Like the title says, I've never been a DM before, but I have been a player for a while. I've been working on a dnd 5e one shot (but friends kept asking to join, so it might end up being a 2 or 3 session saga haha). It's a horror theme, and they're going to start at level 18. I know, first time DMing at high level is challenging, but I think it will be more fun. And if I balance right, I can break into the more exciting sections of the monster manual. I ended up with six players. They are a rogue, a gunslinger, a bard, a cavalier fighter, a paladin, and a cleric (probably combat focus not support). I don't know all the subclasses yet.
So my question is this: I need help finding monsters that would make for good mini bosses. Something that won't take them an hour to kill, but that won't go down in a turn or two. It doesn't matter whether or not they fit the setting, most likely I'll take their stats and just re-skin them. With a group like this that could deal so much damage, I'm kind of concerned I might either grab something way too strong, or something that will die before the fight even really starts. In a pinch I can always just start adding HP, but ideally everything will be roughly in the right challenge rating beforehand.
Six lvl18 PC? To be honest biggest problem you have that players will kill anything you throw them relatively easely (unless its army of Tarrasques :) )...
For level 18s, they're going to need to fight a demon lord or a deity or something. And it probably should be in its lair... and have some decent minions.
Once you get to levels 15+ the best way I have found to “balance” an encounter (as in it is doable for the most part with a potential for them to lose) is to use an equivalent number of monsters for each player with CRs matching the player level. Roughly. Doesn’t need to be exactly that but roughly.
That is your baseline for the most they could reasonably handle in a single fight. It also operates on a couple of assumptions: the players are tactically competent in battle, they have a decent collection of magic items, and their characters will be full life and resources. If any of those aren’t true, lower the CR a few notches accordingly.
Also, expect the fight to go long. Especially with new players. It will take at least an hour, probably more. You can do your part to speed it up by studying the monster stat blocks you go with, so you aren’t reading them an trying to wrap your head around them during the session. You should also strategize about how you will use the monster to make the most of it.
Balancing for high level PCs is a lot trickier because of all the different ways they can kill the crap out of things at that level, which makes it harder to predict just how effectively they can handle different enemies. This would be much easier if it's an established campaign and you've been DMing for the group for a good period of time and know their strengths, weaknesses, and general style as both individuals and as a team but even then there are enough variables involved to make balancing feel like you're a compulsive gambler trying to develop a "system" for actually leaving a roulette wheel with a profit. So it isn't going to be easy to plan ahead for truly challenging fights that won't cause a TPK if multiple players get a few poorly timed bad die rolls.
That being said, for minibosses I would suggest starting light with the first one, something you're confident they can take out without too much trouble. Use this one as a warmup for both the party and yourself. If it's the first fight of the game and they know there's more to come they won't feel disappointed if they totally curb stomp it and it will help you as DM get a feel for how powerful the party is. I'm just getting my feet wet DMing 5e myself (though I used to DM a lot in 3.5), but I would suggest a single enemy at CR18 and three or four lower level enemies, maybe CR 12-14. Be careful about clustering your baddies, especially if the party includes multiple casters with AoE spells (might not be a huge issue with your party but bards and clerics do have some nasty spells available to them, especially at high level). Maybe have one or more of the creatures capable of healing others or at least healing themselves, or some form of regeneration.
Have your next fight or two planned as being similar, but also with options you can swap in or out to adjust the difficulty without the players knowing you're doing it. The easiest way to do this is increasing or decreasing the minions or other secondary threats. Sure, one or two PCs might be able to take out one or even three or four of those minions in a single turn but that means they aren't attacking the boss which now has another round to hammer them. Conversely, if they ignore the minions and focus on the boss, those minions will do less damage individually or even miss on some or most of their attacks, but if there are enough of them those smaller hits will quickly add up to pose a serious threat. You have a large party so that's a lot of actions directed at your monsters in a single turn, especially considering all the ****ery that high level characters are capable of; without extra bodies to soak up damage your boss will go down fast but a single, extra-buff enemy tough enough to last multiple rounds against their onslaught could quite easily take out any given PC in a single turn depending on how the dice fall and nobody will enjoy getting oneshotted by a huge monstrosity that got a crit on them. So more targets/threats is generally better and easier to balance.
Also, toss in some lair actions that don't necessarily do direct damage to the party but hamper them so they have to work to get their hits in; things that obscure vision to impose disadvantage on attacks, or hamper mobility against enemies that move around and attack from range. Preparing the battlefield with rough terrain and/or obstacles to act as cover and force PCs to maneuver around them to make direct line range attacks or limit how many can physically fit into spaces to deal melee damage at once. Making the players feel like they've actually worked to get the victory can make it satisfying even if that work is just trying to nail down an elusive foe rather than trading blows with one powerful enough to kill them quickly.
Also legendary actions: even if it's just the boss making extra attacks on the PCs' turns to up the danger level on demand. And make sure to have some legendary resistance handy for any boss that you want to pose a serious threat because at that level the party's casters are definitely going to have some spells that are effectively, if not literally, save or die and could easily end the fight on the first round if the boss gets a bad roll on it's saving throw. Yes, the monster choosing to not fail a save might seem cheap, but so is a spell that you could functionally replace the rules of with "Target makes a saving throw, if it fails you win the fight." And until it comes up, you don't even have to reveal that the monster has legendary resistance to begin with or how many uses thereof it has; if the party is having a tougher time than you expected you can just not use it and let that uberspell succeed to save the party from getting wiped without the players knowing you pulled your punches.
So I guess my advice boils down to planning a lot of smaller threats that you can selectively add to or remove from encounters after throwing them an easy fight to gauge their power level, instead of individual superdeath beasts on steroids that will either die pitifully or TPK if you misjudged the appropriate threat level.
I recommend doing the balancing in real time as you run the encounter. It does not make sense to try to balance it perfectly before running the encounter.
There are several tools to fine tune balance when you run the encounter:
Reinforcements/Retreats:
This is probably the easiest tool to use. You just throw more monster reinforcements if the encounter is too easy, or have low HP monsters retreat if the encounter is too hard. I recommend 2 to 4 monsters per wave and 2 waves of reinforcements max. You do not want to throw too many monsters at once or else it is hard to keep track of everything. You also do not want to just keep sending wave after wave of monsters, as that just unnecessarily drags out combat.
Similarly you can also give the party reinforcement, but this can feel too much like the GM hogging the spotlight, so I recommend doing this only for story purposes.
Variable HP/AC:
When you look at the HP in the stat block, it tells you the average HP of a monster. Instead of using that number, the stat block also lets you roll the HP to randomly generate a number. For our purposes, the only numbers we need to know are the minimum, average, and maximum HP. Our monsters can potentially go down as soon as its minimum HP threshold is reached, but that is only if the encounter is not going well at all for the party. So instead of a monster being killed after taking a specific amount of damage, the point is that you as the GM decide when the monster gets killed between then minimum and maximum HP range.
Similarly for variable AC, you can raise or lower your monsters' AC accordingly to make things easier or harder. Lowering it is pretty easy to flavor as armor falling off or the carapace being damaged. Raising AC is a bit more difficult to explain for some monsters, but humanoid monsters can just pick up a shield to raise their AC by 2.
I personally recommend sticking with variable HP. Variable AC is harder to keep track of, and I would only use it if variable HP is not enough.
