For context, me and my group are all basically brand-new to DnD. We've been playing a campaign since November but I'm both a first-time DM and a first-time player. I took up DMing because I do a lot of creative writing and my friends had faith in me to DM well. There's been some ups and downs but I've noticed something with combat specifically. Combat so far has been a really severe mixed bag for my party. There have been times where they've completely desecrated powerful enemies like ankhegs in the first combat round, then in our last session, they took nearly an hour to fight 3 darkmantles. I was thinking for the final boss of the dungeon they're in to make it a basilisk. I just don't want it to be such a disappointing affair as the ankheg was. On top of maybe ideas for that specific encounter, are there any rules of thumb for combat you all use? Is it normal for combat to be so "one extreme to the other?" I'm assuming I'm' just inexperienced and any advice would be helpful.
My party is a human Wizard, Monk/Warlock, Paladin, an elf Bard, and a dragonborn Barbarian, all level 3. The tl;dr of the campaign is they're in a post-apocalyptic world and are working with a demon to resurrect a prophet to heal the world.
You’re the DM. If they’re about to kill the monster in one round give it max hit points instead of average hit points so that it gets at least one turn in they’ll still kill it, but it will feel a tiny bit challenging to them.
Also, not every fight should be a challenge to the PCs. I designed an encounter in my campaign that the PCs should win in 1-2 rounds without getting hurt. They’re hero’s, normal threats that terrify villagers are a piece of cake for them. That encounter is to give them the feeling of being strong and dangerous.
There are many variables beyond what the difficulty rating equations calculate that can shift the difficulty one way or another. At low levels (level 1-2 especially), the dice alone can wreck a party that rolls bad (or DM rolls well). In a lot of cases, the initiative order alone can render what is supposed to be a 'difficult' encounter into a walk in the park. There is also the situation and terrain you put them in. If you give them the element of surprise, the high ground or they find creative uses of terrain around them, it can all make a fight simpler than intended.
Your ankheg fight shouldn't be seen as a disappointment. You could and should narrate victories like that as amazing feats beyond the ability of commoners. Also, as a DM, you could just have more encounters ready to use in situations like those so your overall gaming session still achieves a predetermined amount of combat. Or as has been suggested, you can fudge the HP so the ankheg gets at least one turn (or more).
The darkmantle fight may just have been because there were more enemies. More creatures, more turns.
Yeah, action economy is the bane of new DM's everywhere.
Essentially it boils down to the fact that the side of the fight with the most actions per round is generally the side that has an easier time of it, regardless of CR. A party of 5 against a single opponent, even in a deadly encounter, will still quickly overwhelm the opponent. If you want to even out encounters, consider using either more monsters to even out that action economy, use monsters with action economy, or introduce environmental factors that can mitigate the action economy discrepancy (such as part of the battlefield being covered by webs, or combat taking place in in a narrow tunnel where the party can't surround the monster, or place combat on a crashing airship and maybe part of the party has to frantically work to keep it airborne while the rest have to fend off the monster while they work).
As for the darkmantle encounter, I can imagine those would have been frustrating what with the head enveloping and the blinding effects they have, and a few bad rolls can really extend that combat. For enemies with status effects that can kind of shut down a character like that, if that's not what you're going for, maybe consider only using 1 darkmantle accompanied by two other. That way you don't need to worry about combat bogging down with the same status effects, and the players will have the opportunities to use more varied tactics against different enemies
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For context, me and my group are all basically brand-new to DnD. We've been playing a campaign since November but I'm both a first-time DM and a first-time player. I took up DMing because I do a lot of creative writing and my friends had faith in me to DM well. There's been some ups and downs but I've noticed something with combat specifically. Combat so far has been a really severe mixed bag for my party. There have been times where they've completely desecrated powerful enemies like ankhegs in the first combat round, then in our last session, they took nearly an hour to fight 3 darkmantles. I was thinking for the final boss of the dungeon they're in to make it a basilisk. I just don't want it to be such a disappointing affair as the ankheg was. On top of maybe ideas for that specific encounter, are there any rules of thumb for combat you all use? Is it normal for combat to be so "one extreme to the other?" I'm assuming I'm' just inexperienced and any advice would be helpful.
My party is a human Wizard, Monk/Warlock, Paladin, an elf Bard, and a dragonborn Barbarian, all level 3. The tl;dr of the campaign is they're in a post-apocalyptic world and are working with a demon to resurrect a prophet to heal the world.
You’re the DM. If they’re about to kill the monster in one round give it max hit points instead of average hit points so that it gets at least one turn in they’ll still kill it, but it will feel a tiny bit challenging to them.
Also, not every fight should be a challenge to the PCs. I designed an encounter in my campaign that the PCs should win in 1-2 rounds without getting hurt. They’re hero’s, normal threats that terrify villagers are a piece of cake for them. That encounter is to give them the feeling of being strong and dangerous.
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There are many variables beyond what the difficulty rating equations calculate that can shift the difficulty one way or another. At low levels (level 1-2 especially), the dice alone can wreck a party that rolls bad (or DM rolls well). In a lot of cases, the initiative order alone can render what is supposed to be a 'difficult' encounter into a walk in the park. There is also the situation and terrain you put them in. If you give them the element of surprise, the high ground or they find creative uses of terrain around them, it can all make a fight simpler than intended.
Your ankheg fight shouldn't be seen as a disappointment. You could and should narrate victories like that as amazing feats beyond the ability of commoners. Also, as a DM, you could just have more encounters ready to use in situations like those so your overall gaming session still achieves a predetermined amount of combat. Or as has been suggested, you can fudge the HP so the ankheg gets at least one turn (or more).
The darkmantle fight may just have been because there were more enemies. More creatures, more turns.
Yeah, action economy is the bane of new DM's everywhere.
Essentially it boils down to the fact that the side of the fight with the most actions per round is generally the side that has an easier time of it, regardless of CR. A party of 5 against a single opponent, even in a deadly encounter, will still quickly overwhelm the opponent. If you want to even out encounters, consider using either more monsters to even out that action economy, use monsters with action economy, or introduce environmental factors that can mitigate the action economy discrepancy (such as part of the battlefield being covered by webs, or combat taking place in in a narrow tunnel where the party can't surround the monster, or place combat on a crashing airship and maybe part of the party has to frantically work to keep it airborne while the rest have to fend off the monster while they work).
As for the darkmantle encounter, I can imagine those would have been frustrating what with the head enveloping and the blinding effects they have, and a few bad rolls can really extend that combat. For enemies with status effects that can kind of shut down a character like that, if that's not what you're going for, maybe consider only using 1 darkmantle accompanied by two other. That way you don't need to worry about combat bogging down with the same status effects, and the players will have the opportunities to use more varied tactics against different enemies