Hello, I am working on a one shot and all the characters are level 10. I am struggling to figure out what the encounters should be. I am used to dming for level 4s, are I know how to keep encounters interesting/engaging. However since they are a much higher I wanted to test my limit and find I am at a loss.
The two encounters I am wanting is how do I make the party tracking the enemy interesting (the enemy fled through the forest.) And how as for the final boss what should I do? Just know the theme is woodland things, so if anyone could help. with that.
You might have run into these resources before. You can check out the Donjon 5e Random Encounter Generator. You can generate encounters based off environment and difficulty for a level 10 party. That can give you some ideas to start with. You can also play around with the Encounter Builder to build your own encounters that dial into a difficulty. That said, there are still a number of things you need to keep in mind regarding the number of encounters the players will have, the difficulty of those encounters, and the monster action economy in each encounter.
I think the DMG recommends 6-8 encounters per adventuring day most of which are Medium or Hard difficulty. That's a pretty packed day. You might be able to dial back the number of encounters back to 3-4 if you throw in a few Deadly encounters. At higher level I find it's important to keep the pressure on the party or the encounters just aren't that challenging. If they're walking into every encounter with all of their abilities on tap, they can drop their 2 most powerful abilities each, and the encounter is likely over. A fresh party can blitz through a couple Deadly encounters, especially if they outnumber the enemies. If you're running them through 8 Medium to Hard encounters, even with a few short rests interspersed, the party is going to be pretty low on resources by the end. In a woodland pursuit adventure you've got a built in mechanism to keep up the pressure. If the party stops too often to rest, then their quarry will get away. You can work in half a dozen encounters that the party runs into as they close on their quarry. Some might just be random wilderness encounters, some might be ambushes or traps that their quarry set, or they might lead the party past something dangerous in the hope of shaking their pursuers.
Just so we're on the same page, here's what is said about difficulties:
Easy. An easy encounter doesn’t tax the characters’ resources or put them in serious peril. They might lose a few hit points, but victory is pretty much guaranteed.
Medium. A medium encounter usually has one or two scary moments for the players, but the characters should emerge victorious with no casualties. One or more of them might need to use healing resources.
Hard. A hard encounter could go badly for the adventurers. Weaker characters might get taken out of the fight, and there’s a slim chance that one or more characters might die.
Deadly. A deadly encounter could be lethal for one or more player characters. Survival often requires good tactics and quick thinking, and the party risks defeat.
The danger of throwing multiple Deadly encounters at a party is that there's a fair chance one or more characters will die. Sometimes one bad group save in a Deadly encounter could spell doom for the party. One of the big deciders of an encounter outcome is the action economy, the number of actions each side can take. The challenge calculators try to crudely simulate this by multiplying the experience based on the number of opponents, increasing the experience (i.e. difficulty) the more monsters you add. Sometimes this leads to some really weird results like a solo monster being Easy, but if you add 1 kobold it becomes Deadly, so that's something to keep an eye on.
4 Owlbear would be a Medium encounter for 4 10th level characters as would 1 Guardian Naga, but those 2 encounters play out pretty differently. For the Owlbears they've got to get through almost 240 hp and the party must watch out for 8 attacks that could deal upwards of 96 damage a round to them. Of course, they have no range attacks, so a party with fly is barely inconvenienced. The Guardian Naga has half the hit point pool, a much better AC, and a ton of spells, but its action economy is much less. The naga only gets one attack or spell per round. If the naga upcasts Hold Person to 5th level and everyone fails, they're going to have a bad time. If the party stuns or disrupts the naga somehow so it can't act, they can probably kill it before it gets a chance to act. Solo encounters can be swingy, especially when you push them up to Deadly. An Adult Black Dragon would be an appropriate Deadly encounter for a 10th level party, but has a good chance of just murdering them if they're unlucky or use poor tactics. Legendary creatures make good solo monsters because the Legendary Actions offset the action economy. The Guardian Naga only gets 1 action. The Black Dragon gets 3 attacks, a frightful presence and can take 3 legendary actions. That puts it on a square footing with a whole party.
Alright, I went through the rationale and thought behind my reasoning perhaps at more length than necessary but you have the context for my suggestions now.
I love the idea of a pursuit based adventure, since it keeps the pressure on and the party won't be able to Rest-scum their way through by taking short rests after every encounter. You should keep them on a clock and anytime they take to rest sets them back in pursuit of their quarry. You could even setup some kind of pursuit track mechanic to help you with this and you could throw in additional NPC actions based off how hot on their heels the party is. If they rest a bunch, maybe that gives their quarry enough time to setup a trap or hire some mercenaries to ambush them. You could run the one-shot entirely in a linear setup or you could try to build in a few more dynamic choices. Do they take the High Road or the Low Road? Do they rest now (and give their quarry time to prepare an ambush) or do they press on with fewer resources?
