I'm a brand new DM going through my first campaign with two of my friends. We have a lot of fun, and I try to make it balanced between RP and combat, and so far things are pretty good. They're eager for adventure and treasure, which I am more than happy to provide!
However, a little thing I'm taking issue with is that my encounters are starting to become a little too easy for my players. On one hand, I want them to be powerful, because this is a party with only three members (a rogue, a warlock and a cleric) and I don't want a casual encounter to kill them, but on the other hand, They killed a crew of 50+ members (my rolls for the enemies were pretty bad, but still) and in the last session, they killed the boss with relative ease.
Any advice? Should I simply make the enemies harder? I'm thinking of homebrewing some encounters of my own that don't constantly miss but don't hit like semitrucks either.
Can you describe a typical encounter for you? Monster CRs, party level, the amount of magic items they have. It's a bit strange to struggle so much, raising the CR of the monsters should result in hard combats. How'd they take out 50 enemies on their own?
We're using Ghosts of Saltmarsh to go off a lot of encounters, and since it's still in the beginning, most monsters range from 1/2 CR to 1 CR. They have had no magic items up until the last session ( didn't use them in the boss fight ) and everyone is level 4. When I write it down like this, the problem seems obvious that it's probably the level difference, haha!
Them winning against 50 enemies was probably because of mistakes on my part... I divided the crew into groups and rolled for each group as though they were a single enemy. For example, 10 goblins had a turn, 10 kobolds had a turn... Then I would would roll 10d20 and see which ones in the group would hit. It wasn't very ideal, but I think next time if the players want to pick a fight with a group that size, I won't go very easy on them, haha
Consider a variation of the Minion rule next time for large packs of weenies.
Minions have 1HP; when they lose it, they ded. When a minion's attack hits it always deals average damage (i.e. the flat number given in its stat block). When they get a save to take half damage from an AoE source and succeed, they take no damage instead. When a source of damage works automatically, with no roll or no save, over an area (RADIANT FRIGGIN' CONSUMPTION AASIMAR, FOR INSTANCE), that effect deals damage as normal to non-minions, but can only affect one minion in its radius every round. Otherwise minions work as normal monsters.
The intent is to make hordes of weak foes very much still hordes of attackers, a serious offensive threat to a band of heroes, but to also act like faceless nameless goobers that're being controlled by the Master that's fielding his Minions. Minions minimize dice-rolling - they never survive a successful attack and they get no damage dice, but ten minionized goblins can still deliver ten attacks against the heroes. Twenty, or fifty, minions would lose a chunk of their number to the hero every round, but sheer numbers should give them enough offensive presence to be a severe threat to the heroes. Even assuming the heroes manage to kill half of them on the first turn and half the remainder miss, twelve successful hits should be super worrisome for a three-man party of level 4 characters.
Beyond that? Play with terrain, make it advantageous for the enemy. Fights where you start at a disadvantage you have to overcome are inherently more interesting. Put archers on the high ground, remind your players that cover exists. Put difficult terrain or water features on the map, and then give the critters whose home it is an easier time getting around that terrain. Put a ticking clock on the fight - maybe that goblin troop has a salvaged blackpowder cannon they're preparing to unleash on the heroes and they only have three rounds before the gun goes off and somebody's rolling an OH GOD WHY ME save. Introduce weather variables - driving rain that gives disadvantage on ranged attacks and turns any dirt surfaces into cloying, Difficult Terrain'd mud, for instance. Or night fights where you actually use the lighting rules and enforce the limits of Darkvision.
There's lots of ways to change the parameters of a fight beyond Pokemon Battle flat-field, I-swing-my-sword combat.
Oh man, that's a good idea! I wasn't even aware of the Minion rule. I'll be sure to use this the next time my players try to fight a big group. Same for manipulating the playing field to the enemies' advantage. Thank you!
Minions are apparently something from 4e that didn't make the cut to 5e. Found it in a video online, glommed onto it as a nice, easy way to crank up the pressure on players. Generally, a PC party needs to be outnumbered before they're really threatened unless they're fighting a truly godawful critter. I much prefer running encounters with multiple dissimilar enemies in it myself, make my players deal with both melee and ranged attackers and enemies who use tactics and terrain intelligently. if they're not fungus-infected zombies, anyways.
We're using Ghosts of Saltmarsh to go off a lot of encounters, and since it's still in the beginning, most monsters range from 1/2 CR to 1 CR. They have had no magic items up until the last session ( didn't use them in the boss fight ) and everyone is level 4. When I write it down like this, the problem seems obvious that it's probably the level difference, haha!
Depending on the quantity of the monsters, that's not necessarily a problem. The way 5e is designed, the baseline attack bonus for even low CR monsters is high enough and player AC scales slowly enough that even a CR 1/4 creature can pose a threat to higher level characters, at least as long as it can keep itself alive.
Them winning against 50 enemies was probably because of mistakes on my part... I divided the crew into groups and rolled for each group as though they were a single enemy. For example, 10 goblins had a turn, 10 kobolds had a turn... Then I would would roll 10d20 and see which ones in the group would hit. It wasn't very ideal, but I think next time if the players want to pick a fight with a group that size, I won't go very easy on them, haha
That's the by-the-book way of handling identical monsters; you roll initiative once for the whole group. This is really bad for the players if the monster groups are large because they can take a large number of actions without the players being able to respond.
A group that large should've had the upper hand against the players. Humanoid enemies are smart enough to prioritize less armored characters and can recognize spellcasters; they should've been focus-firing on one character at a time, starting with the warlock and ending with the cleric.
If the players ever engaged the enemies up close, both sets of monsters would've had an even bigger advantage. A large group can shove a character prone and then have multiple enemies grapple them to make sure they stay down. This is an incredibly dangerous situation for the players because not only will enemies have advantage on melee attacks, but the players also have disadvantage on their own attacks. The goblins would've been particularly good at this because Nimble Escape would let them retreat safely if they fail a grapple or shove to make room for another goblin. Having even a single ally (kobold or otherwise) next to a player character would've allowed every single kobold to gain advantage on their attack rolls, even their ranged attacks.
Large groups of enemies that are used to these kinds of mass combat situations would also be smart enough to spread out into smaller groups if space allows to minimize the chances of all getting caught in an area spell.
Minions are apparently something from 4e that didn't make the cut to 5e.
5e didn't need a minion rule nearly as badly as 4e because it's built on very different assumptions. 5e has a relatively narrow range of roll bonuses and AC/DC numbers that scale slowly with levels. 4e had a very wide range of bonuses and DCs that scaled quickly with level. A low level monster couldn't pose a serious threat to much higher level characters the way low CR creatures do in 5e. Minions were a way of having high level monsters that are still quick to kill.
Additionally, 4e used fixed HP values for monsters. 5e monsters have a fixed average HP, but the DM is free to change their HP to any value that their hit dice could roll. The DM can drastically reduce the HP of low CR monsters by just assuming they rolled a 1 on every hit die. For instance, a CR 1 bugbear goes from 27 average HP to just 10.
And sure, the higher CR monsters still won't be in one-shot range if you do that, but having a 1 HP version of something as powerful as a young dragon doesn't make much sense either.
As an alternative to the minion rules, you can instead use the mob attack rules in the DMG chapter 8. It mostly keeps the average damage of a large number of enemies without all the rolling. A group of enemies will score roughly their average number of hits each round.
Also, you might want to consider the cleaving rules from chapter 9 if the enemies are weak enough to go down in a single attack.
Wha? How did they even survive? Even with level 4 characters, there's only three of them. From Kobold Fight Club, 50 CR 1/4 acolytes comes out to 2,500 XP unadjusted, or 10,000 XP when you adjust for number of enemies. A "deadly" level encounter for that number of PCs runs in at about 1,500 XP.
Acolytes have a +2 to hit, and do 1d4 damage. Your players' AC should be what, 17 at most? Maybe 19 or 20 for the cleric if they have a shield. So, they should hit the rogue about 1/4 of the time. There's about 16 baddies per PC. That's 4 hits per round on average. So 10hp per round damage. Your rogue probably has about 35-38 HP? That should get deadly really fast. The rogue doesn't get extra attacks like a fighter.
