Looking for some combat advice

Greetings everyone!

I am having a little difficulty setting up encounters that are a challenge for my players. I am partially going by the book when it comes to the XP balancing and also winging it a bit based on what they have breezed through in the past. I know that the XP system assumes something like 6-8 encounters in a day with a couple of short rests, and that has been a little difficult to achieve so I wonder if that is why a hard (borderline Deadly encounter is just walked through).

Most recently they had three hard encounters within a small dungeon and I think that the party of five PCs took less than 20 damage total. I'm throwing a variety of baddies at them with different abilities as well as peppering the entrances of certain creatures to attempt to draw the fights out a bit, yet they just keep dominating. Of course that isn't a real problem, I would just like to present more of a challenge for them.

Admittedly, one of the things that keeps working in their favor is the Moon Druid that loves to wild shape into a Giant Spider and web the biggest creature down so the rest of the group can focus fire. That coupled with my horrible rolls (I'm not a huge fan of fudging rolls, but the last few sessions have me reconsidering that stance) has given them a massive advantage.

They are having fun just wiping the floor with everything they encounter, however it is a little less fun for me when that happens. Any advice would be appreciated, I really want to give them a more challenging experience.

Keep in mind that sometimes even if the DM perceives the encounters as easy, the player have instead a blast and no particular adjustment is needed.

Said so, a few observations/suggetions.
- If players rolled for stats or you gave them items/free feats they are obviosuly strong and you must keep that in mind.
- If players are smart they will use their abilities in a synergic way, making the encounters very manageable. 5e doesn't assume players are masterminds and some tactics are really effective
- Obviously be sure they are playing by the rules and not exploiting a rule that your party didn't get (for example, how surprise works in 5e, with no round of surprise)
- CR is a bit... Swingy, but I can assure you that is a valuable tool to avoid TPK... In most cases. But if you choose your baddies and move them IN A SYNERGIC WAY, they will start becoming MUCH MUCH more strong! For example, don't always go for mindless attacks, use the help action, go call for reinforcements and retreat if a battle is lost.
- Use terrain and the environment as a strategical advantage. Often PCs will be in the enemy territory, and there your baddies should have the upper hand, preparing traps or placing themselves carefully.
- Always remember that the point is not countering the PCs. If they builded themselves to be strong AND THE TABLE IS HAVING FUN (yourself included) no adjustement is needed. You need to do something is a tactic is becoming boring or too much repetitive, then use smarter enemies.
- There is no need to drain completely the PCs using fights. Exploration has its own challenges. A wizard may need Levitate to go past a chasm for example, or a wizard might need to Shatter a cave entrance.
- Forget the 6/7 encounters rule. Just RP awesome fights with smart enemies and try to prepare memorable bosses. That in the end will be what they'll remember.


Hope this helps.

I will also add:

- Strength in numbers. In 5e action economy is king. If your party has more than 5 players they will annihilate everything. More low CR monster are way more deadly than a single huge boss
- Please never fudge your rolls. The first time a player ever realizes this they will never be sure if they manage to survive and become heroes because YOU choosed that or because they did good.

Biggest lesson I've learned: never throw a boss at a freshly rested party. It'll be nova'd down effortlessly.
Start each dungeon off with a few easy fights. It may seem like trivial combat that the players are sure to win, but keep in mind: If the combat costs the party something (spell slots, short or long rest abilities, HP and hit dice), then it was not trivial. Bleed them before they get to the boss room.

I tend to follow a pattern of
1 swarm (stirges)
1 skirmish (1 hobgoblin per player)
1 pair of meat bags (Ropers)

not the same monsters every time, but the general concept is those will get a few good hits in and leech out a few spells, enough that the round one nova is less likely coming from every player, or they'll have enough scrapes that they won't want to run in immediately and take too many hits at once.

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Originally Posted by Fashionisdanger

Keep in mind that sometimes even if the DM perceives the encounters as easy, the player have instead a blast and no particular adjustment is needed.

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Thanks for the input. You made some really good points that I knew, but definitely needed to be reminded of, especially the quoted text. The other big things are that they did role for stats, so most are ahead of the standard power curve. The other is that they definitely have learned to play well together and that has added a completely new level to their game. I'll start working on more environmental advantages and things like that to help add some more wrinkles to combat.

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Originally Posted by Fashionisdanger

Please never fudge your rolls. The first time a player ever realizes this they will never be sure if they manage to survive and become heroes because YOU choosed that or because they did good.

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I don't really plan on fudging rolls, it just stings when I'm constantly missing attacks and failing saving throws to stay restrained. But, that's how these things go!

Glad to have helped!
About synergies, I have found very effective for example having a drow or a mage cast Darkness, hide and then unleashing spiders (who have blindsense), or a pack of kobolds trowing oil all around while one barring a door and another putting the whole room on fire... Enemies may also have allies shooting arrows from wall slits too high to be reached, or prepare actions to be unleashed when an ally goes into melee range.

5e monsters seem to be designed to work either as supports or the main treat of an encounter, and this make the most of them viable even at higher levels, regardless their CR.

This website helped me tremendously understanding some monster potential
http://themonstersknow.com/

Of course, sometimes is fun having dumb monsters that helplessy fall into players ambushes, but you can get really creative with your encounters with a little of research.
Also, roll initiative once for each monster type! So you can rush them with more enemies at once (it is also intended to work this way RAW).

Another thing to note is the assumptions behind the CR/XP budget math.

They assume:
1) average luck. Which is...swingy.
2) no multiclassing
3) no feats
4) no +X magic items (you can have magic weapons, but not ones granting +X bonuses to hit, saves, or AC).
5) straightforward "hit it till it dies" tactics

They also are targeted at a ceiling: they make the promise that if you stay within the XP budget of varied encounters, you won't risk a TPK under anything but a fluke. Consider them the earliest a party will be out of gas.

In practice, most parties can punch well above their weight (I've seen 125% of daily budget thrown around) because they either have better tactics (#5), are better optimized (#2-#4), or the DM just gets unlucky.

My (very rough) rule of thumb is that in T1 and T2 (through level 10 or so), every +1 item bonus counts as if that character were a level higher. The "big feats" (CBE/SS/GWM/PAM) count a variable amount, but +2-+3 levels depending on the rest of the build.

But honestly, I don't worry so much. My players don't want me to ride the ragged, bleeding edge of difficulty. So I don't even try. I put what makes sense for the session length, the area, and the ongoing fiction and use CR/XP as a checkpoint to make sure I'm not going to kill them outright. Oh, and give plenty of opportunities/reminders for short rests where appropriate.

So. a few tricks I have learned:

1) If you're having trouble with limiting rests, limit them artificially. I do this with my games. I warn my players at the very stat that they will gain the effects of a rest, be it short or long, when I say they do. This prevents the ever present "5 minute adventuring day" or the "Short Rest after every encounter". That said, you do need to have a good idea of how many resources your party is expending after every encounter. You don't need a perfect tab mind you, but you still want to be able to recognize if/when your party is tapped for resources. D&D is a resource management simulator, and encounters will become more and more difficult the fewer resources the party has.

2) The environment is key. Which is a deadlier fight that requires more resources? Three oozes in a large room with plenty of space to maneuver, or three oozes in a room filled with an acid pit that hurts you, and that room is constantly shifting and moving forcing the party to make strength and dex saves to avoid falling into the pit?

3) Going with the environment, vision limitations. People dislike Fog Cloud because they feel its a terrible option when you want to make cover that makes it harder to hit you. They're right, it is terrible cover against ranged and melee attacks. but it shuts down casters hard. Find ways to impair vision, movement, ect. to make battles more difficult.

4) Make use of the spell Slow. I cannot overstate how AMAZING this spell is on NPCs. In fact, I'd be willing to say it was designed specifically for NPCs to use against the players. It debuffs literally everything the players do. Movement? Halved. Attacks? You only get one. Casting a spell? It might not go off any time soon. And to top it off, you can choose the targets in order to avoid hitting your allies.

5) Swarms, and by that I mean large groups of enemies. 12 Goblins will be far more difficult then a single CR 3 most of the time.

6) the composition of NPCs and how they work together. This is a bit trickier, but with practice you can get down a pretty good system. Look for NPCs that compliment each other to make good combos. And this isn't just restricted to the enemies you put down. Two of my favorite encounters I ever ran involved how the NPCs worked off each other:

The first was a Ghost Ship piloted by a Merrenoloth. They have a special ability that makes it so whatever they pilot never sinks, even if the hull is breached, remains on course, and the people within the ship are not adversely affected by the weather. I added in Vamperic Mist that attacked the players from a distance, and had a pirate crew of Sword Wraiths, a Corpse Flower, and a deathlock as their leader. It made for a very dangerous Ghost Ship, especially when the players realized it wasn't sinking no matter what they did.