Some encounters and traps that jumped out at me from the Forest environment:
Traps that might be hastily constructed to slow or harm pursuers:
Bear Trap - minor inconvenience, slows party
Crossbow Trap - add poison to increase the threat
Falling Net Trap - minor inconvenience, slows party
Scything Blade Trap - probably more of a spiked deadfall, but you can use this mechanically.
Hazards. You could throw weather on top of another encounter to add difficulty to it. Maybe they can fly above trolls and shoot fire down on them, but what if there's a big storm that makes flying impossible and extinguishes all fires?
Heavy Precipitation - extinguishes flames, reduces their ability to spot, may slow them down and leave them more vulnerable to an ambush
Strong wind - extinguishes flames, disadvantage on ranged attacks, makes flying nearly impossible. You might even have a dangerous bridge crossing with winds.
Fording a river - could be another environmental obstacle they have to overcome, which might include Frigid Water, or Strength saves to resist the current.
Encounters:
Troll 2 (Medium), 3 (Hard)- maybe their quarry bribed the trolls or they moved past a known troll-lair to throw them off.
Treant + 4 Sprite (Hard) - another hazardous territory their quarry might lead them through. This could be more of a roleplaying encounter than a combat if they pass through a Fey wood where they aren't welcome and they have to negotiate passage to follow their quarry. Any eladrin like Autumn Eladrin or Unicorn could also work for an encounter like this.
3 Ettercap 6 Giant Spider (Medium) - the opposite end of the Fey, some spider monstrosities that might ambush them in a web-shrouded wood that the path passes through.
Adult Green Dragon (Deadly) - this would be a very scary encounter for a 10th level party, but not impossible. Ideally, there would be some clues that they would know what they're getting into. This could be a very dramatic conclusion. Were they racing to catch their quarry before the dragon's lair?
how many are they? As someone who regularly plays and DM's at tiers 3 and 4, I can tell you, around level 10-11-ish depending on the size of your party, picking monsters for an encounter becomes less formulaic and more "What looks cool". If your party is like mine (usually 5 or 6 people), at level 10, they can take just about anything shy of CR 15. By the time they are here, they have SO MANY tricks up their sleeves between all of them that they will usually manage to have a tool for anything. By the time my last party hit level 17, I was just picking ridiculous combinations of super high CR monsters and just thinking "Eh, They'll figure it out" and they ALWAYS had something to solve the issue.
However, if your party is like 3 people, ignore this lol
balancing changes drastically with number of players!
Hello, I am working on a one shot and all the characters are level 10. I am struggling to figure out what the encounters should be. I am used to dming for level 4s, are I know how to keep encounters interesting/engaging. However since they are a much higher I wanted to test my limit and find I am at a loss.
The two encounters I am wanting is how do I make the party tracking the enemy interesting (the enemy fled through the forest.) And how as for the final boss what should I do? Just know the theme is woodland things, so if anyone could help. with that.
A New DM up against the World
You might have run into these resources before. You can check out the Donjon 5e Random Encounter Generator. You can generate encounters based off environment and difficulty for a level 10 party. That can give you some ideas to start with. You can also play around with the Encounter Builder to build your own encounters that dial into a difficulty. That said, there are still a number of things you need to keep in mind regarding the number of encounters the players will have, the difficulty of those encounters, and the monster action economy in each encounter.
I think the DMG recommends 6-8 encounters per adventuring day most of which are Medium or Hard difficulty. That's a pretty packed day. You might be able to dial back the number of encounters back to 3-4 if you throw in a few Deadly encounters. At higher level I find it's important to keep the pressure on the party or the encounters just aren't that challenging. If they're walking into every encounter with all of their abilities on tap, they can drop their 2 most powerful abilities each, and the encounter is likely over. A fresh party can blitz through a couple Deadly encounters, especially if they outnumber the enemies. If you're running them through 8 Medium to Hard encounters, even with a few short rests interspersed, the party is going to be pretty low on resources by the end. In a woodland pursuit adventure you've got a built in mechanism to keep up the pressure. If the party stops too often to rest, then their quarry will get away. You can work in half a dozen encounters that the party runs into as they close on their quarry. Some might just be random wilderness encounters, some might be ambushes or traps that their quarry set, or they might lead the party past something dangerous in the hope of shaking their pursuers.
