Something interesting from part 2 of last nights session inspired heavily by the monster manual. I ahd been loooking or some tougher encoutners for my aprty and experimenting to see where the tipping point is. After getting the MM and HotDQ I saw how some of the designers had done it. They had a CR 13 encounter for level 7 PCs in an adventure designed for 4 PCs. I had 6 PCs of level 8 and decided I wanted them to fight a CR14 creaure an Adult Black Dragon. These dragons are also served by Kobolds according to the MM. I can run with that and the lair effects of the obscuring mist allow Kobolds to make stealth rolls and I gave them advanatge because well they are Kobolds.
I decided to try and wear the party down with lots of "easy" encounters by the book.
Encoutner 1.
PCs asleep with 1 sentry. 2 waves of 12 Kobolds per wave seperated by a round. Sentry fails to notice them coming and the PCs were getitng swarmed while sleeping with advantage to hit and free critical hits. After the surprise round is over the wizard decides to fireball the party (he has resistance to fire). That did nto go down to well but dealt with the 1st wave, round 2 the next 12 arrive. Kobolds basically pick a target and all focus fire on it so 2 PCs each suck up 6 attacks 5 of them with advantage. Now there is a time and place to fireball the party this was probably not one of them. Between several critcal hits and lots of atatcks being made and a self inflicted fireball the PCs actually take a lot of damage.
Encoutner 2 a few hours later. 16 kobolds, the sentry hears them htis time and manages to wake the PCs avoiding a surprise round I rule the PCs are still prone until they react on round 1. An easy enough fight.
They eventually follow the Kobold tracks and the tribute trail from tiamts cult. One of the PCs suspects what is going on but keeps his mouth shut so as not to metagmae with player vs PC knowledge. 4 more encoutners in the Dragons lair.
Encounter
3. Kobold swarm again not to hard. 24 odd kobolds.
4. Kobold trap, spring loaded pick with wyvern poion on it +10 to hit, DC 15 7d6 damage.
5. Kobold trap, spring loaded spear launchers.
6. Kobold ambush, kobolds hiding in the mud rear up after the trap is sprung, better equipment (shortbows) using basic poison from the PHB.
Encounter 7
Adult Black Dragon
Dragon fails to achieve surprise, PCs are investigting a kobold shrine to Tiamat, 3/6 PCs fail saves vs Dragons fear but 2 of them are spell casters with ranged spell. The ranger makes her 2nd save on her turn.Dragon opens up with breath weapon on 2 PCs for 54 damage. After that it swoops in to melee and I use focus fire and after each PCs turn the legendary action to beat on the same PC. I make a few mistakes witht he Dragon as I have not played one before and form future encoutner think of how to tweak it. Giving it spells including shield for example. I also had 500xp left over form the xp budget so I could have added 20 Kobolds as well to the fight and they could have swarmed the PCs who wore the breath weapon.
As it was 2/6 PCs go down with another 2 on life support. Dragon and interfering with the ranged PCs by landing bedside them to trigger AoO or disadvantage on their attack rolls. focuses fire on the cleric casting bless and drops him early on. The PCs eventually manage to kill the dragon and almost all of them were very sore and 2 almost dying (agian). I designed a basic lair with some difficult terrain, a pool of water and a trapped statue of tiamat for the fun and games.
If I had to do it all over I would probably give the dragon some spells, some kobold in the lair with it and tweak the encounter more and focus more on the PCs hit with the breathe weapon. A beterdesigned lair could also be used I suppose.
Kobold swwarms are really annoying and they almost got 2 PCs via focus fire and ambush situations. Monday's session will be fleeing the Dragons lair without the benefit of a long rest while Kobolds and allies in the Church of Tiamat try and stop them in a running battle through the Danarg (a big swamp).
What's your takeaway from this, Zard?
To me, it seems like you are starting to see how variety and use of numbers really does conjure the specter of fear for PCs.
Building encounters is not a science. It seems more an art or at least encounters should service the story rather than encounters becoming the story. This is what I believe 5e has brought back to D&D.
Rhenny wrote:
Thank for all those reports on game play, including the one for the Bless and the T-rex.
The final version have not been public play tested. So somebody have to take the job.
frbelanger wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Oh, well if the DM said it then obviously it's true.
Zardnaar wrote:
vssg wrote:
My party uses bless + paladin aura so it's very hard for them to break concentration or even fail saves.
Doesn't mean they're not a challenged though. They are fighting Drow mixed with undead whom have a good range of abilities to annoy them with.
I'm also running a dungeon however so terrain becomes a factor in encounters. Drow can levitate at will so they have less need for ladders, stairs, etc which can prove troublesome for the party.
My group also know they need to conserve spells in case they're ambushed during a long rest, which is a very likely and potentially deadly scenario.
When fighting intelligent foes they should do everything they can to strike out at the PCs, instead of being reactive/waiting in their lair to die. This also forces your players to load up on more escape/utility spells as well instead of spamming pure combat spells all day long.
Zard, if what you want is a harder or more challenging game has your group considered going full-on old school 'man mode' with character generation? Roll 3d6 ability scores, in order, and play with what you get. No mulligans.
JerboaTheFeared wrote:
I think that really hits at the core issue with your group. They want a more difficult game, but don't want to take ownership of what that means. They want to place all of the responsibility onto the GM. That isn't really a realistic expectation.
What you are left with are weekly posts about bless, T-rex, Encounter CR, etc. as the GM tries to keep up.
Instead of trying to houserule all of these little tricks the players are finding, you could always start with weaker PCs. 
Point buy, but at 22 points instead of 27?
"Back in the day" some of my friends' best memories are characters with bad stat rolls.
Well at lest the double fireballs do the job, Zard.
When I was playtesting, I used the Legendary concept and made an Avatar of the Bugbear God to threaten one of my groups. Maybe you can have them tackle more of those types of Legendary creatures too. They seem pretty heroic as adventurers so NPCs might really want them to go after the most challenging versions of monsters they know about or search for epic treasures guarded by those fearsome specimens.
In my game, what made it so frightening and dangerous was that the Avatar didn't come into being until the group had cleared the cave complex where diseased bugbear's worshiped their god. One of the PCs found an idol in a tainted pool after they killed the bugbear chief, his shaman and a bunch of elite bugbears. When they took it out, the entire cavern started to shake and crumble so they threw it back into the pool. (That was enough to have the idol awaken into the Avatar). The group escaped the collapsing cave complex (taking damage on failed DEX saves over the 4 rounds it took them to get out). In fact, one of the PCs fell (and was unconscious) in the cave while it was collapsing and the others had to decide if they should go back to rescue him. One of the PCs did go back and was able to carry out the fallen PC. When the party looked back at the collapsed hill, that's when the Avatar ripped out of the ground and came at them. I think my group was 6th or 7th level at the time. The combination of attrition, death trap/damage from other source, split party and decision making, and the big monster at the end was pretty frightening. The group did end up surviving, but I think a few of them went down. (Again this was with the playtest and I did create a boss bugbear, some elite bugbears, a bugbear shaman and the Avatar on my own - I think all the bugbears had multi-attack 2/round - the boss had levels as a fighter/cleric and the shaman had 4 levels as a wizard...something like that).
I'm looking forward to the DMG to see how WotC gives advice to tweak or create threats. I think that will be very interesting. I love tweaking. It surprised my players and makes the game more interesting for me too, and although I like to do all that, I don't consider the basic broken.
Rhenny wrote: