Building Combat Encounters in Dungeons and Dragons 5e: Difficulty & Mechanics (Part 2 of 3)

[@DungeonDudes]

Links to the other parts of this series: Part I: Concept & Conflict - kzbin.info/www/bejne/d4usYWCOa8p6oZI Part III: Creating Environments - kzbin.info/www/bejne/j4nVfKuwqJqBZqc

[@BigggusDikkkus]

bahahaha you guys switched outfits lmao! looks like you're wearing each other's shirts.

[@dhesyca4471]

Thank you for this comment, it helps 😊

[@pakstrax]

All you need in life is to find someone who looks at you like Monty looks at Kelly

[@Nubbletech]

A little bit of food, sleep and something to drink would be nice too.

[@JakeLikesJoking]

Haha I know, it's so sweet! 😆

[@theEpicGeek21525]

At this point, I'd take someone who looks at me the way that Kelly looks at the Monk class.

[@joeschmoe6356]

@@theEpicGeek21525 that bad, huh?

[@liammogford]

First ever game I ran. The first session with friends who never played before. We rolled characters. I opened the scene in a pub and they did social RP for about 15 mins. The pub was near closing time when a dodgy looking old man asked them to help them. The paladin rolled a decent insight and knew something was wrong but didn’t know what. The party accept a quest to find this guys daughter. He appeared really happy and bought them all drinks. I asked for them to roll con saves. All but the paly and dwarf fighter failed. They had been spiked. Fade to black, they awake and find themselves, after a bit of investigation, in the bottom of a well with their gold taken. Thankful they were new adventurers so their equipment wasn’t worth taking. After a bit of perception checks they discover the well is full of spider webs. I reveal two giant spiders. And 4 regular spiders. They spend the first round scrambling for their dropped weapons. They kill a couple of the small dudes and take out one of the giants. At this point I saw it was going a bit too quick, so I told the warlock that as his EB hits the giant spider for the killing blow that it’s abdomen erupts and two more small spiders come out. They finish the fight and I look up at the table of friends who have never played DND before, in an adventure I was making up, celebrating and laughing about their victory. It was the best feeling.

[@GamerGrovyle]

That sounds amazing.

[@FirstArchon]

but you didn't tpk them. that means you lost

[@Debicus]

@@FirstArchon OOPS

[@eve8372]

This sounds amazing! (I'm about to start my own campaign and most of the players haven't played D&D before too, and I really hope I can have the same effect on them as you did with your party!)

[@21TheRonin]

Wait, if the pally and the dwarf made their saves why did they wake up in a well with the rest of them?

[@Shane-The-Pain]

I posted this on the first in this series and I wanna post it here too: Teaching people to GM is teaching people to "fish". Future Game Masters will learn skills like organization, improvisation and critical thinking as they develop as GMs. These are LIFE SKILLS that we all need and these are missing in the American education system. Gaming is good for civilization at large. Thank you, Dudes.

[@Frederic_S]

Absolutly true! And its missing in most of the education systems all around the world. We need games like this!

[@jgr7487]

it's all fun and games until a PC causes initiative rolls on an encounter you made to be an RP-only encounter with a super-powerfull NPC with yet undefined allegiances.

[@Yasswuh]

I actually was a PC in this amazing run, one of my friends DMed for us. It was back in 4e and we had a barb, we had gotten to the big bad and were fighting him on the top of a ziggurat. Half our party down and it’s the last moments of the fight. We had used everything in our arsenal as this was endgame boss. Our DM raises the stakes on us, the big bad walks towards the edge of the ziggurat and takes out a health potion. I cast soften earth my last spell available towards big bad. His footing loosens and he starts slipping on the edge and he has big bad make a reflex save, and of course makes it. Up next was our barb who then asks the dm that as the big bad was making the save could he have tackled him off, to which our kind dm was like make opposing athletics checks. Our barb nat 20s and the battle comes to an end with our barb spearing the big bad off a 100 story ziggurat to their deaths. In the campaign wrap up we make a statue at the base of the ziggurat to honor the barb.

[@cloak5857]

Dying in the final fight to kill the BBEG is the most Barbarian thing you can do.