Fudge Dice Rolls:
This is my favorite method personally since it gives you the desired result immediately. This is not possible for dice that is rolled publicly by the players, but you can certainly ignore whatever number your dice rolls are and determine what that number is. This is more of a tool for emergencies though and I generally only use it to save a PC's life.
I recommend doing the balancing in real time as you run the encounter. It does not make sense to try to balance it perfectly before running the encounter.
There are several tools to fine tune balance when you run the encounter:
Reinforcements/Retreats:
This is probably the easiest tool to use. You just throw more monster reinforcements if the encounter is too easy, or have low HP monsters retreat if the encounter is too hard. I recommend 2 to 4 monsters per wave and 2 waves of reinforcements max. You do not want to throw too many monsters at once or else it is hard to keep track of everything. You also do not want to just keep sending wave after wave of monsters, as that just unnecessarily drags out combat.
Similarly you can also give the party reinforcement, but this can feel too much like the GM hogging the spotlight, so I recommend doing this only for story purposes.
Variable HP/AC:
When you look at the HP in the stat block, it tells you the average HP of a monster. Instead of using that number, the stat block also lets you roll the HP to randomly generate a number. For our purposes, the only numbers we need to know are the minimum, average, and maximum HP. Our monsters can potentially go down as soon as its minimum HP threshold is reached, but that is only if the encounter is not going well at all for the party. So instead of a monster being killed after taking a specific amount of damage, the point is that you as the GM decide when the monster gets killed between then minimum and maximum HP range.
Similarly for variable AC, you can raise or lower your monsters' AC accordingly to make things easier or harder. Lowering it is pretty easy to flavor as armor falling off or the carapace being damaged. Raising AC is a bit more difficult to explain for some monsters, but humanoid monsters can just pick up a shield to raise their AC by 2.
I personally recommend sticking with variable HP. Variable AC is harder to keep track of, and I would only use it if variable HP is not enough.
Fudge Dice Rolls:
This is my favorite method personally since it gives you the desired result immediately. This is not possible for dice that is rolled publicly by the players, but you can certainly ignore whatever number your dice rolls are and determine what that number is. This is more of a tool for emergencies though and I generally only use it to save a PC's life.
I can’t recommend doing this. Fudging dice and altering stats behind the DM screen is a bad habit for new DMs to get into. The problem is that it ultimately cheapens the experience. The players didn’t triumph because of their heroics alone, they did because of the DM fudging things.
Thing is, it is Ok to have fights that are too easy. It is Ok to have fights that are too hard, and everything in between. That is how D&D works. There is nothing wrong with that, and DMs shouldn’t feel like a too easy or too hard fight was some sort of failing on their part that they need to fix through fudging.
Trust yourself and your encounters. Set them up and run it 100% by the dice. That is what makes the game so exciting for a DM. Of course you are rooting for the players, but don’t fudge or pull punches nonetheless.
Possibly not the most popular take, but can I counsel against the lvl 18 part? Is there an overriding reason for this? The best ways to give you a fighting chance of handling this properly are DMing experience, knowing the player dynamics in this group and knowing the characters. All three of these are missing. Furthermore, you're going with a horror theme, lvl 18 players are almost as close to godhood as you can get in regular 5E, there's six of them and it's a one-shot (even if it might take a few sessions). What's supposed to scare this oversized and overleveled party, and accomplish this without next to no buildup or foreshadowing opportunity? I don't have any problem with your goal here, but it feels like you have the deck stacked against you in every possible way.
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Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I recommend doing the balancing in real time as you run the encounter. It does not make sense to try to balance it perfectly before running the encounter.
There are several tools to fine tune balance when you run the encounter:
Reinforcements/Retreats:
This is probably the easiest tool to use. You just throw more monster reinforcements if the encounter is too easy, or have low HP monsters retreat if the encounter is too hard. I recommend 2 to 4 monsters per wave and 2 waves of reinforcements max. You do not want to throw too many monsters at once or else it is hard to keep track of everything. You also do not want to just keep sending wave after wave of monsters, as that just unnecessarily drags out combat.
Similarly you can also give the party reinforcement, but this can feel too much like the GM hogging the spotlight, so I recommend doing this only for story purposes.
Variable HP/AC:
When you look at the HP in the stat block, it tells you the average HP of a monster. Instead of using that number, the stat block also lets you roll the HP to randomly generate a number. For our purposes, the only numbers we need to know are the minimum, average, and maximum HP. Our monsters can potentially go down as soon as its minimum HP threshold is reached, but that is only if the encounter is not going well at all for the party. So instead of a monster being killed after taking a specific amount of damage, the point is that you as the GM decide when the monster gets killed between then minimum and maximum HP range.
Similarly for variable AC, you can raise or lower your monsters' AC accordingly to make things easier or harder. Lowering it is pretty easy to flavor as armor falling off or the carapace being damaged. Raising AC is a bit more difficult to explain for some monsters, but humanoid monsters can just pick up a shield to raise their AC by 2.
I personally recommend sticking with variable HP. Variable AC is harder to keep track of, and I would only use it if variable HP is not enough.
Fudge Dice Rolls:
This is my favorite method personally since it gives you the desired result immediately. This is not possible for dice that is rolled publicly by the players, but you can certainly ignore whatever number your dice rolls are and determine what that number is. This is more of a tool for emergencies though and I generally only use it to save a PC's life.
I can’t recommend doing this. Fudging dice and altering stats behind the DM screen is a bad habit for new DMs to get into. The problem is that it ultimately cheapens the experience. The players didn’t triumph because of their heroics alone, they did because of the DM fudging things.
Thing is, it is Ok to have fights that are too easy. It is Ok to have fights that are too hard, and everything in between. That is how D&D works. There is nothing wrong with that, and DMs shouldn’t feel like a too easy or too hard fight was some sort of failing on their part that they need to fix through fudging.
Trust yourself and your encounters. Set them up and run it 100% by the dice. That is what makes the game so exciting for a DM. Of course you are rooting for the players, but don’t fudge or pull punches nonetheless.
I am of the opinion that the GM is the final authority of what happens at the table, and that means both RAW and dice are subservient to the GM. GMs can certainly let RAW and dice decide what happens, but GMs should not feel like they are obligated to follow them.
Additionally for new GMs, they should know about all the tools available to them and add them to their toolbox. They can decide later whether they want to use the tools or not when the time comes.
I agree that is okay to have encounters that are too easy or too hard, but since the OP specified for and actually wants balance, that balance is best achieved by fine tuning the balance in real time, not through planning. Plans can easily go out the window at the literal roll of the dice or the player doing something unexpected. And for a horror campaign, you might not want the party to be completely wiped at the wrong moment. Tailoring the encounter so the players barely crawl out of the jaws of defeat can better set the atmosphere without wasting time drawing up new characters.
I agree that is okay to have encounters that are too easy or too hard, but since the OP specified for and actually wants balance, that balance is best achieved by fine tuning the balance in real time, not through planning. Plans can easily go out the window at the literal roll of the dice or the player doing something unexpected.
I'm not sure I consider that (im)balance, to be honest. A die roll doesn't make the difference between an encounter being balanced or not. Neither does what the players come up with to defeat it or whether they manage to do so without losses or not. A balanced encounter is a fair one, no more, no less. There are no guarantees with "fair". Not that there isn't room for alternative approaches in D&D, but the norm is that the dice matter.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I agree that is okay to have encounters that are too easy or too hard, but since the OP specified for and actually wants balance, that balance is best achieved by fine tuning the balance in real time, not through planning. Plans can easily go out the window at the literal roll of the dice or the player doing something unexpected. And for a horror campaign, you might not want the party to be completely wiped at the wrong moment. Tailoring the encounter so the players barely crawl out of the jaws of defeat can better set the atmosphere without wasting time drawing up new characters.
This sounds a lot like you're saying "Don't worry about balance or even stats, just arbitrarily decide what happens by pretending to roll dice and track HP behind the screen but just say hits happen when you want them to and the monsters die when you say so." While that's technically storytelling, it sure isn't DMing and it isn't even playing D&D. It's telling a prewritten narrative while pretending to be playing D&D.
I can’t recommend doing this. Fudging dice and altering stats behind the DM screen is a bad habit for new DMs to get into. The problem is that it ultimately cheapens the experience. The players didn’t triumph because of their heroics alone, they did because of the DM fudging things.
Thing is, it is Ok to have fights that are too easy. It is Ok to have fights that are too hard, and everything in between. That is how D&D works. There is nothing wrong with that, and DMs shouldn’t feel like a too easy or too hard fight was some sort of failing on their part that they need to fix through fudging.
Trust yourself and your encounters. Set them up and run it 100% by the dice. That is what makes the game so exciting for a DM. Of course you are rooting for the players, but don’t fudge or pull punches nonetheless.
I am of the opinion that the GM is the final authority of what happens at the table, and that means both RAW and dice are subservient to the GM. GMs can certainly let RAW and dice decide what happens, but GMs should not feel like they are obligated to follow them.
Additionally for new GMs, they should know about all the tools available to them and add them to their toolbox. They can decide later whether they want to use the tools or not when the time comes.
I agree that is okay to have encounters that are too easy or too hard, but since the OP specified for and actually wants balance, that balance is best achieved by fine tuning the balance in real time, not through planning. Plans can easily go out the window at the literal roll of the dice or the player doing something unexpected. And for a horror campaign, you might not want the party to be completely wiped at the wrong moment. Tailoring the encounter so the players barely crawl out of the jaws of defeat can better set the atmosphere without wasting time drawing up new characters.
Respectfully, I couldn’t possibly disagree with you more. The DM is not above the dice and RAW (or at least rules as agreed upon by the table, doesn’t necessarily need to be RAW, per se) he/she is the judge that upholds these laws of the table.
And look I’m not saying fudging doesn’t have its place. It does. For instance if the players have already clearly won a fight I might fudge a straggler monster’s attack to stop it from dealing an annoying amount of damage right before being put down.
However we shouldn’t be encouraging brand new DMs to go into the game with a specific mindset of “oh I can just fudge anything when it suits me to get whatever outcome I want, that is a normal thing to do”. That’s all I’m trying to say.
I agree that is okay to have encounters that are too easy or too hard, but since the OP specified for and actually wants balance, that balance is best achieved by fine tuning the balance in real time, not through planning. Plans can easily go out the window at the literal roll of the dice or the player doing something unexpected.
I'm not sure I consider that (im)balance, to be honest. A die roll doesn't make the difference between an encounter being balanced or not. Neither does what the players come up with to defeat it or whether they manage to do so without losses or not. A balanced encounter is a fair one, no more, no less. There are no guarantees with "fair". Not that there isn't room for alternative approaches in D&D, but the norm is that the dice matter.
The norm is that the dice decides for the GM, but I do not think GMs need to necessarily stick with one set of traditional tools when alternative tools are out there, especially for new GMs who may need more tools to counteract inexperience to achieve the desired result they want.
In this case, the GM does not want to kill the party, at least not accidentally. Fudging is an additional set of emergency brakes that the GM can use to prevent death, especially if this is their first time running a combat encounter and they want to threaten the players with lethal force, but not actually kill them.
I agree that is okay to have encounters that are too easy or too hard, but since the OP specified for and actually wants balance, that balance is best achieved by fine tuning the balance in real time, not through planning. Plans can easily go out the window at the literal roll of the dice or the player doing something unexpected. And for a horror campaign, you might not want the party to be completely wiped at the wrong moment. Tailoring the encounter so the players barely crawl out of the jaws of defeat can better set the atmosphere without wasting time drawing up new characters.
This sounds a lot like you're saying "Don't worry about balance or even stats, just arbitrarily decide what happens by pretending to roll dice and track HP behind the screen but just say hits happen when you want them to and the monsters die when you say so." While that's technically storytelling, it sure isn't DMing and it isn't even playing D&D. It's telling a prewritten narrative while pretending to be playing D&D.
Trying to balance an encounter before running it, but not actually balancing it during real time, is like picking a cooking recipe and not allowing yourself to make changes, despite during cooking you find out that it tastes too bland or too salty for your own preferences. Especially for new cooks (and GMs), they especially need to get used to the idea that they are in charge in the kitchen, and not the recipe (RAW/dice). Besides sustenance, the point of cooking is to make something you want to actually eat, not follow a recipe. For D&D, the ultimate point is having fun, not blindly following RAW/dice.
Variable HP can speed up and slow down combat as necessary to last the desired amount of turns, and can also be used as an additional way to indirectly manage the party's resources, as short/long rests might not make sense depending on the moment in a horror campaign. The GM might also want additional ways to slow down or speed up the rate the party is using spells slots, superiority dice, etc. before a boss fight. The GM wants the party to feel "Oh shit, I am down to my last spell slot, should I cast Fireball on the enemy or myself?" not "I am locked and loaded, bring it on, tough guy!", and nothing kills horror better than the latter where the characters feel they have power and control at the wrong moment.
Fudging dice can be used in a variety of ways, but I am not going to judge how a GM uses it as long as the entire table is having fun. I have only used it to save characters' lives, but GMs can certainly use it in other ways force other results.
D&D can be played in a variety of ways, and I do not believe there is a true way to play D&D.
I can’t recommend doing this. Fudging dice and altering stats behind the DM screen is a bad habit for new DMs to get into. The problem is that it ultimately cheapens the experience. The players didn’t triumph because of their heroics alone, they did because of the DM fudging things.
Thing is, it is Ok to have fights that are too easy. It is Ok to have fights that are too hard, and everything in between. That is how D&D works. There is nothing wrong with that, and DMs shouldn’t feel like a too easy or too hard fight was some sort of failing on their part that they need to fix through fudging.
Trust yourself and your encounters. Set them up and run it 100% by the dice. That is what makes the game so exciting for a DM. Of course you are rooting for the players, but don’t fudge or pull punches nonetheless.
I am of the opinion that the GM is the final authority of what happens at the table, and that means both RAW and dice are subservient to the GM. GMs can certainly let RAW and dice decide what happens, but GMs should not feel like they are obligated to follow them.
Additionally for new GMs, they should know about all the tools available to them and add them to their toolbox. They can decide later whether they want to use the tools or not when the time comes.
I agree that is okay to have encounters that are too easy or too hard, but since the OP specified for and actually wants balance, that balance is best achieved by fine tuning the balance in real time, not through planning. Plans can easily go out the window at the literal roll of the dice or the player doing something unexpected. And for a horror campaign, you might not want the party to be completely wiped at the wrong moment. Tailoring the encounter so the players barely crawl out of the jaws of defeat can better set the atmosphere without wasting time drawing up new characters.
