Last night was the first time I successfully DM for some friends, and aside from some scaling issues, it became very clear that the big threat to the encounters I throw at the party will be the Minotaur Totem Warrior Barbarian. He cleaved his way through just about everything, and I made the rookie mistake of just throwing a whole lot of Goblins, Orcs, and Ogres at them all, though he wasn't the one that took out the Hill Giant they pissed off. I'm thinking of buffing up all the enemies HP, so goblins will have at least 24, Orc will have maybe 36, Ogres will have the same amount. Now I'm gonna throw some buffed up Hobgoblins, and Bugbears at them. Should I think about giving them extra abilities, like a rage ability for the Orcs and Ogres since they seem to be the Barbarian's favorite prey? The first boss of the campaign is going to be a supped up Oni warrior whose basically conscripted all these goblins, orcs, ogres, hobs, and bugbears to follow him in finding a lost treasure.
The big thing for you to get comfortable with right away is that you cannot build encounters based on the Barbarian alone. I have a H-Orc Barbarian in one of my campaigns, he's pretty much unstoppable in a lot of the fights, it's really annoying. I have a Gnome Barbarian in another campaign that I'm pretty sure was built specifically to make him impossible to take down at higher levels.
However they're really not that big of a threat if you look at it in a different light: How would your players handle a creature that was resistant to damage, had a ton of hit points, hits like a truck, and has a few friends along to make him more dangerous?
Now, you throw a bunch of goblins at the party, goblins are not stupid, nor are they weak. If you play them right you can literally tpk a party with simple 2:1 odds. The trick is terrain, creature abilities, and using some strategy and tactics. Goblins will not fight on open ground, it does them no good, they'll find the caves and tunnels to their liking much more. In those caves and tunnels they can shoot the party with arrows, hide, move, and hit them from range again, all while the players are trying to figure out where the shots are coming from. You add in that the goblins will duck around corners (cover), run through the tunnels and set up traps, as well as set off alarms to call in more troops. The fight becomes much, much more dangerous now, since the party can't close in ranks and pick their targets at will.
This type of approach feels more natural, doesn't single out a player or two, forces the party to consider new approaches, and is dangerous even at high levels of play. You can up the HP to max, you can up the AC a couple points, but that doesn't make the combat any different or challenge the players in any way. Maybe a few of the goblins become scared because the party seems to be stronger; would a scared goblin fight to the death or would it run for it's life? Maybe the hobgoblin leader has a bit more of a strategical mind and uses a retreat as a ruse to get the party to fall for a trap. Maybe, when the hobgoblin is dead every goblin lays down their weapons and surrenders. The desires of the creatures in the fight can be just as much an influence on how they fight.
Thanks for the tips man! I am going to be heavily reworking the encounters for them, have the gobs behave more accordingly, and also got a question, does a Totem Warrior with the bear aspect have resistance to magical weapons?
Due to the wording of the Bear totem ability "resistant to all damage except psychic" the answer is: yes. Any damage type, except psychic, from any source, is resisted. This is part of the reason Bear Totem is such a tanky build.
A lot of this is going to mirror DMThac0s advice in that having your intelligent monsters fight smart goes a long way to keeping problematic character builds in check. You should not build encounters focusing on bringing down a specific player, but organised monsters (such as anything with a civilisation) will have a range of options, so they can go with something more imaginative than swarming cannon fodder and this will naturally mean that each character has something to watch out for.
It seems reasonable to me that your goblinoid hoards will include a few spell casters. They will quickly make the barbarians life difficult, especially if you give them a few spells requiring mental saves, but those same spells will bounce off the partys spell casters, so you will also want some physical combat oriented goblins that can charge the partys back line. Or your elite fighters might crit on a roll of 18+ not just 20. Or they can fall back when the see the barbarian raging, he only has a few of those a day so if he rages immediately the hoards fall back and it is wasted, or he waits for them to commit, which means taking a few hits without those resistances in play. The party might need to navigate terrain covered with rocks and pitfalls while fighting, making mobility challenging, or there are bolt holes in the wall that the goblins can fit in but medium sized races can't. Or if the party is flanked then the barbarian can't get in the way of all of the goblins, so he may need to fend for himself while the rest of the party deal with the golbins that have come from another direction.