[@FatalKitsune]

My favorite combat encounter was from the first game I ran, Lost Mine of Phandelver. The party was going through Cragmaw Castle, looking for the dwarf Gundren Rockseeker. Near the end of the dungeon they came across a door, barred from the outside as if to keep something in. The Rogue figured this is where Gundren was, so he threw the bar on the door and opened it. Unfortunately, it wasn't the dwarf. It was the castle's pet owlbear. It let out a bellow/screech and started charging. Roll initiative. Thankfully, the Rogue went first. He slammed the door shut again. Alerted by the noise, a doppleganger (disguised as a Drow) and Glasstaff the mage emerge from the next room. So, as the party tangles with this pair I keep having the owlbear attack the door. Every round I tell the PC's that they hear something slamming against the door, the wood cracking and splintering until it finally breaks. At this point, the doppleganger is low on health so it simultaneously tackles the Fighter and shapeshifts into her. The pair struggle on the floor and in all the confusion the other PC's lose track of who is who. After a round, the Fighter makes her Strength check to break free of the grapple. She actually tosses the doppleganger into the path of the charging owlbear and it swipes with it's mighty paw, disemboweling the thing with one blow. Glasstaff is low on HP, so the Bard casts sleep on him, taking him out of the fight. The PC's are battered and bloody and the owlbear is a fierce opponent. The PC's barely manage to kill it. It's a hard won victory, but the PC's earn plenty of loot and a level up. Now we have an inside joke about the Rogue being terrified of owlbears.

[@claduke]

SpitefulCrow When we played this, our DM changed it to the doppleganger being disgusied as Gundren. So we had two Gundrens and had to figure out who the real one was. We had them duke it out with planks, Joker Dark Knight Style, and used a Revivify Scroll to revive the real Gundren.

[@FatalKitsune]

Haha, two Gundrens! That's brilliant. If I run that again I'm using that! @@claduke

[@Blazerod100]

@@claduke Yall did Gundren dirty. Killed him and revived him.

[@kiwiviking175]

@spitefulcrow And that, my friend, is exactly how D&D encounters should go! Awesome.

[@DMachoMickey]

A good kobold grind will start out a joke, but a few ambushes and effective traps later and your players will be boarding themselves in a kitchen to recover hp while the kobolds set deadlier traps and call in their dragonshields.

[@thenuinn]

Beware the Swolbold! i.imgur.com/yk2RQSM.jpg

[@zacsnowbank7632]

Once, my party was camping in a ruined castle we found while we were searching for a dwarven ruin we knew had kobolds in it when we found a crack in the basement. We kept an eye on it during the night and kobolds started swarming out. We never even went inside to get killed by the traps, we just got swarmed until we were all exhausted and blocked off the hole with a large piece of rubble. Kobolds don't even need traps against lower level parties. Their willingness to die for the warren is enough.

[@DMachoMickey]

@@zacsnowbank7632 Sounds right! My players thought clearing the kobolds from beneath the gnome neighborhood was going to be a lot easier job than dealing with that bronze dragon that was attacking the town for some strange reason, but when they barricaded themselves in that kobold kitchen for a rest, they came across a strange looking bronze egg. After that it was a race to the surface with the egg, as the kobolds got tougher and the party's resources whittled away. They escaped the lair within an inch of their lives, and you can probably guess what was waiting for them at the exit. ;)

[@thenuinn]

You could say it was warrented

[@cloak5857]

Kobolds rock. In 13th Age there's a monster city called Drakkenhall, ruled by 3 god-like dragons. Their personal army is the Glinting Legion, a force of kobolds equipped with the best equipment a dragon's gold can buy. When the party arrived they wandered the goblin market before a commotion caught their attention. A bulette had emerged nearby, the ruined side of the city housing all sorts of beasts. Of course the players charged in but a group of "Glinters" charged in beside them. The proficiency and ferocity the city's kobold guard showed taking down the bulette left everyone with a new respect for the little lizards.

[@Knauco]

One of my best encounters was an Utyugh that was using telepathy to get a hoard of troglodytes to continuously bring it food. The party followed the trail of raised areas and dead corpses and had no idea there was a huge garbage beast waiting for them. Great video guys. I find your videos extremely helpful.