Respectfully, I couldn’t possibly disagree with you more. The DM is not above the dice and RAW (or at least rules as agreed upon by the table, doesn’t necessarily need to be RAW, per se) he/she is the judge that upholds these laws of the table.
And look I’m not saying fudging doesn’t have its place. It does. For instance if the players have already clearly won a fight I might fudge a straggler monster’s attack to stop it from dealing an annoying amount of damage right before being put down.
However we shouldn’t be encouraging brand new DMs to go into the game with a specific mindset of “oh I can just fudge anything when it suits me to get whatever outcome I want, that is a normal thing to do”. That’s all I’m trying to say.
The GM is above the dice and most definitely above RAW. RAW even specifically subordinates itself to the GM. I agree that RAW should be talked about beforehand with the players and players should have some input, as you want everyone to be playing on the same page to have the most fun, but it is up to the GM to decide what rules to use and overrule it as necessary to maximize fun and enjoyment.
I think we should be showing new GMs all the tools of the trade, and they should definitely know that they are the ones in ultimate control at the table, not RAW, dice, nor anyone else. Dice only dictates outcomes because the GM allows it to. GMs do not have to use a particular tool if they do not like it, but they should be aware that the tool is there and they should know how to use it. I wish I knew about fudging dice rolls when I ran my first combat encounter, as I did not expect half a dozen goblins to overwhelm two adventurers (I threw in a commoner ally half way through the fight so they all barely made it alive), and it was not even meant to be a horror campaign, but it certainly felt like a serial killer chase scene.
Trying to balance an encounter before running it, but not actually balancing it during real time, is like picking a cooking recipe and not allowing yourself to make changes, despite during cooking you find out that it tastes too bland or too salty for your own preferences.
In this convoluted analogy, you're showing your players a picture of a seasoned rotisserie chicken (promising an encounter where their actions determine whether or not they succeed), then blindfolding them (rolling dice behind the DM screen and ignoring the results) and hand feeding them some fast food chicken nuggets (your premade results that don't follow the "recipe" of Dungeons and Dragons at all, though there might be a dragon mentioned at some point) because you couldn't be bothered to learn how to actually cook (create and run a balanced encounter).
The GM is above the dice and most definitely above RAW.
You aren't talking about house ruling something. You are telling a new DM that they should plan ahead to disregard anything in the rules at all because nothing should be left to chance at the expense of the story and results that they should determine ahead of time. The party is in exactly as much danger as the DM wants, they have no agency beyond what the DM grants them because if they did, they might do something tactically sound that would stomp their monster(s) because you are specifically telling them to not worry about planning the encounter. By your philosophy, since it's the DM to determine exactly how everybody can best enjoy the game, why bother with the pretense of dice and player agency in the first place? Just write a story and read it to your players, because that would be a more honest way of what you're doing. It's like telling a very young child a fairy tale and letting them just insert their name in place of the hero. It isn't playing a game if you predetermine that there really are no rules. That isn't DMing at all. It isn't playing Dungeons and Dragons. All because you can't be bothered to learn the rules yourself so you can actually be a Dungeon Master instead of just a story teller (or, with the horror theme, a kid at a sleepover telling scary stories while holding a flashlight under their chin).
Yes, DMs are the ultimate arbiters of the game, but there is a trust that exists between them and the players that there is a solid and understandable basis upon which that game operates. That's what makes it a game and gives the players agency in it, to take their chances by literally rolling the dice on what they think will work out for the best in their hearts and minds. The DM is supposed to facilitate that, to be a guide and referee who is in many ways along for the ride with the players to find out how it ends. Fudging an occasional die roll as the exception to the rule is one thing, but you need to have the trust and understanding that the players' actions do matter or they have no reason to play. Completely removing the element of risk and uncertainty will remove the feeling of adventure and accomplishment and at best, by your way of thinking, is just lying about giving them an interactive experience because you suck at your job. The DM creates the world and the characters that inhabit it, but once the dice start rolling their job is to just describe what would happen in the world that they created and what their characters would do. You can still adjust things before they actually happen, like I already suggested about using the first fight as a metric and adding or removing threats, obstacles, etc to further challenges before you introduce those things to the players. That's improv DMing. Deciding what happens when one of your players comes up with an elegantly simple solution that bypasses your planned out dramatic tension and keeping interesting is improv DMing, not sticking to a predetermined script regardless of what happens like you insist should happen. Those are things that a DM does when they're actually playing the game. You should actually build your world and your story to interact with the players, not to be simply told to them. Otherwise you might as well just stand on the table like it's a stage and replace your non-interactive sham of a "game" with a more honest one man show because that's what you're talking about giving to your players.
I appreciate all of the advice everyone is offering! I will say one silver thread to my advantage is that, while I don't know how these specific characters will run in combat, I've been playing dnd with this particular group for a few years. So at the very least, I know exactly which player is going to come up with really dumb but technically legal strategies, which player is going to build almost entirely for role play rather than combat, and which player is going to play themselves in a trench coat and do nothing but attack in the same way every turn until the enemy is dead. And while I would really like for the one shot to be reasonably balanced and challenging, the good news is that these are my friends so if everything goes wrong we'll be able to laugh it off and try again after some revamping. They're also all experienced players, meaning they should all have a general idea of what to do on their turns.
I guess there's no particular reason why they have to be so high level, it's just really fun and exciting for a player to get to do some insane high level plays, and IF it's balanced right, it's more intimidating if you make them sweat a little despite their high level. If I can keep them high level that'd be ideal, but I guess I'm willing to consider dropping it a bit. What I might do is have a session zero, where we make their characters, and I just have them fight increasingly difficult enemies to see what kind of damage they're dealing out. I do plan on making it difficult to rest. If they've used up a lot of their resources, then the fight will feel a lot more difficult in comparison. I'll play around with reinforcements, I think that's a really good idea. I've been looking into some legendary actions that might trip them up. Things like darkness or invisibility to make enemies difficult to pin down? I'll just have to do some more research.
Trying to balance an encounter before running it, but not actually balancing it during real time, is like picking a cooking recipe and not allowing yourself to make changes, despite during cooking you find out that it tastes too bland or too salty for your own preferences.
In this convoluted analogy, you're showing your players a picture of a seasoned rotisserie chicken (promising an encounter where their actions determine whether or not they succeed), then blindfolding them (rolling dice behind the DM screen and ignoring the results) and hand feeding them some fast food chicken nuggets (your premade results that don't follow the "recipe" of Dungeons and Dragons at all, though there might be a dragon mentioned at some point) because you couldn't be bothered to learn how to actually cook (create and run a balanced encounter).
Players' own actions still largely determines whether or not they succeed, and they can certainly still force a GM's hand to kill them.
What I want new GMs to know is that they have the option to overrule the dice rather than blindly following it. The dice is a means to an end, the dice is not the end in and of itself. Following the dice is only useful if it promotes fun and enjoyment, and if accidentally wiping out a party is not fun because the monster is too strong, then it makes sense for the GM to assert their authority and overrule the dice. Fudging rolls is a tool that new GMs should be aware of that exists, and whether they use it or not is up to them as they see fit. While I do not recommend them to overuse it, they should not be afraid to use it either. Stuff like legendary resistance and reliable talent are already part of the game and are basically just euphemisms for fudging rolls, so fudging rolls behind the screen to grant limited plot armor (or any other effect) is pretty much in line with the design of D&D.
If planning and running a balanced encounter is as easy as people make it out to be, then I think we would be seeing multiple stat blocks offered up as suggestions already. Expecting a new GM to plan an encounter that lasts at least a few rounds, but not last too long, AND nothing too strong that can accidentally kill a PC is unrealistic, especially when none of us can offer any specific stat blocks as examples of what to look for. Looking for monsters with similar CR to the party's level does help, but that is only one tool and it can fail to achieve the desired objectives. Adjusting the number of monsters mid encounter, having variable HP, and fudging rolls are additional tools to help a GM create an encounter that lasts a reasonable number of turns without accidentally killing anyone.
And if the GM is really concerned about giving off the feeling of bait and switch, the GM can always discuss this during session zero to see how open players are to reinforcements/retreats, variable HP/AC, and fudging rolls.
The GM is above the dice and most definitely above RAW.
You aren't talking about house ruling something. You are telling a new DM that they should plan ahead to disregard anything in the rules at all because nothing should be left to chance at the expense of the story and results that they should determine ahead of time. The party is in exactly as much danger as the DM wants, they have no agency beyond what the DM grants them because if they did, they might do something tactically sound that would stomp their monster(s) because you are specifically telling them to not worry about planning the encounter. By your philosophy, since it's the DM to determine exactly how everybody can best enjoy the game, why bother with the pretense of dice and player agency in the first place? Just write a story and read it to your players, because that would be a more honest way of what you're doing. It's like telling a very young child a fairy tale and letting them just insert their name in place of the hero. It isn't playing a game if you predetermine that there really are no rules. That isn't DMing at all. It isn't playing Dungeons and Dragons. All because you can't be bothered to learn the rules yourself so you can actually be a Dungeon Master instead of just a story teller (or, with the horror theme, a kid at a sleepover telling scary stories while holding a flashlight under their chin).
Yes, DMs are the ultimate arbiters of the game, but there is a trust that exists between them and the players that there is a solid and understandable basis upon which that game operates. That's what makes it a game and gives the players agency in it, to take their chances by literally rolling the dice on what they think will work out for the best in their hearts and minds. The DM is supposed to facilitate that, to be a guide and referee who is in many ways along for the ride with the players to find out how it ends. Fudging an occasional die roll as the exception to the rule is one thing, but you need to have the trust and understanding that the players' actions do matter or they have no reason to play. Completely removing the element of risk and uncertainty will remove the feeling of adventure and accomplishment and at best, by your way of thinking, is just lying about giving them an interactive experience because you suck at your job. The DM creates the world and the characters that inhabit it, but once the dice start rolling their job is to just describe what would happen in the world that they created and what their characters would do. You can still adjust things before they actually happen, like I already suggested about using the first fight as a metric and adding or removing threats, obstacles, etc to further challenges before you introduce those things to the players. That's improv DMing. Deciding what happens when one of your players comes up with an elegantly simple solution that bypasses your planned out dramatic tension and keeping interesting is improv DMing, not sticking to a predetermined script regardless of what happens like you insist should happen. Those are things that a DM does when they're actually playing the game. You should actually build your world and your story to interact with the players, not to be simply told to them. Otherwise you might as well just stand on the table like it's a stage and replace your non-interactive sham of a "game" with a more honest one man show because that's what you're talking about giving to your players.
I am not telling them to not plan an encounter entirely. What I am telling them is that it is not necessary to plan the encounter to the level of detail where the mini boss is not going to go down immediately, but not be a slog to fight either, and not be too strong that risks killing a PC accidentally. It is better and easier to adjust the encounter as you run it to achieve those results. A new GM should not have to worry about whether "Is this monster balanced?" when they go through the MM, but rather "Is this monster fun, exciting, and horrifying?".
Doing improv does not mean you have to stick with an encounter exactly as planned if it does not work out. I do not think there is anything inherently wrong with bringing in more monsters during combat or have them retreat, as it makes sense for enemies to call for backup when they need help, or retreat if they are hurt, and there is nothing wrong with using that as an excuse to adjust difficulty either. I also do not think it is inherently wrong that monsters would have variable HP, as most monsters are not carbon copies of each other, and letting the GM decide when a monster falls within an HP range not only gives the GM more flexibility in balancing, but the GM can also use this as a way to encourage players to roleplay (monsters can die early when being blasted by a Fireball), teamwork (monsters fall faster to characters who has help), or whatnot as a way to kill the monster sooner. I also never recommended fudging dice rolls all the time nor having everything be predetermined, and I only suggest using fudging for emergencies, such as saving a character's life.
You do not have like nor use these tools at your table. However, I think these are tools that new GMs should know about and should not be afraid to use. If they do not like it, they do not have use it, but it is up to them to decide whether they use these tools or not. And since the OP wants to try out more exotic monsters, I think the OP should be empowered to try out more unconventional monsters even if their CR is a bit off from the party, since they can simply fine tune the difficulty later when they actually run the encounter.
I agree that is okay to have encounters that are too easy or too hard, but since the OP specified for and actually wants balance, that balance is best achieved by fine tuning the balance in real time, not through planning. Plans can easily go out the window at the literal roll of the dice or the player doing something unexpected.
I'm not sure I consider that (im)balance, to be honest. A die roll doesn't make the difference between an encounter being balanced or not. Neither does what the players come up with to defeat it or whether they manage to do so without losses or not. A balanced encounter is a fair one, no more, no less. There are no guarantees with "fair". Not that there isn't room for alternative approaches in D&D, but the norm is that the dice matter.
Mitigation. The dice can matter without being absolute.
The DM decides everything in the world except the player's choice of actions. They decide what the players have the option of facing and even if it is an option for the players. They decide the terrain, the metaphysics, everything about the world including key aspects of the PC's themselves.
The key with things like fudging is as with all things in life. All things in moderation. It needs to be as infrequent and as invisible as practical while still maintaining a heroic narrative in which the heroes really matter. Keep in mind that dice luck likewise does not equal player agency.
I'm not opposed to fudging on principle. In egregious cases of good or bad luck it can be better for the DM to overrule the dice. But the main point of my argument is that that is not a matter of balance. An encounter is balanced or it's not - the dice don't change that. If the PCs fare poorly in an encounter because of a string of rolls not going their way, that's bad luck, not imbalance. On the flip side, an unfairly hard encounter doesn't become balanced just because the players eke out a win anyway through dice on fire or a DM fudging the outcome.
If, as DM, two turns into an encounter you realize you made a mistake and the PCs are in over their heads with no practical chance of escape then by all means, do what you need to do to salvage the game. Nothing wrong with that. But if the encounter is fair and the PCs are getting their asses handed to them nonetheless, the expectation is usually that they should take their lumps and live with it.
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Perfect is the enemy of good. For me, the better alternative to trying to get things perfect with on the fly hidden tweaks is just letting go of the notion that things should be perfect. They rarely are (and rarely will be even through fudging), and that's ok. When it's necessary, fudge away. But when it isn't, I suggest leaving well enough alone.
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Like the title says, I've never been a DM before, but I have been a player for a while. I've been working on a dnd 5e one shot (but friends kept asking to join, so it might end up being a 2 or 3 session saga haha). It's a horror theme, and they're going to start at level 18. I know, first time DMing at high level is challenging, but I think it will be more fun. And if I balance right, I can break into the more exciting sections of the monster manual. I ended up with six players. They are a rogue, a gunslinger, a bard, a cavalier fighter, a paladin, and a cleric (probably combat focus not support). I don't know all the subclasses yet.
So my question is this: I need help finding monsters that would make for good mini bosses. Something that won't take them an hour to kill, but that won't go down in a turn or two. It doesn't matter whether or not they fit the setting, most likely I'll take their stats and just re-skin them. With a group like this that could deal so much damage, I'm kind of concerned I might either grab something way too strong, or something that will die before the fight even really starts. In a pinch I can always just start adding HP, but ideally everything will be roughly in the right challenge rating beforehand.
Six lvl18 PC? To be honest biggest problem you have that players will kill anything you throw them relatively easely (unless its army of Tarrasques :) )...
For level 18s, they're going to need to fight a demon lord or a deity or something. And it probably should be in its lair... and have some decent minions.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
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Once you get to levels 15+ the best way I have found to “balance” an encounter (as in it is doable for the most part with a potential for them to lose) is to use an equivalent number of monsters for each player with CRs matching the player level. Roughly. Doesn’t need to be exactly that but roughly.
That is your baseline for the most they could reasonably handle in a single fight. It also operates on a couple of assumptions: the players are tactically competent in battle, they have a decent collection of magic items, and their characters will be full life and resources. If any of those aren’t true, lower the CR a few notches accordingly.
Also, expect the fight to go long. Especially with new players. It will take at least an hour, probably more. You can do your part to speed it up by studying the monster stat blocks you go with, so you aren’t reading them an trying to wrap your head around them during the session. You should also strategize about how you will use the monster to make the most of it.
Balancing for high level PCs is a lot trickier because of all the different ways they can kill the crap out of things at that level, which makes it harder to predict just how effectively they can handle different enemies. This would be much easier if it's an established campaign and you've been DMing for the group for a good period of time and know their strengths, weaknesses, and general style as both individuals and as a team but even then there are enough variables involved to make balancing feel like you're a compulsive gambler trying to develop a "system" for actually leaving a roulette wheel with a profit. So it isn't going to be easy to plan ahead for truly challenging fights that won't cause a TPK if multiple players get a few poorly timed bad die rolls.
That being said, for minibosses I would suggest starting light with the first one, something you're confident they can take out without too much trouble. Use this one as a warmup for both the party and yourself. If it's the first fight of the game and they know there's more to come they won't feel disappointed if they totally curb stomp it and it will help you as DM get a feel for how powerful the party is. I'm just getting my feet wet DMing 5e myself (though I used to DM a lot in 3.5), but I would suggest a single enemy at CR18 and three or four lower level enemies, maybe CR 12-14. Be careful about clustering your baddies, especially if the party includes multiple casters with AoE spells (might not be a huge issue with your party but bards and clerics do have some nasty spells available to them, especially at high level). Maybe have one or more of the creatures capable of healing others or at least healing themselves, or some form of regeneration.
Have your next fight or two planned as being similar, but also with options you can swap in or out to adjust the difficulty without the players knowing you're doing it. The easiest way to do this is increasing or decreasing the minions or other secondary threats. Sure, one or two PCs might be able to take out one or even three or four of those minions in a single turn but that means they aren't attacking the boss which now has another round to hammer them. Conversely, if they ignore the minions and focus on the boss, those minions will do less damage individually or even miss on some or most of their attacks, but if there are enough of them those smaller hits will quickly add up to pose a serious threat. You have a large party so that's a lot of actions directed at your monsters in a single turn, especially considering all the ****ery that high level characters are capable of; without extra bodies to soak up damage your boss will go down fast but a single, extra-buff enemy tough enough to last multiple rounds against their onslaught could quite easily take out any given PC in a single turn depending on how the dice fall and nobody will enjoy getting oneshotted by a huge monstrosity that got a crit on them. So more targets/threats is generally better and easier to balance.
Also, toss in some lair actions that don't necessarily do direct damage to the party but hamper them so they have to work to get their hits in; things that obscure vision to impose disadvantage on attacks, or hamper mobility against enemies that move around and attack from range. Preparing the battlefield with rough terrain and/or obstacles to act as cover and force PCs to maneuver around them to make direct line range attacks or limit how many can physically fit into spaces to deal melee damage at once. Making the players feel like they've actually worked to get the victory can make it satisfying even if that work is just trying to nail down an elusive foe rather than trading blows with one powerful enough to kill them quickly.
Also legendary actions: even if it's just the boss making extra attacks on the PCs' turns to up the danger level on demand. And make sure to have some legendary resistance handy for any boss that you want to pose a serious threat because at that level the party's casters are definitely going to have some spells that are effectively, if not literally, save or die and could easily end the fight on the first round if the boss gets a bad roll on it's saving throw. Yes, the monster choosing to not fail a save might seem cheap, but so is a spell that you could functionally replace the rules of with "Target makes a saving throw, if it fails you win the fight." And until it comes up, you don't even have to reveal that the monster has legendary resistance to begin with or how many uses thereof it has; if the party is having a tougher time than you expected you can just not use it and let that uberspell succeed to save the party from getting wiped without the players knowing you pulled your punches.
So I guess my advice boils down to planning a lot of smaller threats that you can selectively add to or remove from encounters after throwing them an easy fight to gauge their power level, instead of individual superdeath beasts on steroids that will either die pitifully or TPK if you misjudged the appropriate threat level.
I recommend doing the balancing in real time as you run the encounter. It does not make sense to try to balance it perfectly before running the encounter.
There are several tools to fine tune balance when you run the encounter:
Reinforcements/Retreats:
This is probably the easiest tool to use. You just throw more monster reinforcements if the encounter is too easy, or have low HP monsters retreat if the encounter is too hard. I recommend 2 to 4 monsters per wave and 2 waves of reinforcements max. You do not want to throw too many monsters at once or else it is hard to keep track of everything. You also do not want to just keep sending wave after wave of monsters, as that just unnecessarily drags out combat.
Similarly you can also give the party reinforcement, but this can feel too much like the GM hogging the spotlight, so I recommend doing this only for story purposes.
Variable HP/AC:
When you look at the HP in the stat block, it tells you the average HP of a monster. Instead of using that number, the stat block also lets you roll the HP to randomly generate a number. For our purposes, the only numbers we need to know are the minimum, average, and maximum HP. Our monsters can potentially go down as soon as its minimum HP threshold is reached, but that is only if the encounter is not going well at all for the party. So instead of a monster being killed after taking a specific amount of damage, the point is that you as the GM decide when the monster gets killed between then minimum and maximum HP range.
Similarly for variable AC, you can raise or lower your monsters' AC accordingly to make things easier or harder. Lowering it is pretty easy to flavor as armor falling off or the carapace being damaged. Raising AC is a bit more difficult to explain for some monsters, but humanoid monsters can just pick up a shield to raise their AC by 2.
I personally recommend sticking with variable HP. Variable AC is harder to keep track of, and I would only use it if variable HP is not enough.
Fudge Dice Rolls:
This is my favorite method personally since it gives you the desired result immediately. This is not possible for dice that is rolled publicly by the players, but you can certainly ignore whatever number your dice rolls are and determine what that number is. This is more of a tool for emergencies though and I generally only use it to save a PC's life.
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I can’t recommend doing this. Fudging dice and altering stats behind the DM screen is a bad habit for new DMs to get into. The problem is that it ultimately cheapens the experience. The players didn’t triumph because of their heroics alone, they did because of the DM fudging things.
Thing is, it is Ok to have fights that are too easy. It is Ok to have fights that are too hard, and everything in between. That is how D&D works. There is nothing wrong with that, and DMs shouldn’t feel like a too easy or too hard fight was some sort of failing on their part that they need to fix through fudging.
Trust yourself and your encounters. Set them up and run it 100% by the dice. That is what makes the game so exciting for a DM. Of course you are rooting for the players, but don’t fudge or pull punches nonetheless.
Possibly not the most popular take, but can I counsel against the lvl 18 part? Is there an overriding reason for this? The best ways to give you a fighting chance of handling this properly are DMing experience, knowing the player dynamics in this group and knowing the characters. All three of these are missing. Furthermore, you're going with a horror theme, lvl 18 players are almost as close to godhood as you can get in regular 5E, there's six of them and it's a one-shot (even if it might take a few sessions). What's supposed to scare this oversized and overleveled party, and accomplish this without next to no buildup or foreshadowing opportunity? I don't have any problem with your goal here, but it feels like you have the deck stacked against you in every possible way.
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I am of the opinion that the GM is the final authority of what happens at the table, and that means both RAW and dice are subservient to the GM. GMs can certainly let RAW and dice decide what happens, but GMs should not feel like they are obligated to follow them.
Additionally for new GMs, they should know about all the tools available to them and add them to their toolbox. They can decide later whether they want to use the tools or not when the time comes.
I agree that is okay to have encounters that are too easy or too hard, but since the OP specified for and actually wants balance, that balance is best achieved by fine tuning the balance in real time, not through planning. Plans can easily go out the window at the literal roll of the dice or the player doing something unexpected. And for a horror campaign, you might not want the party to be completely wiped at the wrong moment. Tailoring the encounter so the players barely crawl out of the jaws of defeat can better set the atmosphere without wasting time drawing up new characters.
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I'm not sure I consider that (im)balance, to be honest. A die roll doesn't make the difference between an encounter being balanced or not. Neither does what the players come up with to defeat it or whether they manage to do so without losses or not. A balanced encounter is a fair one, no more, no less. There are no guarantees with "fair". Not that there isn't room for alternative approaches in D&D, but the norm is that the dice matter.
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This sounds a lot like you're saying "Don't worry about balance or even stats, just arbitrarily decide what happens by pretending to roll dice and track HP behind the screen but just say hits happen when you want them to and the monsters die when you say so." While that's technically storytelling, it sure isn't DMing and it isn't even playing D&D. It's telling a prewritten narrative while pretending to be playing D&D.
Respectfully, I couldn’t possibly disagree with you more. The DM is not above the dice and RAW (or at least rules as agreed upon by the table, doesn’t necessarily need to be RAW, per se) he/she is the judge that upholds these laws of the table.
And look I’m not saying fudging doesn’t have its place. It does. For instance if the players have already clearly won a fight I might fudge a straggler monster’s attack to stop it from dealing an annoying amount of damage right before being put down.
However we shouldn’t be encouraging brand new DMs to go into the game with a specific mindset of “oh I can just fudge anything when it suits me to get whatever outcome I want, that is a normal thing to do”. That’s all I’m trying to say.
The norm is that the dice decides for the GM, but I do not think GMs need to necessarily stick with one set of traditional tools when alternative tools are out there, especially for new GMs who may need more tools to counteract inexperience to achieve the desired result they want.
In this case, the GM does not want to kill the party, at least not accidentally. Fudging is an additional set of emergency brakes that the GM can use to prevent death, especially if this is their first time running a combat encounter and they want to threaten the players with lethal force, but not actually kill them.
Trying to balance an encounter before running it, but not actually balancing it during real time, is like picking a cooking recipe and not allowing yourself to make changes, despite during cooking you find out that it tastes too bland or too salty for your own preferences. Especially for new cooks (and GMs), they especially need to get used to the idea that they are in charge in the kitchen, and not the recipe (RAW/dice). Besides sustenance, the point of cooking is to make something you want to actually eat, not follow a recipe. For D&D, the ultimate point is having fun, not blindly following RAW/dice.
Variable HP can speed up and slow down combat as necessary to last the desired amount of turns, and can also be used as an additional way to indirectly manage the party's resources, as short/long rests might not make sense depending on the moment in a horror campaign. The GM might also want additional ways to slow down or speed up the rate the party is using spells slots, superiority dice, etc. before a boss fight. The GM wants the party to feel "Oh shit, I am down to my last spell slot, should I cast Fireball on the enemy or myself?" not "I am locked and loaded, bring it on, tough guy!", and nothing kills horror better than the latter where the characters feel they have power and control at the wrong moment.
Fudging dice can be used in a variety of ways, but I am not going to judge how a GM uses it as long as the entire table is having fun. I have only used it to save characters' lives, but GMs can certainly use it in other ways force other results.
D&D can be played in a variety of ways, and I do not believe there is a true way to play D&D.
The GM is above the dice and most definitely above RAW. RAW even specifically subordinates itself to the GM. I agree that RAW should be talked about beforehand with the players and players should have some input, as you want everyone to be playing on the same page to have the most fun, but it is up to the GM to decide what rules to use and overrule it as necessary to maximize fun and enjoyment.
I think we should be showing new GMs all the tools of the trade, and they should definitely know that they are the ones in ultimate control at the table, not RAW, dice, nor anyone else. Dice only dictates outcomes because the GM allows it to. GMs do not have to use a particular tool if they do not like it, but they should be aware that the tool is there and they should know how to use it. I wish I knew about fudging dice rolls when I ran my first combat encounter, as I did not expect half a dozen goblins to overwhelm two adventurers (I threw in a commoner ally half way through the fight so they all barely made it alive), and it was not even meant to be a horror campaign, but it certainly felt like a serial killer chase scene.
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Trying to balance an encounter before running it, but not actually balancing it during real time, is like picking a cooking recipe and not allowing yourself to make changes, despite during cooking you find out that it tastes too bland or too salty for your own preferences.
In this convoluted analogy, you're showing your players a picture of a seasoned rotisserie chicken (promising an encounter where their actions determine whether or not they succeed), then blindfolding them (rolling dice behind the DM screen and ignoring the results) and hand feeding them some fast food chicken nuggets (your premade results that don't follow the "recipe" of Dungeons and Dragons at all, though there might be a dragon mentioned at some point) because you couldn't be bothered to learn how to actually cook (create and run a balanced encounter).
The GM is above the dice and most definitely above RAW.
You aren't talking about house ruling something. You are telling a new DM that they should plan ahead to disregard anything in the rules at all because nothing should be left to chance at the expense of the story and results that they should determine ahead of time. The party is in exactly as much danger as the DM wants, they have no agency beyond what the DM grants them because if they did, they might do something tactically sound that would stomp their monster(s) because you are specifically telling them to not worry about planning the encounter. By your philosophy, since it's the DM to determine exactly how everybody can best enjoy the game, why bother with the pretense of dice and player agency in the first place? Just write a story and read it to your players, because that would be a more honest way of what you're doing. It's like telling a very young child a fairy tale and letting them just insert their name in place of the hero. It isn't playing a game if you predetermine that there really are no rules. That isn't DMing at all. It isn't playing Dungeons and Dragons. All because you can't be bothered to learn the rules yourself so you can actually be a Dungeon Master instead of just a story teller (or, with the horror theme, a kid at a sleepover telling scary stories while holding a flashlight under their chin).