The second, even cooler battle, was when the party had come ashore. They had discovered a Shield golem, which heals every round if it has taken damage. so I tossed some ghouls, ghasts, some Rot Trolls, and The hungry. Now, The Hungry is a creature that gains advantage on attacks and deals an extra 4d10 necrotic damage if it sees someone or something heal. The party quickly realized what was going on, and had to figure out a way to prevent the Shield Guardian from healing.

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Originally Posted by SpectreCatcher

Greetings everyone!

I am having a little difficulty setting up encounters that are a challenge for my players. I am partially going by the book when it comes to the XP balancing and also winging it a bit based on what they have breezed through in the past. I know that the XP system assumes something like 6-8 encounters in a day with a couple of short rests, and that has been a little difficult to achieve so I wonder if that is why a hard (borderline Deadly encounter is just walked through).

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Why are you finding it difficult to have 6-8 encounters per adventuring day?

Pacing is a very important DM skill but also a tough one to master. Might be best to look at that first.

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Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre

In practice, most parties can punch well above their weight (I've seen 125% of daily budget thrown around) because they either have better tactics (#5), are better optimized (#2-#4), or the DM just gets unlucky.

My (very rough) rule of thumb is that in T1 and T2 (through level 10 or so), every +1 item bonus counts as if that character were a level higher. The "big feats" (CBE/SS/GWM/PAM) count a variable amount, but +2-+3 levels depending on the rest of the build.

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The entire post is full of great info, but these couple of things really stood out to me. In my limited experience being the DM these numbers seem fairly spot on and will give me some stiff to play with going forward.

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Originally Posted by ad_hoc

Why are you finding it difficult to have 6-8 encounters per adventuring day?

Pacing is a very important DM skill but also a tough one to master. Might be best to look at that first.

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Do you have any advice on how to "look at that"? I would love to try to improve my skills, so anything you could offer would be taken seriously.

I'm in much the same boat as you, I'm afraid, but I can offer one tip: you can often induce difficulties with roleplay, as well as with statblocks. Things like the villain possessing a fragile item the PCs want, or a hostage literally bodyblocking for them.

It's also worth noting that Ranged attackers coupled with meleers are a very potent combo, and creatures with flight are oddly strong. Just be sure you don't make your melee members feel too useless, if you utilize these tactics.

The assumption is 6-8 MEDIUM encounters. If you make them harder, you don't need as many. My players generally like tough fights, so I usually give them Deadly or 2xDeadly, and just a few per day.

The guidelines in the book are just guidelines. If players use unsuitable tactics, they might TPK against an encounter that another party would crush.

To make encounters more interesting, use terrain that restricts or hampers line of sight or movement, is hazardous, or is active in some way. Maybe there's a bamboo grove that you can move through, but not see or shoot through. Maybe there's a geyser that has a fog cloud above it, and occasionally sprays hot water after a few seconds of rumbling. Put the fight on a set of gnomish escalators and open elevators.

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Originally Posted by SpectreCatcher

Do you have any advice on how to "look at that"? I would love to try to improve my skills, so anything you could offer would be taken seriously.

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I don't know what part you're having trouble with.

One tip that others kinda got close to but didn't quite talk about fully, is cover.

Here is the excerpt from the PHB:

Spoiler

Show

Walls, trees, creatures, and other obstacles can provide cover during combat, making a target more difficult to harm. A target can benefit from cover only when an attack or other effect originates on the opposite side of the cover.

There are three degrees of cover. If a target is behind multiple sources of cover, only the most protective degree of cover applies; the degrees aren’t added together. For example, if a target is behind a creature that gives half cover and a tree trunk that gives three-quarters cover, the target has three-quarters cover.

A target with half cover has a +2 bonus to AC and Dexterity saving throws. A target has half cover if an obstacle blocks at least half of its body. The obstacle might be a low wall, a large piece of furniture, a narrow tree trunk, or a creature, whether that creature is an enemy or a friend.