[@alexanderrogers4557]

I ran a combat where they delved into the lair of a adult/ancient black dragon. I sometimes combine the levels of dragons so it seems more like a spectrum than a level. Anyway, they had got in fairly far and I was starting to realise that maybe they would just get steamrolled by the dragon, so I added the ghosts of people that the dragon had previously fought the dragon rise from the cave and assist them in their fight. While the dragon did escape, it was a really cool moment to have one of the ghosts posses the barbarian that had been flattened by a breath weapon to allow him to continue in the combat

[@trequor]

That's an awesome idea! I also use a broader spectrum of dragon ages. I use the MM to determine mechanical size, but ill adjust the breath weapon damage dice and the dragon's HP according to how old it actually is (and how challenging i want it to be)

[@dunamancer]

I just wanted to say THANK YOU for this video and for introducing me to the XGtE method. As a newbie DM it was really hard to wrap my head around encounter building going by the xp rules in the DMG, but your ideas and explanations made everything simpler. Subscribed!

[@FrankDellario]

Well, you guys knocked it out of the park again. You have a knack for being able to easily contextualize the systems of 5e. Just the part covering encounter types and how they can be added together (eg 1 easy plus 1 moderate = 1 hard) was pure gold. Keep up the awesome work.

[@enddorb]

This video needs an "encounter" counter

[@averagebot935]

I guess you could call it an en-counter Ill see myself out

[@DarkerDelve]

Great video Dudes. I would suggest, for minions, that you roll for their hit points normally. For purposes of the sleep spell etc. They still die after one hit, regardless of how many hp they have. I put a small m, above the creatures name, in my notes, to remind me that they are in fact minions.

[@JasonsOkatGames]

To add to the "pulling enemies out" problem. You can always have the party be left unconscious and then taken captive by the enemy and have a fun prison escape sequence the next session!

[@johnstontv300]

when things got too hard we ran off, and came back a couple levels later and mopped them up

[@emma-di5ly]

Once I was a player in a oneshot where the DM decided to do a TPK on purpose at the end and told us it was going to end with an "easy fight." Long story short, all but one of us were killed either by the Demogorgon, one of his 20 human followers, a fire elemental, or all together. Mostly the Demogorgon. Only I (the bard) survived because I was accidentally transported into another realm. I came back and found my friends dead. It was really, really irritating and he is no longer allowed to DM.

[@deplorablemecoptera3024]

When you run combat it's important to vary combat encounters, easy encounters when fighting mooks into difficult boss fights works thematically, and makes death more likely to be dramatic. Also remember DND has an attrition based combat system. If you give players the ability to rest too often or throw too few combat encounters at them in a given day they will walk over even deadly encounters. The best way to handle this is making the party earn their rests. "Sure you can take a long rest here, but the goblin general xranthar is in the den right now, no telling where he's going to be in eight hours." This could be considered a good thing however if you have a single encounter in the adventuring day you can beef it up such that a party is fighting things they shouldn't be at their level and win. Also remember any time an enemy faction has more turns than the players they have an advantage. Action economy is super important for combat design because a single big bad isn't going to be a problem for five players without lots of legendary actions available to move out of initiative order. If you want lots of minions without lots of slow bookkeeping on their attacking phase you can declare ten attacks on the character from the minions ask that player for his armor class, and subtract the attack bonus of the monsters from the AC, that's the target for your dice. Now roll ten d20s and the number of hits resolves to the number over the target number. (This is simpler in practice than in explanation)

[@100nodog]

I put in the work to create a table of "If I have X monsters who need to roll Y to hit, these many automatically hit, the remainder miss"

[@deplorablemecoptera3024]

John Healer that's certainly a way to resolve it mass combat faster. In the right game it would be a great solution, unfortunately it's not really suited to mine. There are two main reasons I don't do if that way, first I roll all of my dice in front of the screen, I want my players to believe everything is out of my hands and anything could happen. (Even though I still have considerable influence over the outcome by dynamic adjustment of other variables) If I resolved it via table there would be no hiding it from my players and they would probably understand the implications of this method. Second, I don't want the players reverse engineering the math and making decisions based on the absolute certainty of an outcome. I want them to take risks, knowing five goblin archers might happen to hit and ruin their day when the average should be two. Conversely none might hit and make the whole thing easier for them. If I had more players or my method was slowing combat down I would probably have to switch to a table method, but I feel at this point making the rolls works better for me. One major question with such a method is resolving crits; a crit should occur on average once in twenty roles, if you have twenty goblin archers you expect about one crit per round. Is it alright to hit players with an auto crit? I'm not so sure. If you have ten goblins you expect a crit in two rounds, would this resolve to no crits? Is it alright to completely remove the possibility of a player getting crited because the mob fell below an arbitrary number? I'm not sure how I would resolve this in my game, though if it works for you I'm sure it works.

