Hey I'm running a one shot for like seven of 7s and I'm wondering if you think that they would be able to take on a cr 15 boss monster? And if it is too much what cr do you think would be good.
For a one shot if your goal is to TPK the party a CR 15 would do the trick. If the goal is for them to win, that's going to depend on a lot of factors. Putting CR15 with PHB, MM, VGM, and MTF as sources for a party of 7 players at 7th level into the DDB encounter builder, any CR15 is going to be a deadly encounter when going by CR/XP threshholds alone. Action economy, DPR, any magic items the players wear or wield, these will all influence how the fight could come out. These are all things in your control when designing the encounter.
Personally I might go with a CR 9-10 BBEG and give them CR 1 or less minions. Or a lower CR boss (as low as 7) but give the boss some lair actions or legendary resistances if you don't want to have minions the party has to get through (or circumvent) to get to the BBEG. Knowing my party, I would put minions all over the place. They have a tendency to get lucky and enter the dungeon in such a way that they end up going straight to the boss fight. (Did it in LMoP in both Cragmaw Castle and the mines.)
Other considerations would be how fresh they are coming into the fight. If they've had to fight through minions to get there and get no short or long rest they could be hurting badly by the time they get to the final encounter. If there are no minions or they circumvent them then the final fight will be vastly different.
Hard to say. This depends on the kind of party and the kind of monster. Some high CR monsters are very weak to certain classes. Spellcasters without high CON tend to be weak to Monks. Undead tend to be weak to prepared Druids and some Paladins. Against that many PCs, though, definitely a good idea to have some minions and a lancer or two to take some of the heat off your boss monster.
The way the difficulty is designed, parties are supposed to be able to handle 3 or 4 "Deadly" encounters in a day (between long rests) So if you want a big epic one shot you'll probably want to make it a bit harder than the bottomline "deadly" or make it more complex.
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Hey I'm running a one shot for like seven of 7s and I'm wondering if you think that they would be able to take on a cr 15 boss monster? And if it is too much what cr do you think would be good.
For a one shot if your goal is to TPK the party a CR 15 would do the trick. If the goal is for them to win, that's going to depend on a lot of factors. Putting CR15 with PHB, MM, VGM, and MTF as sources for a party of 7 players at 7th level into the DDB encounter builder, any CR15 is going to be a deadly encounter when going by CR/XP threshholds alone. Action economy, DPR, any magic items the players wear or wield, these will all influence how the fight could come out. These are all things in your control when designing the encounter.
Personally I might go with a CR 9-10 BBEG and give them CR 1 or less minions. Or a lower CR boss (as low as 7) but give the boss some lair actions or legendary resistances if you don't want to have minions the party has to get through (or circumvent) to get to the BBEG. Knowing my party, I would put minions all over the place. They have a tendency to get lucky and enter the dungeon in such a way that they end up going straight to the boss fight. (Did it in LMoP in both Cragmaw Castle and the mines.)
Other considerations would be how fresh they are coming into the fight. If they've had to fight through minions to get there and get no short or long rest they could be hurting badly by the time they get to the final encounter. If there are no minions or they circumvent them then the final fight will be vastly different.
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Seven level sevens will eat a CR15 alive in a head to head battle. You will want to be clever about it.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Hard to say. This depends on the kind of party and the kind of monster. Some high CR monsters are very weak to certain classes. Spellcasters without high CON tend to be weak to Monks. Undead tend to be weak to prepared Druids and some Paladins. Against that many PCs, though, definitely a good idea to have some minions and a lancer or two to take some of the heat off your boss monster.
Ok thanks everyone!
The way the difficulty is designed, parties are supposed to be able to handle 3 or 4 "Deadly" encounters in a day (between long rests)
So if you want a big epic one shot you'll probably want to make it a bit harder than the bottomline "deadly" or make it more complex.