Kobolds are worse - they get a +4 to attack, so they'll hit 30% of the time instead of 20%, and do more damage per hit. Same for goblins - they also have +4 to hit, and do d6 damage instead of d4.
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Hey, all!
I'm a brand new DM going through my first campaign with two of my friends. We have a lot of fun, and I try to make it balanced between RP and combat, and so far things are pretty good. They're eager for adventure and treasure, which I am more than happy to provide!
However, a little thing I'm taking issue with is that my encounters are starting to become a little too easy for my players. On one hand, I want them to be powerful, because this is a party with only three members (a rogue, a warlock and a cleric) and I don't want a casual encounter to kill them, but on the other hand, They killed a crew of 50+ members (my rolls for the enemies were pretty bad, but still) and in the last session, they killed the boss with relative ease.
Any advice? Should I simply make the enemies harder? I'm thinking of homebrewing some encounters of my own that don't constantly miss but don't hit like semitrucks either.
Thank you!
Can you describe a typical encounter for you? Monster CRs, party level, the amount of magic items they have. It's a bit strange to struggle so much, raising the CR of the monsters should result in hard combats. How'd they take out 50 enemies on their own?
The Forum Infestation (TM)
We're using Ghosts of Saltmarsh to go off a lot of encounters, and since it's still in the beginning, most monsters range from 1/2 CR to 1 CR. They have had no magic items up until the last session ( didn't use them in the boss fight ) and everyone is level 4. When I write it down like this, the problem seems obvious that it's probably the level difference, haha!
Them winning against 50 enemies was probably because of mistakes on my part... I divided the crew into groups and rolled for each group as though they were a single enemy. For example, 10 goblins had a turn, 10 kobolds had a turn... Then I would would roll 10d20 and see which ones in the group would hit. It wasn't very ideal, but I think next time if the players want to pick a fight with a group that size, I won't go very easy on them, haha
Consider a variation of the Minion rule next time for large packs of weenies.
Minions have 1HP; when they lose it, they ded. When a minion's attack hits it always deals average damage (i.e. the flat number given in its stat block). When they get a save to take half damage from an AoE source and succeed, they take no damage instead. When a source of damage works automatically, with no roll or no save, over an area (RADIANT FRIGGIN' CONSUMPTION AASIMAR, FOR INSTANCE), that effect deals damage as normal to non-minions, but can only affect one minion in its radius every round. Otherwise minions work as normal monsters.
The intent is to make hordes of weak foes very much still hordes of attackers, a serious offensive threat to a band of heroes, but to also act like faceless nameless goobers that're being controlled by the Master that's fielding his Minions. Minions minimize dice-rolling - they never survive a successful attack and they get no damage dice, but ten minionized goblins can still deliver ten attacks against the heroes. Twenty, or fifty, minions would lose a chunk of their number to the hero every round, but sheer numbers should give them enough offensive presence to be a severe threat to the heroes. Even assuming the heroes manage to kill half of them on the first turn and half the remainder miss, twelve successful hits should be super worrisome for a three-man party of level 4 characters.
Beyond that? Play with terrain, make it advantageous for the enemy. Fights where you start at a disadvantage you have to overcome are inherently more interesting. Put archers on the high ground, remind your players that cover exists. Put difficult terrain or water features on the map, and then give the critters whose home it is an easier time getting around that terrain. Put a ticking clock on the fight - maybe that goblin troop has a salvaged blackpowder cannon they're preparing to unleash on the heroes and they only have three rounds before the gun goes off and somebody's rolling an OH GOD WHY ME save. Introduce weather variables - driving rain that gives disadvantage on ranged attacks and turns any dirt surfaces into cloying, Difficult Terrain'd mud, for instance. Or night fights where you actually use the lighting rules and enforce the limits of Darkvision.
There's lots of ways to change the parameters of a fight beyond Pokemon Battle flat-field, I-swing-my-sword combat.
Please do not contact or message me.
Oh man, that's a good idea! I wasn't even aware of the Minion rule. I'll be sure to use this the next time my players try to fight a big group. Same for manipulating the playing field to the enemies' advantage. Thank you!
Minions are apparently something from 4e that didn't make the cut to 5e. Found it in a video online, glommed onto it as a nice, easy way to crank up the pressure on players. Generally, a PC party needs to be outnumbered before they're really threatened unless they're fighting a truly godawful critter. I much prefer running encounters with multiple dissimilar enemies in it myself, make my players deal with both melee and ranged attackers and enemies who use tactics and terrain intelligently. if they're not fungus-infected zombies, anyways.
Please do not contact or message me.
Depending on the quantity of the monsters, that's not necessarily a problem. The way 5e is designed, the baseline attack bonus for even low CR monsters is high enough and player AC scales slowly enough that even a CR 1/4 creature can pose a threat to higher level characters, at least as long as it can keep itself alive.
That's the by-the-book way of handling identical monsters; you roll initiative once for the whole group. This is really bad for the players if the monster groups are large because they can take a large number of actions without the players being able to respond.
A group that large should've had the upper hand against the players. Humanoid enemies are smart enough to prioritize less armored characters and can recognize spellcasters; they should've been focus-firing on one character at a time, starting with the warlock and ending with the cleric.
If the players ever engaged the enemies up close, both sets of monsters would've had an even bigger advantage. A large group can shove a character prone and then have multiple enemies grapple them to make sure they stay down. This is an incredibly dangerous situation for the players because not only will enemies have advantage on melee attacks, but the players also have disadvantage on their own attacks. The goblins would've been particularly good at this because Nimble Escape would let them retreat safely if they fail a grapple or shove to make room for another goblin. Having even a single ally (kobold or otherwise) next to a player character would've allowed every single kobold to gain advantage on their attack rolls, even their ranged attacks.
Large groups of enemies that are used to these kinds of mass combat situations would also be smart enough to spread out into smaller groups if space allows to minimize the chances of all getting caught in an area spell.
5e didn't need a minion rule nearly as badly as 4e because it's built on very different assumptions. 5e has a relatively narrow range of roll bonuses and AC/DC numbers that scale slowly with levels. 4e had a very wide range of bonuses and DCs that scaled quickly with level. A low level monster couldn't pose a serious threat to much higher level characters the way low CR creatures do in 5e. Minions were a way of having high level monsters that are still quick to kill.
Additionally, 4e used fixed HP values for monsters. 5e monsters have a fixed average HP, but the DM is free to change their HP to any value that their hit dice could roll. The DM can drastically reduce the HP of low CR monsters by just assuming they rolled a 1 on every hit die. For instance, a CR 1 bugbear goes from 27 average HP to just 10.
And sure, the higher CR monsters still won't be in one-shot range if you do that, but having a 1 HP version of something as powerful as a young dragon doesn't make much sense either.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
As an alternative to the minion rules, you can instead use the mob attack rules in the DMG chapter 8. It mostly keeps the average damage of a large number of enemies without all the rolling. A group of enemies will score roughly their average number of hits each round.
Also, you might want to consider the cleaving rules from chapter 9 if the enemies are weak enough to go down in a single attack.
Wha? How did they even survive? Even with level 4 characters, there's only three of them. From Kobold Fight Club, 50 CR 1/4 acolytes comes out to 2,500 XP unadjusted, or 10,000 XP when you adjust for number of enemies. A "deadly" level encounter for that number of PCs runs in at about 1,500 XP.
Acolytes have a +2 to hit, and do 1d4 damage. Your players' AC should be what, 17 at most? Maybe 19 or 20 for the cleric if they have a shield. So, they should hit the rogue about 1/4 of the time. There's about 16 baddies per PC. That's 4 hits per round on average. So 10hp per round damage. Your rogue probably has about 35-38 HP? That should get deadly really fast. The rogue doesn't get extra attacks like a fighter.
Kobolds are worse - they get a +4 to attack, so they'll hit 30% of the time instead of 20%, and do more damage per hit. Same for goblins - they also have +4 to hit, and do d6 damage instead of d4.