[@100nodog]

@@deplorablemecoptera3024 keep in mind, I use these tables for hoards of monsters like Minions from 4e. Something players can easily cut swaths through. I usually don't have them critical hit, because the player is already taking enough guaranteed damage as is. And that's why I use the system I use: Guarantees. A solid middle ground that my players can predict and do the math on. Because my big bads or bosses or other particular threats already have an air of mystery.

[@deplorablemecoptera3024]

John Healer I can see the appeal, but prefer the madness of random outcomes myself when dealing with large numbers of combatants. The best stories at my table often come from those "little goblin that could" scenarios.

[@swordhooker]

One thing that I found works well for large numbers of minions is to group them by types (clubs, archers, mages) and have the players act on individual initiative while the groups act on collective initiatives by type.

[@Hazel-xl8in]

Chris Shelton it also works with encounter design. having a combat with randomly chosen monsters Might be fun, but it won’t have any polish. a fight with a line of infantry, 1-3 artillery enemies, AND a brute or a striker causing extra problems, that’s an interesting fight.

[@danieldosso2455]

This video is SUPER useful as I'm about to run my first D&D 5e session in about 2-3 weeks times Edit: I've always found the way the DMG explains the CR system to be rather confusing, but the way you guys explain "just grabbing CR 5 monsters for Lvl 10 Player Characters makes far more sense.

[@MikelPagano]

Just be careful if you are running a campaign that starts at lvl 1 as that is when players are very very vulnerable and can die easily, you may want to avoid hard and deadly encounters until level 3 maybe 2. Just my opinion of course :)

[@danieldosso2455]

@@MikelPagano Duely noted. I've heard similar opinions from other sources as well and will take that into consideration. Though my expectations for my game are just a simple drop-in drop-out game for my co-workers who have little to no knowledge of the game, so I doubt they will be overly attached to their characters.

[@ashenwuss1651]

Please tell me it's LMoP. Hehehe

[@danieldosso2455]

@@ashenwuss1651 it's my own Homebrew

[@ashenwuss1651]

@@danieldosso2455 oh. Congrats. I hope it goes well and everyone enjoys it. I've backed out twice from homebrewing a game. I really want to do a short campaign in Ixalan from MtG

[@dren5810]

This came at such a perfect time, from one DM to another..thank you guys!!!

[@DungeonDudes]

:D Glad to help!

[@colinmudd5024]

A fun encounter I had one time with my team is when they thought the questing was over, had gone back to town to check out their new stuff and are attacked by a revenge group of monsters with the actual big bad. At this same time a parallel story line comes to a head where the local gang they had given a thrashing too emerges to take back there own stuff. The chaos of being between the two different enemies for two different reasons and fighting within the city ally's and roof tops made an exciting and different encounter.

[@johnathanrhoades7751]

I love to use the 4e groupings when possible. They broke monsters up into different functional classes (soldier, brute, artillery, lurker, controller, and...skirmisher? Striker? I don't remember the last one). Picking monsters that fit a couple of those categories in the same encounter can make things quite interesting as opposed to 5 of the exact same monster. Maybe one wolf is bigger and burlier and another wolf is quicker and darts in and out of combat...just another tool I have found helpful.

[@nautvanhee398]

Last game we faced an enemy of my character from his backstory and it was certainly a deadly encounter. It had a mage and it used Cone of Cold. Our wizard died. The DM really punished our mistakes, because well it was an ambush set for my monk. Later that lead to a skill contest for finding a diamond in the room to cast Revivify. We found it like a round before Revivify wouldn't work anymore. Our Bladesinger found it, tossed it to the cleric whilst my shadow monk slit the throat of his enemy.

