I need to make an encounter based on wolves attacking a town's people and livestock, but the party will be level 5 by then. How can I make the encounter difficult without homebrew?
Try to make waves. Also surprise round is a very powerful stuff. You can have a ware wolves who lead them or difficulties which terrane /battlefield can provide. Or maybe they will need to escort safely 4 hp NPC.
or just don’t. Let your players feel cool with their new level. They are no longer weak ordinary guys. They are heroes and if 5 level barbarian will die because of a wolf..... it’s just lame
edit: oh and don’t forget about action economy. Make sure that wolves make 1 or 2 more attacks in round then whole your group
You could make is a puzzle more than dangerous to the party, so the party attack the wolf attack a town's guard who might be able to kill it on his own or save the livestock from certain death? You can also give them incomplete information (they don't know what is happening dnd the buildings they might hear a scream "somewhere" to the west. Do the party attack themone at a time allowing some to hurt / kill the villagers or wipe them out quickly with area attacks that might kill the villafgers with colatteral damage.
Alternatively a moderately large pack of dire wolves could provide a challenge to you party or you could have them led by a winter wolf or guardian wolf.
Fighting wolves as fifth level is arguably easy. Protecting a town and its livestock from wolves is hard. Have the wolves do surveillance and probing. The wolves are not going to stand for a pitched battle, they're going to take a pig, or child, and run.
Or, fairy tale plot twist, the wolves are actually the good forces, and the child or children they ran off with, the wolves are protecting them from something in the town. In my current group, about half the party work for a secret society which is sort of a mini Emerald Enclave type thing, and they live communally. One of the the characters added "has scar on her arm from wolf attack." In between main game story arc beats, I ran a one shot session for the heck of it where the players played the wolves involved in that moment, They didn't attack her, they were protecting her from Blights. New story layer to the present arc, "'why did they do that?"
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Unfortunately, unless you use ridiculous quantities, Wolves are simply not a challenge for level 5 chars.
Now, what I might recommend is adding/ substituting the following
a. They are Dire Wolves, but that is only a slight upgrade in the difficulty.
n. They are Werewolves (think the movie series of vampires versus werewolves, with Kate Beckinsale). Those are CR3 monsters. Now, a pack of those could be a challenge for level 5 chars.
In addition to a mix of wolves and dire wolves, you can also reskin the winter wolf so it deals appropriate damage based on the environment. The smaller, regular wolves harry the villagers and PCs with hit and run pack tactics while the dire wolves provide the stronger assault force and the retooled winter wolves provide the heavy hitters. The more powerful they are, the fewer of them there are. Using the encounter builder, you should be able to craft the encounter easily enough this way. Also, as others have said, the pack doesn’t always have to go after the PCs. Have them attack villagers and livestock. Your standard Commoner isn’t likely to last long against a couple of wolves, let alone a dire wolf or the reworked winter wolf.
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I need to make an encounter based on wolves attacking a town's people and livestock, but the party will be level 5 by then. How can I make the encounter difficult without homebrew?
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Try to make waves. Also surprise round is a very powerful stuff. You can have a ware wolves who lead them or difficulties which terrane /battlefield can provide. Or maybe they will need to escort safely 4 hp NPC.
or just don’t. Let your players feel cool with their new level. They are no longer weak ordinary guys. They are heroes and if 5 level barbarian will die because of a wolf..... it’s just lame
edit: oh and don’t forget about action economy. Make sure that wolves make 1 or 2 more attacks in round then whole your group
You could make is a puzzle more than dangerous to the party, so the party attack the wolf attack a town's guard who might be able to kill it on his own or save the livestock from certain death? You can also give them incomplete information (they don't know what is happening dnd the buildings they might hear a scream "somewhere" to the west. Do the party attack themone at a time allowing some to hurt / kill the villagers or wipe them out quickly with area attacks that might kill the villafgers with colatteral damage.
Alternatively a moderately large pack of dire wolves could provide a challenge to you party or you could have them led by a winter wolf or guardian wolf.
Fighting wolves as fifth level is arguably easy. Protecting a town and its livestock from wolves is hard. Have the wolves do surveillance and probing. The wolves are not going to stand for a pitched battle, they're going to take a pig, or child, and run.
Or, fairy tale plot twist, the wolves are actually the good forces, and the child or children they ran off with, the wolves are protecting them from something in the town. In my current group, about half the party work for a secret society which is sort of a mini Emerald Enclave type thing, and they live communally. One of the the characters added "has scar on her arm from wolf attack." In between main game story arc beats, I ran a one shot session for the heck of it where the players played the wolves involved in that moment, They didn't attack her, they were protecting her from Blights. New story layer to the present arc, "'why did they do that?"
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Unfortunately, unless you use ridiculous quantities, Wolves are simply not a challenge for level 5 chars.
Now, what I might recommend is adding/ substituting the following
a. They are Dire Wolves, but that is only a slight upgrade in the difficulty.
n. They are Werewolves (think the movie series of vampires versus werewolves, with Kate Beckinsale). Those are CR3 monsters. Now, a pack of those could be a challenge for level 5 chars.
In addition to a mix of wolves and dire wolves, you can also reskin the winter wolf so it deals appropriate damage based on the environment. The smaller, regular wolves harry the villagers and PCs with hit and run pack tactics while the dire wolves provide the stronger assault force and the retooled winter wolves provide the heavy hitters. The more powerful they are, the fewer of them there are. Using the encounter builder, you should be able to craft the encounter easily enough this way. Also, as others have said, the pack doesn’t always have to go after the PCs. Have them attack villagers and livestock. Your standard Commoner isn’t likely to last long against a couple of wolves, let alone a dire wolf or the reworked winter wolf.