When I ran goblins in an early session I had the goblin guards shouting at the party to go away while a couple of other goblins crept out of holes behind the party and attached hooks to pull the back line to the ground as soon as the party start causing trouble. Then later on as they entered a tunnel with an upward slope the door was locked behind them and something resembling a snotling pump wagon from warhammer was pushed over the ridge giving the party something that was equal parts combat and puzzle.
Traps are good, too. I'm assuming the barbarian is rushing towards melee with every encounter, right? A pit trap and a 30' fall can remove him from combat fairly effectively, at least for a couple of rounds. Or a net, rope trap, etc.
I was thinking about caltrops but a raging barbarian wouldn’t take any damage from them. Would the walking speed still be reduced?
I’m not sure what makes more sense, a barbarian with half a dozen caltrops sticking out of his boots at the end of the battle having taken no damage and not being slowed or a barbarian with walking speed reduced but hadn’t taken any damage.
I was thinking about caltrops but a raging barbarian wouldn’t take any damage from them. Would the walking speed still be reduced?
I’m not sure what makes more sense, a barbarian with half a dozen caltrops sticking out of his boots at the end of the battle having taken no damage and not being slowed or a barbarian with walking speed reduced but hadn’t taken any damage.
Maybe I'm being thick, why wouldn't the raging Barb take damage from them? Resistance doesn't mean no damage.
Correct, there would be no damage from the caltrops. The wording of caltrops has a specific phrasing that is important: "Taking this damage reduces the....", which means if no damage is dealt the effect isn't applied.
0 damage taken and no speed reduction when raging.
Something like this could cause issues with maintaining rage, and after rage drops it could cause the damage/speed reduction.
“Any creature that enters the area must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or stop moving and take 1 piercing damage. Until the creature regains at least 1 hip point, its walking speed is reduced by 10 feet.”
So the “stop moving” and “take 1 piercing damage” are separate effects. It seems like they would have switched those around if it was intended to be cause (damage) and effect (stop moving).
In the second part they didn’t explicitly connect the damage to the reduced movement. They implicitly connected it by saying 1 hit point of healing cures the condition.
I was going by 1 hp damage, halved for resistance equals 0.5 . Round down is 0 hp.
Is that correct?
Ah, right. The round down rule, that's what I was being thick about. Hmm. Another reason to not like that rule.
Well, the simple solution is to create a better caltrop. Slightly larger, barbed tip caltrops. They do, dun dun dunnnnn, 2 points of damage! :D Let the barbarian run in to those thinking he's immune. Then, because they are barbed, they do 1 point more damage when you pull them out later (1 action per caltrop), which may very well be done when he's not raging just because it takes an action to pull each one out. Done and done.
“Any creature that enters the area must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or stop moving and take 1 piercing damage. Until the creature regains at least 1 hip point, its walking speed is reduced by 10 feet.”
So the “stop moving” and “take 1 piercing damage” are separate effects. It seems like they would have switched those around if it was intended to be cause (damage) and effect (stop moving).
In the second part they didn’t explicitly connect the damage to the reduced movement. They implicitly connected it by saying 1 hit point of healing cures the condition.
Do you know if or when this was in errata?
Looking at the alternate art box set that was recently released, this is printed with the errata inside:
... Any creature that enters the area must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or stop moving this turn and take 1 piercing damage. Taking this damage reduces the creature's walking speed by 10 feet until the creature regains at least 1 hit point. ...
With those two lines there is a connection made for speed reduction and damage dealt with the opening words "Taking this damage...". It is, in my opinion, implied that if the creature does not take damage they do not stop moving nor do they have their speed reduced by 10 ft.
It reads to me like if they fail the save, they stop moving regardless of whether they take the damage. If they take the damage, their future movement is also reduced.
Thanks for that errata, DMThac0. I have the print PHB so I often find myself wondering “did this get changed?”. I’m too cheap to buy the ebook so I just muddle through.
Getting back to the question of how to keep a raging barbarian from killing everything in sight, the caltrops could actually help. If the barbarian has to stop moving and takes no damage, the barbarian could lose rage early if he has no targets in reach/range.
Particularly if you set up a large caltrop field with the illusion of a juicy target of a spellcaster on the other side (perhaps cast by the spellcaster from cover à la Loki from the MCU). There can be actual cannon fodder in front of the field so that the others can't see it and perhaps another caster with a readied prestidigitation or similar effect to simulate some kind of a magical barrier (doesn't have to be an actual effect, just something to make the players think something is blocking spell and ranged effects from hitting the party). A third caster could be lobbing fireballs into the midst of the party to encourage the barb to close ranks with the "offending caster".