A target with three-quarters cover has a +5 bonus to AC and Dexterity saving throws. A target has three-quarters cover if about three-quarters of it is covered by an obstacle. The obstacle might be a portcullis, an arrow slit, or a thick tree trunk.

A target with total cover can’t be targeted directly by an attack or a spell, although some spells can reach such a target by including it in an area of effect. A target has total cover if it is completely concealed by an obstacle.

Putting an Archmage behind a sizable podium in front of cultists, he's not even ducking, and that's a free +2 to his AC and to most of his Dex Saves. This is a really minor change but you just made an archmage with 15 AC (with mage armor) now have 17 AC, and his Dex save goes from +2 to +4. If you really want to make it more protected, make it an altar that hides most of his body, make that 20 AC and +7 to Dex saves. If archers and ranged spellcasters want to hit him, you'll need your melee units to probably get around the podium to knock them out of cover so that others can hit him. (This is a way to make melee PCs have more tactics beyond "I move and hit", and pushes the powerscales more in their favor. However, some spells like Fireball ignore cover, as does Sharpshooter.)

The party travels through a large, wide cavern in the mines, hunting kobolds. But the kobolds had time to prepare and make small holes in the walls of the cavern into little tunnels and hidey holes. Kobolds hiding in tunnels can stick their heads and arms out of cover, fire at your party through the holes, and then duck out of the way of the hole, granting them total cover. Can't see the kobolds behind the walls, most direct spells can't work on them, while other attacks definitely won't hit them. Party members may attempt to ready their actions for when the kobolds stick their heads out, but at three quarters cover, it's still +5 AC, and they get only 1 attack during the ready action. Better find the secret doors in the walls fast in order to flush out the kobolds before everyone becomes a pincushion. It gets worse if it's in the dark and the kobolds are spaced out so even a fireball isn't a great option, as Kobolds have the best kind of dark vision with long range and don't need to be completely very close in order to see the intruders.

Elves in the trees? Cover.

Soldiers on the battlements? Cover.

Cabbage cart? You bet I am pushing that over in order to make makeshift cover.

These are just a couple of ideas but one of the basics of combat should be cover, and I haven't played in a campaign where a DM regularly uses cover until I decide to take cover myself.

The angry DM blog can help you.

Also, play videogames, or watch them on YouTube. Games like Uncharted, Final Fantasy, Bioshock, or Mortal Kombat all work well for this.

Set up more important encounters like a videogame fight.

* Multiple phases
* Cinematic weird stuff
* Dynamic environments

So I ran a game where at level 3 the players went up against a Lich.

Firat form was a basic fight with some soul pits that would shoot narcotic energy between each other. The lich had a lot pushing and entangling effects.

Second form, when the lich died, was two giagantic skeletal arms coming out of two soul pits while the other two spawned undead.

Third was where the floor broke away and the party was falling and gad to deal with large chucks of rocks being flung at them by a giant skeleton. The lich was connected to the chest and the party's melee types could hop from rock to rock to get close or move away from the lich's attacks.

The party killed the lich and landed in an underground lake where they found treasure.

One of thebokayers got a cool knife... It was the phylactery of the lich. The lich also fell in love with one of the characters (re: obsessed) so the knife kept talking to him and he thought it was a legendary weapon...

But anywyas... You don't always have to go so crazy! Just using dynamic environments works too! Like... Have a fight at a base of a hill and have some enemies throwing barrels that explode. Once the barrel lands somewhere it has one turn before it explodes. Players can then get out the way, cause enemies to be in the blast, or sacrifice a bit of HP to keep hitting an enemy.

Thanks for all the input everyone! I have found that in just typing out my question yesterday I started to think about my last couple of encounters (the ones that were just walked through) and found a few things I could have done differently. Then with all of your responses I have found even more things that I could have done and will definitely work on in the future.

I do believe that part of the issue is that I am a bit inexperienced as a DM (this is my first long term game I'm running after a couple one-shots) so I tend to have a hard time keeping up with all the different combat abilities of the various baddies roaming around. I also tend to try to hurry a bit in combat encounters since my players sometimes take a little more time with their turns, so I kind of try to lead by example with quicker turns but that doesn't always lead to the best decision making. Since I can feel that I am getting better at it, I can only assume that more practice will make it better and better. In the meantime, my party is enjoying themselves and keeps coming back to play so I guess it can't be all bad. :smallwink: