monster.) I've written nearly a hundered articles, and covered nearly ninety monsters (from the beginning of the monster manual, until the end of chromatic dragons), so far.
Check me out on dragonencounters.com
DM, writer, and blog master of https://dragonencounters.com/ a blog dedicated to providing unusual, worthwhile encounters for each monster, making each one unique.
Also, suggestions for which monsters might be found together (for people tired of dungeons full of one humanoid race, and perhaps a few beasts and undead.)
First... The adventure day. The game is made for 6-8 combat encounters per day. Any less and challenging the players becomes harder and harder. You need things to use resources. You can substitute in non combat encounters but they need to use resources.
My next recommendation is to learn some probability. If you are only going to have one encounter per day, then have those monsters deal a lot more damage.
Here is what I did with my level 5 PCs. Have one monster that nearly one shots the PCs with about 100 HP and has 3 attacks with 60-70% hit chance. I have a twighlight cleric so you may need to be more careful. Then a secondary threat that does decent damage also at 100 hp with at least two attacks also in the 55-65% range. Then have some low level 15-20 hp monsters that only make 1 attack each. They can be at 40-50% chance to hit.
The important thing is to know how long it's going to take the party to take down the main threat. With a party of 4 you want him to take out a PC on round one. (If you know he is going to die in 2.5 rounds) Limited use abilities that increase his damage is good to help with that.
You only need to scare the PCs in the first round . You should already know which round the PCs are going to kill the main threat on. Use smaller encounters prior to the big one to judge their damage potential. I had similar HP monsters that dealt less damage the session prior to the Bbeg battle as a test run.
Thanks, this already helps in understanding the encounter building better.
Usually its because both monks can do so much attacks on their turns + plus the whole stun and damage stuff :D
Flying creatures with range or reach can also help. An oni who can fly naturally, has 10ft reach and can turn invisible. Don't rely as much on a single creature. If you know a creature is going to get stunned have a couple extra creatures. So maybe have six orcs instead of 4 for example. Have a barrier to the the Bbeg, such as minions around them.
Biggest issue you are probably having is allowing them all of their ki points by having only a couple of encounters. Just increasing encounters should help some. Just remember the more encounters you have the weaker each individual encounter needs to be. The fewer encounters the stronger encounters need to be.
In my experience the first two rounds make the encounter. You just need the PCs to think their lives are in danger for one or two rounds and they will think the encounter was a challenge. (The game assumes encounters will only last 3-4 rounds). Which also means if you have a single encounter per day, monsters tend to not be strong enough to deal with the PCs.
If stun is the problem the best solution is having multiple enemies and a diversity of enemies. A couple big beefy enemies that are likely to resist the stun, a few highly maneuverable enemies who are hard to get into melee with but susceptible to stunning, and one or two enemies that can debuff the monks so their attacks are less effective should make for a much more challenging combat.
Take the players character sheets, print them out and do some mock fights to see how strong they are.
Part of the problem with balancing encounters is that DM's are usually not that "in tune" with the strengths of the player characters, so they are often "surprised" at the table with what the players can do. Practicing fighting with their characters in a mock battle at home can remedy this a great deal, as well as help you figure out what the parties weaknesses are.
I usually do this when I start having trouble balancing fights like this, it helps a lot.
Thank you so much for all the replies :) this really helps a lot.
I will take all the tips into account so far :)
Be flexible and keep things open enough that you can on the fly alter matters to increase the challenge.
If it was just about creating the perfect setups in advance for the encounters to be right on their own, there would be no need for GMs. As all encounters could be algorithm generated and automated for a group of PCs. What would we be needed for if not to be the live DJ at the club reading the floor vibe and mixing in the right tracks at the right time to meet that vibe?
As an RNG play out game, even the most perfectly mathed out encounter, is just knowing the odds of outcomes not the actual outcomes.
I keep some off screen baddies ready to roll in and help out if things are not holding up as hoped. But i avoid reliable ruts, sometimes they do just mop the floor with them. Sometimes they even get to see the reserves fleeing instead of rushing in, cause they don't want none of what they just saw.