Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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Hi there, Midgardians!
So I've prepared a one-shot for my players and they start at level 5, but I've been thinking that if we finish soon Session 0, I can make a "training" combat to warm up and make players get used to their character's abilities (some of the players are new).
My one-shor happens in the Forgotten Realms, in Baldur's Gate. What kind of monsters would you recommend me to use for this level 5 training combat? There's gonna be 3 of them (there will be 4 during the one-shot, but one player can't attend Session 0 physically.
Thanks in advance.
One option would be to have them face a single Pirate Captain or some similar humanoid and making it like a brawl in a tavern: the opponent only does non-lethal damage and surrenders if low on health. That way you get the mechanical side of combat, but without significant stakes or consequences.
That sounds interesting! 😊
you could use some owl bears cr3, they can be quite hard to beat on lowish levels
That's also interesting.
I've been thinking of a group of ogres too (4 ogres for 3 lvl 5 players).
An encounter I ran with ogres involved several ogres and a few ogrillons guarding a trebuchet with a human hostage hidden underneath the trebuchet. It was very fun to run and could easily be scaled down for a smaller group. (I was running this for 8 level 5-ish PCs) The hostage could be the other person, who couldn't attend session zero.
She/Her/Hers DM
I'd say make it more than just a brawl or ordinary combat, add a small objective or something to make it interesting.
Maybe a hill giant and their lackeys, ogres or something, are in the middle of a battle with some soldiers of Baldur's Gate, and the fight is going badly for the soldiers. The players can step in and allow the soldiers time to retreat, or watch as the soldiers are pummeled into the ground. Hilly terrain, maybe introduce some objective, like an above mentioned siege weapon that fires on the characters, pulling out an unexpected magical ability, or the giant running away and turning into an unusual chase. If the characters save the soldiers, they might get a favor later in the game from the Flaming Fist, and if they let them die, they can loot the body to get some kind of little tidbit to help them out later.
He doesn't have much besides the skin on his bones. Me: I'll take the skin on his bones, then.
"You see a gigantic, monstrous praying mantis burst from out of the ground. It sprays a stream of acid from it's mouth at one soldier, dissolving him instantly, then it turns and chomps another soldier in half with it's- "
"When are we gonna take a snack break?"
That's really cool! I love the hostage idea!! ❤️
Amazing ideas! Yeah, I can make it a mini one-shot with an objective. Thank you very much! 😊
It kind of depends what type of "training" you want to do in this one-shot. Do you want the players to learn their character abilities? Do you want them to learn what kind of campaign they can expect (e.g. do they need to consider resource management? should they try to avoid fights? or should they expect more of a hack-and-slash).
If you want the players to learn their character abilities, you really want multiple encounters that are very diverse. You'd want at least one encounter with many weak enemies, one with a few tougher enemies, and one with a big boss enemy. You also would want different scales - e.g. one with big space where the characters get to use their movement abilities, one in a tight space where it's hard for the squishy characters to avoid getting hit, and one with a lot of cover & complex terrain.
Some Classic examples:
Gnoll-Bridge : A bunch of gnolls on a bridge or wall where they can use their bows from behind cover to pick off the player characters from a distance. This one works for "many weak", "cover / complex terrain", and "big space".
Otyugh-Sewer : A single Otyugh in a sewer cistern hidden beneath the cloudy water. This introduces ambush mechanics and works for "single boss" and "tight space", and "complex terrain" since the Otyugh will be in very deep water, with mounds of garbage.
Winter-Wolves-Woods : ~3 Winter wolves in the woods, this can be great to introduce alternative resolutions of combat other than killing them all, as wolves in the forest will run away if the fight is not going their way. Forests also can have some interesting terrain such as large tree trunk, ravines, creeks, or thick shrubbery.
Scorpion-Pit : 2 Giant Scorpions at the bottom of a pit trap. This is great for emphasizing how important it is for the party to stick together & work together as the combat generally starts with one character falling into the pit and facing the scorpions off alone. Fortunately the Scorpions are vulnerable to a lot of crowd control effects and they can't climb so the party have multiple options to resolving the combat.
Chimera-Cliff : a single Chimera nesting on top of a ridge, mountain, or on an island in the harbour. Combines nicely terrain/movement challenges with a Boss combat and gives players a taste of dealing with AoE and flying enemies.
Skull-Crypt : 2 Flame Skulls inside a crypt. This gives the player characters an opportunity to use cover to their advantage, while giving them a chance to test out undead-specific abilities (Paladins & Clerics) and dealing with an enemy spellcaster.
Will o' Wisps : 5 Will o' Wisps either in a grave yard or a crypt, forces the players to find and use their saving-throw based abilities (or abilities that boost their attack rolls) since these guys have high AC. Same for their options for different damage types since these guys resist many damage types. Also teaches players not to rely too heavily on simply bouncing people up/down from 0 hp since these guys can one-hit kill players reduce to 0 hp.