Thanks for that errata, DMThac0. I have the print PHB so I often find myself wondering “did this get changed?”. I’m too cheap to buy the ebook so I just muddle through.
For the record, I don't think we count as 'cheap' if we buy the print version of a book and then do not buy the ebook of the very same book later on because there have been a few changes :/
Last night was the first time I successfully DM for some friends, and aside from some scaling issues, it became very clear that the big threat to the encounters I throw at the party will be the Minotaur Totem Warrior Barbarian. He cleaved his way through just about everything, and I made the rookie mistake of just throwing a whole lot of Goblins, Orcs, and Ogres at them all, though he wasn't the one that took out the Hill Giant they pissed off. I'm thinking of buffing up all the enemies HP, so goblins will have at least 24, Orc will have maybe 36, Ogres will have the same amount. Now I'm gonna throw some buffed up Hobgoblins, and Bugbears at them. Should I think about giving them extra abilities, like a rage ability for the Orcs and Ogres since they seem to be the Barbarian's favorite prey? The first boss of the campaign is going to be a supped up Oni warrior whose basically conscripted all these goblins, orcs, ogres, hobs, and bugbears to follow him in finding a lost treasure.
The big thing for you to get comfortable with right away is that you cannot build encounters based on the Barbarian alone. I have a H-Orc Barbarian in one of my campaigns, he's pretty much unstoppable in a lot of the fights, it's really annoying. I have a Gnome Barbarian in another campaign that I'm pretty sure was built specifically to make him impossible to take down at higher levels.
However they're really not that big of a threat if you look at it in a different light: How would your players handle a creature that was resistant to damage, had a ton of hit points, hits like a truck, and has a few friends along to make him more dangerous?
Now, you throw a bunch of goblins at the party, goblins are not stupid, nor are they weak. If you play them right you can literally tpk a party with simple 2:1 odds. The trick is terrain, creature abilities, and using some strategy and tactics. Goblins will not fight on open ground, it does them no good, they'll find the caves and tunnels to their liking much more. In those caves and tunnels they can shoot the party with arrows, hide, move, and hit them from range again, all while the players are trying to figure out where the shots are coming from. You add in that the goblins will duck around corners (cover), run through the tunnels and set up traps, as well as set off alarms to call in more troops. The fight becomes much, much more dangerous now, since the party can't close in ranks and pick their targets at will.
This type of approach feels more natural, doesn't single out a player or two, forces the party to consider new approaches, and is dangerous even at high levels of play. You can up the HP to max, you can up the AC a couple points, but that doesn't make the combat any different or challenge the players in any way. Maybe a few of the goblins become scared because the party seems to be stronger; would a scared goblin fight to the death or would it run for it's life? Maybe the hobgoblin leader has a bit more of a strategical mind and uses a retreat as a ruse to get the party to fall for a trap. Maybe, when the hobgoblin is dead every goblin lays down their weapons and surrenders. The desires of the creatures in the fight can be just as much an influence on how they fight.
I hope this gives you something to ponder ;)
Thanks for the tips man! I am going to be heavily reworking the encounters for them, have the gobs behave more accordingly, and also got a question, does a Totem Warrior with the bear aspect have resistance to magical weapons?
Due to the wording of the Bear totem ability "resistant to all damage except psychic" the answer is: yes. Any damage type, except psychic, from any source, is resisted. This is part of the reason Bear Totem is such a tanky build.
Alright thank you, that helps me a bit more.
A lot of this is going to mirror DMThac0s advice in that having your intelligent monsters fight smart goes a long way to keeping problematic character builds in check. You should not build encounters focusing on bringing down a specific player, but organised monsters (such as anything with a civilisation) will have a range of options, so they can go with something more imaginative than swarming cannon fodder and this will naturally mean that each character has something to watch out for.
It seems reasonable to me that your goblinoid hoards will include a few spell casters. They will quickly make the barbarians life difficult, especially if you give them a few spells requiring mental saves, but those same spells will bounce off the partys spell casters, so you will also want some physical combat oriented goblins that can charge the partys back line. Or your elite fighters might crit on a roll of 18+ not just 20. Or they can fall back when the see the barbarian raging, he only has a few of those a day so if he rages immediately the hoards fall back and it is wasted, or he waits for them to commit, which means taking a few hits without those resistances in play. The party might need to navigate terrain covered with rocks and pitfalls while fighting, making mobility challenging, or there are bolt holes in the wall that the goblins can fit in but medium sized races can't. Or if the party is flanked then the barbarian can't get in the way of all of the goblins, so he may need to fend for himself while the rest of the party deal with the golbins that have come from another direction.
When I ran goblins in an early session I had the goblin guards shouting at the party to go away while a couple of other goblins crept out of holes behind the party and attached hooks to pull the back line to the ground as soon as the party start causing trouble. Then later on as they entered a tunnel with an upward slope the door was locked behind them and something resembling a snotling pump wagon from warhammer was pushed over the ridge giving the party something that was equal parts combat and puzzle.
Traps are good, too. I'm assuming the barbarian is rushing towards melee with every encounter, right? A pit trap and a 30' fall can remove him from combat fairly effectively, at least for a couple of rounds. Or a net, rope trap, etc.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
I was thinking about caltrops but a raging barbarian wouldn’t take any damage from them. Would the walking speed still be reduced?
I’m not sure what makes more sense, a barbarian with half a dozen caltrops sticking out of his boots at the end of the battle having taken no damage and not being slowed or a barbarian with walking speed reduced but hadn’t taken any damage.
Maybe I'm being thick, why wouldn't the raging Barb take damage from them? Resistance doesn't mean no damage.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
I was going by 1 hp damage, halved for resistance equals 0.5 . Round down is 0 hp.
Is that correct?
Correct, there would be no damage from the caltrops. The wording of caltrops has a specific phrasing that is important: "Taking this damage reduces the....", which means if no damage is dealt the effect isn't applied.
0 damage taken and no speed reduction when raging.
Something like this could cause issues with maintaining rage, and after rage drops it could cause the damage/speed reduction.
Maybe what I am reading is pre-errata.
“Any creature that enters the area must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or stop moving and take 1 piercing damage. Until the creature regains at least 1 hip point, its walking speed is reduced by 10 feet.”
So the “stop moving” and “take 1 piercing damage” are separate effects. It seems like they would have switched those around if it was intended to be cause (damage) and effect (stop moving).
In the second part they didn’t explicitly connect the damage to the reduced movement. They implicitly connected it by saying 1 hit point of healing cures the condition.
Do you know if or when this was in errata?
Ah, right. The round down rule, that's what I was being thick about. Hmm. Another reason to not like that rule.
Well, the simple solution is to create a better caltrop. Slightly larger, barbed tip caltrops. They do, dun dun dunnnnn, 2 points of damage! :D Let the barbarian run in to those thinking he's immune. Then, because they are barbed, they do 1 point more damage when you pull them out later (1 action per caltrop), which may very well be done when he's not raging just because it takes an action to pull each one out. Done and done.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
Looking at the alternate art box set that was recently released, this is printed with the errata inside:
With those two lines there is a connection made for speed reduction and damage dealt with the opening words "Taking this damage...". It is, in my opinion, implied that if the creature does not take damage they do not stop moving nor do they have their speed reduced by 10 ft.
It reads to me like if they fail the save, they stop moving regardless of whether they take the damage. If they take the damage, their future movement is also reduced.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I can see that as well, in the end though the subsequent reduction in speed would not take if no damage is dealt.
Thanks for that errata, DMThac0. I have the print PHB so I often find myself wondering “did this get changed?”. I’m too cheap to buy the ebook so I just muddle through.
Getting back to the question of how to keep a raging barbarian from killing everything in sight, the caltrops could actually help. If the barbarian has to stop moving and takes no damage, the barbarian could lose rage early if he has no targets in reach/range.
Particularly if you set up a large caltrop field with the illusion of a juicy target of a spellcaster on the other side (perhaps cast by the spellcaster from cover à la Loki from the MCU). There can be actual cannon fodder in front of the field so that the others can't see it and perhaps another caster with a readied prestidigitation or similar effect to simulate some kind of a magical barrier (doesn't have to be an actual effect, just something to make the players think something is blocking spell and ranged effects from hitting the party). A third caster could be lobbing fireballs into the midst of the party to encourage the barb to close ranks with the "offending caster".
For the record, I don't think we count as 'cheap' if we buy the print version of a book and then do not buy the ebook of the very same book later on because there have been a few changes :/
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)