I've been DMing Tomb of Annihilation for a group that basically slaughters everything they encounter in the first turn or two. I've tried balancing encounters by adding hit points, adding monsters, giving the monsters a free turn sometimes, and trying to wear characters out with multiple encounters between rests. I've tried the guidelines for encounter balance both from the DMG and Xanathar's.
Because the party does so much damage so fast, encounters never develop in an interesting way. I rarely get around to using monster's special abilities and characters never seem to need to think through how they'll use terrain or movement, or some other environmental feature because they can just blast everything they see. I've tried hordes, I've tried single monsters.
It's gotten to the point where the players sometimes avoid combat just because its kind of boring rolling of dice.
First, figure out what your players' tactics are, that will help with the rest of the process. Next, there is more to combat than monsters, and there is more than one room in most dungeons. Further more, the environment is not necessarily static and the creatures can interact with everything just the same as the players. Lastly, just as with the players, each creature has their own personality and approach to conflict.
If you can narrow down what types of tactics the players use you can figure out where they have gaps in their defense or offense that can be exploited. I have a party of 6, two of the party are very much the weak links, and I use that to my advantage. One party member has a low AC and doesn't do much to buff themselves when combat becomes a reality. So sending in creatures to interrupt her spells and harass her is a very common thing. The other player is a rogue but almost never uses Cunning Action. Instead they prefer to stand as far away from melee as possible and fire off arrows, or holding their action until something triggers a ranged attack. This player is almost never any good against mobile creatures and only deals about half their possible damage. With those two factors in place, I have creatures treat them as the minimal threats that they are and focus on the bigger threats of the party.
In dungeons there are almost always a series of interconnected rooms and hallways. When the combat starts, as it reaches it's climax, consider what neighboring rooms might hear. Will one of the creatures they're fighting call out for aid? Will the din of combat echo down the halls warning the other creatures to set up defensive positions? Will the groups of monsters re-position themselves for an ambush? The creatures of the dungeon will react to the players, it is not a static location, make the place come alive and become a threat by having the dungeon respond to the players.
In many rooms there will be furniture, there will be fallen walls, hazardous walkways, and more. Use this, give your creatures the knowledge that there is a weak point in the floor of the room and taunt the players to approach. Now the players have to deal with a collapsed floor and potentially losing a member until they can make their way back. Is there only a rope bridge to cross to get from point A to point B? Well how do they respond to the ropes being cut? Are there pits of acid, or large fires in the room? Have the creatures try to toss the players into the hazards, use the hazards to augment attacks, use the hazards as obstacles to provide cover for the creatures. The environment, when used properly, can completely change the tone of a combat.
Just as with the players, the creatures will try to win in combat, but they will avoid death at all costs. There are exceptions to this, as with anything, but it is a good concept to remember. As the fight gets bad for the creatures, will they drop to the ground and beg for mercy? Will the creatures run, will only one creature run? Does the entire combat come to a screeching halt when the leader of the rabble is defeated? Are some of the creatures completely scared witless and spend the entire combat hiding behind the curtains? Give a little thought into how the creatures respond to combat and use that to adjust how they act as the rounds go on.
An example: When goblins get the drop:
I DM'd a game recently with five level 5 players, half were experienced players, one was new to the game, one was a power-gamer rules-layer.
The party had just finished a long rest in a small nook at the base of a series of outcroppings that led into a cave system. The outcroppings jutted out from the wall about 8 feet, they were spaced apart enough that you could jump down without suffering fall damage, and there were seven of them leading from the surface to the cavern floor. Opposite where the party had taken their rest was a good sized opening in the wall which led into the cave system proper, otherwise the area was just a barren spot at the bottom of a hole. What the party was unaware of was that this was the entrance to a goblin village, and this hole was their way up to the surface.
As they broke camp to begin exploring they heard a strange noise echoing down the hole and they looked back up to the surface. They watched as eight goblins started to descend, hopping from outcrop to outcrop. The goblins noticed the party and began raining arrows down on the party. They'd fire a shot, use their bonus action to hide against the wall in the shadows and plink away at the party. Due to the height advantage, the outcropping providing cover, and the shadows assisting in their stealth rolls, the goblins were very difficult to pick off. One of the goblins took out a horn and blew a resounding note, the party heard war drums from the direction of the cave opening. Three turns later four goblins charged in from the cave, the party was surrounded.
This was eight 1/4 cr creatures against five level 5 players, it turned into twelve after the alarm was sounded. If you look this combat up using KFC, or other encounter calculators, you will see that it is considered Easy but just bordering on Medium. The players were fully rested, so they had access to all of their spells and abilities. I almost TPK'd them, I dropped two of them to death saving throws, one fell at the end of the fight but was healed, and the remaining two were at half health. I didn't add any abilities to the goblins, I didn't change any of the weapons, I didn't even roll particularly well, only 2 crits.
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A few years ago I had a late-game campaign with two guys who could crank out obscene DPR that made straightforward encounters trivial. One way I made things more interesting was to give monsters invulnerability or very powerful regeneration that came from a mechanic the party had to disrupt before the monster could be killed.
E.g. a powerful devil channeled life-energy from nearby soul stones; the players had to either break the stones or disrupt the energy flow, then they nuked his evil arse.
They had a blast with it.
Can modify it any number of ways too, e.g. instead of strong defenses, the monsters have devastating attacks that must be avoided or neutralized.
Track HP at start of the round. Damage to the blood blight causes it to bleed profusely. If it is killed, the amount of hp it had at the beginning of the round is how much it explodes for in a X foot radius as the blood and guts release catastrophically. X = remaining HP at start of round.
Example: If the Blood Blight has 30 hp at start of round and the party does 30 hp to it, it explodes for 30 in a 30 foot radius.
Infected Blood Blight
Same as above but in addition, targets hit by the blood burst are hit by swarm of rot grubs
Hi All,
I've been DMing Tomb of Annihilation for a group that basically slaughters everything they encounter in the first turn or two. I've tried balancing encounters by adding hit points, adding monsters, giving the monsters a free turn sometimes, and trying to wear characters out with multiple encounters between rests. I've tried the guidelines for encounter balance both from the DMG and Xanathar's.
Because the party does so much damage so fast, encounters never develop in an interesting way. I rarely get around to using monster's special abilities and characters never seem to need to think through how they'll use terrain or movement, or some other environmental feature because they can just blast everything they see. I've tried hordes, I've tried single monsters.
It's gotten to the point where the players sometimes avoid combat just because its kind of boring rolling of dice.
Any suggestions on what to do?
First, figure out what your players' tactics are, that will help with the rest of the process. Next, there is more to combat than monsters, and there is more than one room in most dungeons. Further more, the environment is not necessarily static and the creatures can interact with everything just the same as the players. Lastly, just as with the players, each creature has their own personality and approach to conflict.
If you can narrow down what types of tactics the players use you can figure out where they have gaps in their defense or offense that can be exploited. I have a party of 6, two of the party are very much the weak links, and I use that to my advantage. One party member has a low AC and doesn't do much to buff themselves when combat becomes a reality. So sending in creatures to interrupt her spells and harass her is a very common thing. The other player is a rogue but almost never uses Cunning Action. Instead they prefer to stand as far away from melee as possible and fire off arrows, or holding their action until something triggers a ranged attack. This player is almost never any good against mobile creatures and only deals about half their possible damage. With those two factors in place, I have creatures treat them as the minimal threats that they are and focus on the bigger threats of the party.
In dungeons there are almost always a series of interconnected rooms and hallways. When the combat starts, as it reaches it's climax, consider what neighboring rooms might hear. Will one of the creatures they're fighting call out for aid? Will the din of combat echo down the halls warning the other creatures to set up defensive positions? Will the groups of monsters re-position themselves for an ambush? The creatures of the dungeon will react to the players, it is not a static location, make the place come alive and become a threat by having the dungeon respond to the players.