Just so we're on the same page, here's what is said about difficulties:
The danger of throwing multiple Deadly encounters at a party is that there's a fair chance one or more characters will die. Sometimes one bad group save in a Deadly encounter could spell doom for the party. One of the big deciders of an encounter outcome is the action economy, the number of actions each side can take. The challenge calculators try to crudely simulate this by multiplying the experience based on the number of opponents, increasing the experience (i.e. difficulty) the more monsters you add. Sometimes this leads to some really weird results like a solo monster being Easy, but if you add 1 kobold it becomes Deadly, so that's something to keep an eye on.
4 Owlbear would be a Medium encounter for 4 10th level characters as would 1 Guardian Naga, but those 2 encounters play out pretty differently. For the Owlbears they've got to get through almost 240 hp and the party must watch out for 8 attacks that could deal upwards of 96 damage a round to them. Of course, they have no range attacks, so a party with fly is barely inconvenienced. The Guardian Naga has half the hit point pool, a much better AC, and a ton of spells, but its action economy is much less. The naga only gets one attack or spell per round. If the naga upcasts Hold Person to 5th level and everyone fails, they're going to have a bad time. If the party stuns or disrupts the naga somehow so it can't act, they can probably kill it before it gets a chance to act. Solo encounters can be swingy, especially when you push them up to Deadly. An Adult Black Dragon would be an appropriate Deadly encounter for a 10th level party, but has a good chance of just murdering them if they're unlucky or use poor tactics. Legendary creatures make good solo monsters because the Legendary Actions offset the action economy. The Guardian Naga only gets 1 action. The Black Dragon gets 3 attacks, a frightful presence and can take 3 legendary actions. That puts it on a square footing with a whole party.
Alright, I went through the rationale and thought behind my reasoning perhaps at more length than necessary but you have the context for my suggestions now.
I love the idea of a pursuit based adventure, since it keeps the pressure on and the party won't be able to Rest-scum their way through by taking short rests after every encounter. You should keep them on a clock and anytime they take to rest sets them back in pursuit of their quarry. You could even setup some kind of pursuit track mechanic to help you with this and you could throw in additional NPC actions based off how hot on their heels the party is. If they rest a bunch, maybe that gives their quarry enough time to setup a trap or hire some mercenaries to ambush them. You could run the one-shot entirely in a linear setup or you could try to build in a few more dynamic choices. Do they take the High Road or the Low Road? Do they rest now (and give their quarry time to prepare an ambush) or do they press on with fewer resources?
Some encounters and traps that jumped out at me from the Forest environment:
Traps that might be hastily constructed to slow or harm pursuers:
Hazards. You could throw weather on top of another encounter to add difficulty to it. Maybe they can fly above trolls and shoot fire down on them, but what if there's a big storm that makes flying impossible and extinguishes all fires?
Encounters:
Troll 2 (Medium), 3 (Hard)- maybe their quarry bribed the trolls or they moved past a known troll-lair to throw them off.
Shambling Mound 2 (Medium), 3 (Hard)
Treant + 4 Sprite (Hard) - another hazardous territory their quarry might lead them through. This could be more of a roleplaying encounter than a combat if they pass through a Fey wood where they aren't welcome and they have to negotiate passage to follow their quarry. Any eladrin like Autumn Eladrin or Unicorn could also work for an encounter like this.
3 Ettercap 6 Giant Spider (Medium) - the opposite end of the Fey, some spider monstrosities that might ambush them in a web-shrouded wood that the path passes through.
5 Ghost (Hard) to pass through a haunted forest
Wyvern 2 (Medium), 3 (Deadly)
Adult Green Dragon (Deadly) - this would be a very scary encounter for a 10th level party, but not impossible. Ideally, there would be some clues that they would know what they're getting into. This could be a very dramatic conclusion. Were they racing to catch their quarry before the dragon's lair?
Hobgoblin or Drow could make for good challenges with a mix of Hobgoblin Warlord, Hobgoblin Devastator, or Drow Mage, Drow Elite Warrior. You can dial this to any difficulty.
Example Deadly Challenge:
how many are they? As someone who regularly plays and DM's at tiers 3 and 4, I can tell you, around level 10-11-ish depending on the size of your party, picking monsters for an encounter becomes less formulaic and more "What looks cool". If your party is like mine (usually 5 or 6 people), at level 10, they can take just about anything shy of CR 15. By the time they are here, they have SO MANY tricks up their sleeves between all of them that they will usually manage to have a tool for anything. By the time my last party hit level 17, I was just picking ridiculous combinations of super high CR monsters and just thinking "Eh, They'll figure it out" and they ALWAYS had something to solve the issue.
However, if your party is like 3 people, ignore this lol
balancing changes drastically with number of players!