Yes, DMs are the ultimate arbiters of the game, but there is a trust that exists between them and the players that there is a solid and understandable basis upon which that game operates. That's what makes it a game and gives the players agency in it, to take their chances by literally rolling the dice on what they think will work out for the best in their hearts and minds. The DM is supposed to facilitate that, to be a guide and referee who is in many ways along for the ride with the players to find out how it ends. Fudging an occasional die roll as the exception to the rule is one thing, but you need to have the trust and understanding that the players' actions do matter or they have no reason to play. Completely removing the element of risk and uncertainty will remove the feeling of adventure and accomplishment and at best, by your way of thinking, is just lying about giving them an interactive experience because you suck at your job. The DM creates the world and the characters that inhabit it, but once the dice start rolling their job is to just describe what would happen in the world that they created and what their characters would do. You can still adjust things before they actually happen, like I already suggested about using the first fight as a metric and adding or removing threats, obstacles, etc to further challenges before you introduce those things to the players. That's improv DMing. Deciding what happens when one of your players comes up with an elegantly simple solution that bypasses your planned out dramatic tension and keeping interesting is improv DMing, not sticking to a predetermined script regardless of what happens like you insist should happen. Those are things that a DM does when they're actually playing the game. You should actually build your world and your story to interact with the players, not to be simply told to them. Otherwise you might as well just stand on the table like it's a stage and replace your non-interactive sham of a "game" with a more honest one man show because that's what you're talking about giving to your players.
I appreciate all of the advice everyone is offering! I will say one silver thread to my advantage is that, while I don't know how these specific characters will run in combat, I've been playing dnd with this particular group for a few years. So at the very least, I know exactly which player is going to come up with really dumb but technically legal strategies, which player is going to build almost entirely for role play rather than combat, and which player is going to play themselves in a trench coat and do nothing but attack in the same way every turn until the enemy is dead. And while I would really like for the one shot to be reasonably balanced and challenging, the good news is that these are my friends so if everything goes wrong we'll be able to laugh it off and try again after some revamping. They're also all experienced players, meaning they should all have a general idea of what to do on their turns.
I guess there's no particular reason why they have to be so high level, it's just really fun and exciting for a player to get to do some insane high level plays, and IF it's balanced right, it's more intimidating if you make them sweat a little despite their high level. If I can keep them high level that'd be ideal, but I guess I'm willing to consider dropping it a bit. What I might do is have a session zero, where we make their characters, and I just have them fight increasingly difficult enemies to see what kind of damage they're dealing out. I do plan on making it difficult to rest. If they've used up a lot of their resources, then the fight will feel a lot more difficult in comparison. I'll play around with reinforcements, I think that's a really good idea. I've been looking into some legendary actions that might trip them up. Things like darkness or invisibility to make enemies difficult to pin down? I'll just have to do some more research.
Players' own actions still largely determines whether or not they succeed, and they can certainly still force a GM's hand to kill them.
What I want new GMs to know is that they have the option to overrule the dice rather than blindly following it. The dice is a means to an end, the dice is not the end in and of itself. Following the dice is only useful if it promotes fun and enjoyment, and if accidentally wiping out a party is not fun because the monster is too strong, then it makes sense for the GM to assert their authority and overrule the dice. Fudging rolls is a tool that new GMs should be aware of that exists, and whether they use it or not is up to them as they see fit. While I do not recommend them to overuse it, they should not be afraid to use it either. Stuff like legendary resistance and reliable talent are already part of the game and are basically just euphemisms for fudging rolls, so fudging rolls behind the screen to grant limited plot armor (or any other effect) is pretty much in line with the design of D&D.
If planning and running a balanced encounter is as easy as people make it out to be, then I think we would be seeing multiple stat blocks offered up as suggestions already. Expecting a new GM to plan an encounter that lasts at least a few rounds, but not last too long, AND nothing too strong that can accidentally kill a PC is unrealistic, especially when none of us can offer any specific stat blocks as examples of what to look for. Looking for monsters with similar CR to the party's level does help, but that is only one tool and it can fail to achieve the desired objectives. Adjusting the number of monsters mid encounter, having variable HP, and fudging rolls are additional tools to help a GM create an encounter that lasts a reasonable number of turns without accidentally killing anyone.
And if the GM is really concerned about giving off the feeling of bait and switch, the GM can always discuss this during session zero to see how open players are to reinforcements/retreats, variable HP/AC, and fudging rolls.
I am not telling them to not plan an encounter entirely. What I am telling them is that it is not necessary to plan the encounter to the level of detail where the mini boss is not going to go down immediately, but not be a slog to fight either, and not be too strong that risks killing a PC accidentally. It is better and easier to adjust the encounter as you run it to achieve those results. A new GM should not have to worry about whether "Is this monster balanced?" when they go through the MM, but rather "Is this monster fun, exciting, and horrifying?".
Doing improv does not mean you have to stick with an encounter exactly as planned if it does not work out. I do not think there is anything inherently wrong with bringing in more monsters during combat or have them retreat, as it makes sense for enemies to call for backup when they need help, or retreat if they are hurt, and there is nothing wrong with using that as an excuse to adjust difficulty either. I also do not think it is inherently wrong that monsters would have variable HP, as most monsters are not carbon copies of each other, and letting the GM decide when a monster falls within an HP range not only gives the GM more flexibility in balancing, but the GM can also use this as a way to encourage players to roleplay (monsters can die early when being blasted by a Fireball), teamwork (monsters fall faster to characters who has help), or whatnot as a way to kill the monster sooner. I also never recommended fudging dice rolls all the time nor having everything be predetermined, and I only suggest using fudging for emergencies, such as saving a character's life.
You do not have like nor use these tools at your table. However, I think these are tools that new GMs should know about and should not be afraid to use. If they do not like it, they do not have use it, but it is up to them to decide whether they use these tools or not. And since the OP wants to try out more exotic monsters, I think the OP should be empowered to try out more unconventional monsters even if their CR is a bit off from the party, since they can simply fine tune the difficulty later when they actually run the encounter.
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I'm not opposed to fudging on principle. In egregious cases of good or bad luck it can be better for the DM to overrule the dice. But the main point of my argument is that that is not a matter of balance. An encounter is balanced or it's not - the dice don't change that. If the PCs fare poorly in an encounter because of a string of rolls not going their way, that's bad luck, not imbalance. On the flip side, an unfairly hard encounter doesn't become balanced just because the players eke out a win anyway through dice on fire or a DM fudging the outcome.
If, as DM, two turns into an encounter you realize you made a mistake and the PCs are in over their heads with no practical chance of escape then by all means, do what you need to do to salvage the game. Nothing wrong with that. But if the encounter is fair and the PCs are getting their asses handed to them nonetheless, the expectation is usually that they should take their lumps and live with it.
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Perfect is the enemy of good. For me, the better alternative to trying to get things perfect with on the fly hidden tweaks is just letting go of the notion that things should be perfect. They rarely are (and rarely will be even through fudging), and that's ok. When it's necessary, fudge away. But when it isn't, I suggest leaving well enough alone.
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