In many rooms there will be furniture, there will be fallen walls, hazardous walkways, and more. Use this, give your creatures the knowledge that there is a weak point in the floor of the room and taunt the players to approach. Now the players have to deal with a collapsed floor and potentially losing a member until they can make their way back. Is there only a rope bridge to cross to get from point A to point B? Well how do they respond to the ropes being cut? Are there pits of acid, or large fires in the room? Have the creatures try to toss the players into the hazards, use the hazards to augment attacks, use the hazards as obstacles to provide cover for the creatures. The environment, when used properly, can completely change the tone of a combat.
Just as with the players, the creatures will try to win in combat, but they will avoid death at all costs. There are exceptions to this, as with anything, but it is a good concept to remember. As the fight gets bad for the creatures, will they drop to the ground and beg for mercy? Will the creatures run, will only one creature run? Does the entire combat come to a screeching halt when the leader of the rabble is defeated? Are some of the creatures completely scared witless and spend the entire combat hiding behind the curtains? Give a little thought into how the creatures respond to combat and use that to adjust how they act as the rounds go on.
An example: When goblins get the drop:
I DM'd a game recently with five level 5 players, half were experienced players, one was new to the game, one was a power-gamer rules-layer.
The party had just finished a long rest in a small nook at the base of a series of outcroppings that led into a cave system. The outcroppings jutted out from the wall about 8 feet, they were spaced apart enough that you could jump down without suffering fall damage, and there were seven of them leading from the surface to the cavern floor. Opposite where the party had taken their rest was a good sized opening in the wall which led into the cave system proper, otherwise the area was just a barren spot at the bottom of a hole. What the party was unaware of was that this was the entrance to a goblin village, and this hole was their way up to the surface.
As they broke camp to begin exploring they heard a strange noise echoing down the hole and they looked back up to the surface. They watched as eight goblins started to descend, hopping from outcrop to outcrop. The goblins noticed the party and began raining arrows down on the party. They'd fire a shot, use their bonus action to hide against the wall in the shadows and plink away at the party. Due to the height advantage, the outcropping providing cover, and the shadows assisting in their stealth rolls, the goblins were very difficult to pick off. One of the goblins took out a horn and blew a resounding note, the party heard war drums from the direction of the cave opening. Three turns later four goblins charged in from the cave, the party was surrounded.
This was eight 1/4 cr creatures against five level 5 players, it turned into twelve after the alarm was sounded. If you look this combat up using KFC, or other encounter calculators, you will see that it is considered Easy but just bordering on Medium. The players were fully rested, so they had access to all of their spells and abilities. I almost TPK'd them, I dropped two of them to death saving throws, one fell at the end of the fight but was healed, and the remaining two were at half health. I didn't add any abilities to the goblins, I didn't change any of the weapons, I didn't even roll particularly well, only 2 crits.
That was super interesting and helpful, thanks DMThac0
If you can stomach the writing style, there's a lot of gold advice about scaling & running combat amongst the 150K words of ranting, here.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
A few years ago I had a late-game campaign with two guys who could crank out obscene DPR that made straightforward encounters trivial. One way I made things more interesting was to give monsters invulnerability or very powerful regeneration that came from a mechanic the party had to disrupt before the monster could be killed.
E.g. a powerful devil channeled life-energy from nearby soul stones; the players had to either break the stones or disrupt the energy flow, then they nuked his evil arse.
They had a blast with it.
Can modify it any number of ways too, e.g. instead of strong defenses, the monsters have devastating attacks that must be avoided or neutralized.
Blood Blight
Track HP at start of the round. Damage to the blood blight causes it to bleed profusely. If it is killed, the amount of hp it had at the beginning of the round is how much it explodes for in a X foot radius as the blood and guts release catastrophically. X = remaining HP at start of round.
Example: If the Blood Blight has 30 hp at start of round and the party does 30 hp to it, it explodes for 30 in a 30 foot radius.
Infected Blood Blight
Same as above but in addition, targets hit by the blood burst are hit by swarm of rot grubs
"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