[@badhomework]

My first ever “good” boss fight. So there was this guy named Kedrov, he was your basic mad scientist who specialized in acid, poison, and robotics. In the players first encounter with him he was pretty weak but managed to escape after his reinforcements (robots) arrived. The players mowed through the robots with ease and continued through the dungeon to find Kedrov. This is where things got fun. The players entered the room and saw kedrov at the end of the large room. As the players charged at him he charged back. He was wearing a bulked up suit that combined his robotics (think power armor) and just started throwing hands. As the party started to surround him he used his lair action to start to emit gas from the 6 gas ports on the wall. This not only would require con saves from the party but also made Kedrov invisible to the players. The players then started to try and turn off the gas one by one but Kedrov would be underneath an emitter and would bring the PC into a chokehold with a difficult strength check. The players eventually managed to turn off the gas and then I let them finish off kedrov. It should be noted that his armor was unique and that it would become resistant to a type of damage that it gets hit with. By the end it was resistant to most damage. I am proud of my players for listening to the hints I gave and finding out this weakness.

[@garysmith442]

Good job guys. I've been playing d&d for 20 years... Knew 3rd like the back of my hand.... 5th is tricky. I have 8 players and just find that it's bloody difficult to design encounters for them. I'll try to use these tips. Thanks for the video.

[@Thergood]

Great video guys. My problem as a player is that easy and moderate encounters often bore the heck out of me. I'm a wizard and I have this awesome list of spells, but because we're fighting some shlubs who pose no real threat guess I'm just going to sit here and firebolt every round (Just an example.) I have this character sheet filled with all this awesome shit and I effectively can't use any of it because it's better to save it for the "real" encounters. This means when I DM I tend to use hard encounters, or several moderate encounters strung together into a running battle, and even deadly encounters. I will adjust difficulty on the fly based on how the fight is going through reinforcements, HP adjustments, etc. I like to have some challenging element to every fight and encourage creative and unique solutions. My players wiping an encounter in one round because of resource dumping or creative problem solving is really great to see. Maybe I'm just a weirdo in this aspect, just not a big fan of "grinding" easy encounters to use up resources and so on.

[@DungeonDudes]

Yeah, I think the "bore factor" with easy and moderate encounters can to be addressed with some good stakes, a mentality shift that it's okay for an easy/medium encounter to only last 1 or 2 rounds, and seriously: try the cluster method we describe here when building adventures. Tactically minded-players love getting to "divide and conquer" foes -- the enjoyment from this mental challenge tends to overshadow the relative "boring" combat encounters that result, because the players get to feel rewarded for executing a great plan. It really makes for a fantastic and fun scenario, and if they mess up, the worst thing that happens is a really hard combat encounter where they have to pull out all the stops (which is often fun and dramatic on its own)

[@deplorablemecoptera3024]

Two words: puzzle monsters This is something from classic DND which 5e has started to move away from. A puzzle monster is a monster with some kind of gimmick a perfect example would be trolls which regenerate unless fire hits them. A puzzle monster is very tough when you don't know the gimmick but much easier to beat when you know how they work. In some cases you might be able to avoid the encounter if you know how it works, giving you that feeling of growth as you are now a more capable adventurer who needn't fear that threat. A gimmick might be the particular way the monster attacks, or it might be a mechanic due to a particular damage type, it might even be based on how much hp it has left or which abilities it is using. A monster which attacks with advantage when fire damage is dealt to it, a monster which can put you to sleep if you come too close, a monster which is natively invisible, or a monster which prevents players from gaining the benefits of a long rest when they're around are all examples of gimmick monsters which can really make encounters more interesting even if they aren't more deadly. Imagine wading through the swamps of Mortari, mosquito bites gradually driving you and your party insane, the elvin ranger perks up; "something's wrong," The birds, which had been chirping loudly in the noon sun had suddenly fallen silent, cicadas had ceased their droning, a harsh silence descends upon the swamp, only broken by the whine of mosquitoes and the occasional smack of a bloodsucker being crushed by an adventurer. The party stops, listening and watching the bog intently, clearly on edge. The dwarf it the first to notice the white fabric partially hidden behind a nearby tree. "There" he says pointing. As he uttered the word, the fabric suddenly moved fully out of view. The adventurers advance weapons drawn towards the tree, the ranger readies an attack against whatever is there hidden, fearing an ambush. Suddenly the fighter who had been leading the group is swallowed by the swamp, a massive maw opening beneath him. A skeletal figure wearing a white dress and suspended on a long tendril swings out towards the cleric, it takes an arrow from the ranger but there is no noticeable effect. It strikes the cleric, her heavy armor and the muck making dodging difficult. She finds it covered in a sticky substance, it picks her up and swings her into a nearby tree wounding her. It's initiative and the players begin to counterattack, the fighter inside the maw strikes at the darkness, dealing massive damage and causing it to spit him out, later one of the characters will remark "well we know one thing, they don't like the taste of dwarf." On its turn it rises from the depths, a massive angler fish like monster covered in sludge, it bites at the party and swings its lure, still entrapping the cleric as a flail at the party. It isn't a spectacularly dangerous encounter, but certainly less boring than 4 goblins.

[@jmass4207]

A good piece of advice I read is to make at least one creature in every combat an NPC in the sense that they have some motivation or other beyond “kill the pcs” that hook or by crook is revealed to the characters. This can give them a greater understanding of that creature type, the dungeon as a whole, or perhaps simply insight into the life of that lone creature ultimately felled by their blades.

[@agilemind6241]

@@jmass4207 IMO only animalistic predators should have the sole motivation to "kill the pcs". Most enemies should be more complex than that - perhaps they want to take the pc's stuff so when they start losing they just turn and run perhaps setting up a better ambush for later, or maybe they are defending their territory and want to scare the pc's off, or maybe they want to take prisoners for ransom or as slaves, maybe the pc's are the attackers and the creatures are trying to delay them until reinforcements arrive or until the creatures can evac.

[@baltsosser]

10 rounds is only a minute long. It might seem long, but I for one would enjoy that. Tactics will definitely come into play.

[@deplorablemecoptera3024]

V Star 1300 Adventures I think with most of this advice it comes down to the table as to whether it's useful. If you have a pretty good group of players who know what they're doing, are paying attention, and are decisive when their turns roll around 10 rounds of combat is perfectly acceptable and can be very fun, it might be less than 30 minutes and depending on what happens could be epic and memorable. On the other hand if you have players (or worse a single player) who aren't paying attention or who sit around on their turns trying to decide on what to do, it can take hours to get through combats that are this long. Especially if you have a more RP focused group multiple sessions bogged down by a single combat encounter might be pretty annoying. Everything comes down to the group, some groups like mechanics based slug fests and high mortality games, D&Darksouls if you will, others play a more RP or exploration focused game where mortality might be more taboo. I personally run a game where death is a very real possibility but the world isn't set up for or against the players. If the players piss of a powerful NPC they might die; or they might find themselves fast friends with that NPCs rival.

[@baltsosser]

@@deplorablemecoptera3024 I love the possibility of a character death. That means your choices matter. You must choose, but choose wisely.

[@deplorablemecoptera3024]

V Star 1300 Adventures I tend to agree, I'm not precious with PCs and they know that. I try to set up circumstances where players won't die in dumb ways unless they're really trying to die, but if they make a massive blunder and don't prepare... Let's just say I roll all my dice in front of the screen. On the other hand if you run a more story based game there can be a distinct problem with story momentum if there is high PC turnover. Imagine giving five Heroes a quest and five different heroes arrive a few months later to claim it. You can fix this somewhat by giving each PC joining after a death a hook into the current adventure, but this requires the player being willing to work with you during the backstory writing process. Of course if you don't play a really story focused game (which by the way is perfectly legit) this isn't even really a concern. As I said at first, it really depends on the group of players, and the kind of game they showed up for.

[@michaelsorensen7567]

I thought each turn in a round was "about six seconds", and a round was "about a minute". Is that wrong?

[@jabez2844]

Michael Sorensen It might be a little difficult to understand in writing, but I’ll give it a shot. A round is also six seconds, but a PC’s turn is simply what that one character does themselves in that six seconds. When everyone in the initiative has taken their turn of what they’re doing in that six seconds, that equals a round of combat

[@charlesalbrecht6201]

Dudes, been watching Drakkenheim since the beginning and am 20ish sessions into DM’ing my first campaign, Drakkenheim of course, and am always stoked that when I have a question I can look through your catalog and find exactly what I needed!

[@MN-cr5jh]

New DM here with all new players - it took a while for us to figure out a good rhythm for combat encounters, but it seems like our table prefers sweeping/epic narrative over room-by-room dungeon delving. That means I’ll usually plan one SUPER deadly set piece encounter per session (with occasional smaller obstacles) that tests their tactics and character abilities. In the interest of not one-shot killing the PCs, I’ll often pile in a gaggle of low-level DMPCs to soak damage or include a puzzle-like solution to ending the fight quickly. Still not perfect, but it allows for fights the feel scary and cinematic while also letting PCs feel powerful and crafty. (We’re running Storm King’s Thunder, which lends itself to super deadly encounters for a party of 3 glass cannons)

[@dedickey14]

If you want to really challenge the tactics of your party and challenge them for having so many glass cannons... give the bad guys a good healer. It sounds like this could really stretch their abilities and push a longer more epic encounter.

[@hung-yenhoang1462]

Spam goblins. Surrounding players in goblins is good. Or even better... *_Gelatinous Cubes_*

[@ianmeza9216]

yeah or black puddings... players love black puddings encounters , right?

[@deplorablemecoptera3024]

Ian Meza you two aren't thinking devilishly enough, rust monsters

[@Shane-The-Pain]

@@deplorablemecoptera3024 Thanks. Now I'm gonna go roll a halfling monk/cleric. 8/

[@davisiimdavisiim1295]

1 colossal gelatinous cube the players mistakenly have walked onto, square in the middle of its topside and now they're sinking into it......

[@deplorablemecoptera3024]

ShaneDeeZee time to break out the shadows

[@tomolson1200]

"i take cover behind my pile of dead bards!"

[@paulschirf9259]

My version of "Tough Minions" are capped at two attacks per round and have standard hit points... until they take damage... any damage. They then become normal minions, with 1 hit point, no damage where a saving throw would result in half damage, and only one attack per round. This type of minion helps make minions feel meaty without making them deadly... the 2nd hit kills them if the first doesn't, and they become less effective offensively after taking a hit. I reserve these for when I'm using CR2 or higher level creatures as minions, such as using Ogre Minions for a Dragon. By this time the party should have AoE attacks to help deal with a slightly harder minion threat.

[@Raoh556]

A great combat encounter comes to mind back from when I was playing Pathfinder. We had a party of I believe five players. Pretty typical line up. Had a wizard, cleric, rogue, fighter, and a Dwarf Barbarian who was played by me. The group was climbing the passes of a snowy mountain to find the key to an ice temple dungeon at the summit. Our 4th level party was ambushed by a lone Frost Giant. A deadly enemy to us for sure, with a CR of 9. Luckily, none of us were killed outright with a single hit from him. However, the Giant did manage to knock everyone out. With the turn order that was in play from initiative rolls, the Giant went after the NPC guide that was with the party. While the Frost Giant was distracted, I managed to roll a 20 on my death saving throw and rose with 1 HP instead of stabilizing at 0. What happened next was nothing short of glorious. I Bull Rushed the Frost Giant. With my 20 Strength and +3 Combat Maneuver Bonus (racial Dwarf ability), that gave me a total +8 bonus to grapple the Frost Giant in a Strength check. You read that right. I grappled a creature two size classes larger than me. My roll totalled 26 (18 on the d20), the Giant's was 23. Succeeding in my Strength check to grapple this Frost Giant, I then heaved him right off the side of the mountain. The Giant landed with an earth shattering crack as he cratered the ground at the mountain's base. After the rest of the party came to and we journeyed down, they could do nothing but gaze in awe at the Frost Giant's corpse that I flung off a mountaintop.

[@princessrayneshia1293]

I think one of the best battles I've ever run was the final one in our last campgian where the group had just gotten back to their home city in time for the holiday festival where there was a yearly combat in the town square against a young white dragon and a winter wolf, where the goal wasn't to kill them but to drop them bellow 20% hp, and if any player hit 0 rather than doing death saving throws were pulled off to the side lines and if they died to early they wouldn't get any reward from the festival and they knew there was some really good magic items up for grabs and much to my enjoyment this didn't cause then to be totally reckless it caused them to be more careful than normal after the dragon's first attack when he almost wiped 2 people so each turn took longer but it was because they we're all trying to make the perfect move to win the festival

[@alexanderstrahn1516]

Well, My players were staying the night in a dwarven stronghold and had been recruited to solve a mystery- why the dwarf king's favored artifacts-a helm and a robe- were constantly under the greedy eyes of an unknown force. The players accepted, but soon failed to protect the artifacts from being stolen. They then learned that the force, known as the New King- now hellbent on overthrowing democracy and law across the known world- had the ability to command armies of blue-eyed ravens which allowed him to see through their eyes. The players ran, but not without their own fair share of misfortune. The cleric is now suffering from PTSD from the event and our sorcerer was just flat out driven mad. Now the players are seeing flocks of blue-eyed ravens across the rooftops of waterdeep... to be continued.

[@Diablos-ic9vd]

So, how did it go

[@alexanderstrahn1516]

@@Diablos-ic9vd The campaign ended long ago but to this day one of my favorite enemies I've had and the group liked it as well

[@JaeOnasi]

I wish I could give this 10 thumbs up. I'm running Curse of Strahd for a pretty powerful group of 5 players, and it will help me design encounters that are just a bit more of a challenge for them without going overboard.

[@cyrilmartin5613]

Best way to make combat encounters is to make them alive. Patrols move, people travel, animals hunt, they are not static or appear by accident. It's not a video game where you have monster that appear just when you walk

[@LexIconLS]

Just had a group sent by a Kobold Chieftain to destroy a Grick Nest, and the Broodmother(a custom Grick/Hydra thing). They had found several small barrels of Dwarven black powder that they could place on some of the natural supports in the nest, but the fighter accidentally woke the Broodmother with a failed Stealth check before they could. So the Cleric, Sorceress, and Ranger had to rush to get the barrels planted in a dry spot in a cave with waist deep water while the fighter, the barbarian and the Kobold trapsmith npc they had with them distracted the Broodmother. They got all three barrels planted, but the ranger had been cut off, so the sorceress used a modified version of 'grasping hand'(totally blanking on the real name of the spell rn) to hold the monster in place while the ranger got away before they blew the barrels. The ranger had placed a flask of alchemist's fire that he shot with an arrow as the group ran, and the sorceress twinned a firebolt to blow the remaining two, collapsing the cave, killing the Broodmother, and destroying the nest.

[@deltadumbo]

I made an encounter for my level 7 paladin and barbarian/rogue of 13 crawling claws. The Rogue-barian went in the house they were in, saw them, walked out and set the house on fire. They then watched the exits to kill any that crawled out. I was so proud of the creativity.

[@brendandwyer7471]

This was one of the best videos I have watch on 5th ed. and has really helped me understand how to create much better encounters. You guys are awesome. Going to look into more of your videos now.

[@pokemonmaster5846]

I’m currently in my first campaign and from doing our first hard encounter it really does test your decision making. We were fighting a bunch of goblins and a bugbear with 1 of our teammates already knocked. Knowing I’d die I used all my walk speed to get to our Arakocra Rogue and healed him before getting knocked by the bugbear. Over the last few turns because of the heal he managed to beat the bugbear and we were all successful with our death saves. Everyone was happy after that session

[@maxchait5839]

A personal favorite of mine took place on what was essentially a cannibal space orc ship. I used 3 Yuan-ti pit masters that couldn't shapeshift or do magic and made their attacks ranged radioactive blasts. Then I used 2 massive tanarukks as roving barbarians. The party was hidden in the floor's starewell and had top get to the computer room in the center of that ship floor. The spent the encounter ducking into storage closets and picking fights in narrow halways to clear a path while the party mystic snuck into the computer room through the air ducts. The mystic got reduced to 0 because there was a gaurd (Yuan-ti pitmaster #3) in the computer room, but by that time, the party cleared enough of a path to save them by breaking into the room, without getting pounced on by the 5 monsters roving the floor. It was a super intense and tactical combat that took a long time, but it had RP and strategy boiled in as well. I should note the party was 4 level 7s at the time. I should also note that the Yuan-tis were given an explode on death mechanic for a radioactive burst of 2d10.

[@MerridianPrime]

Guard Drake mounted Kobold warriors guarding the territory of a strangely civilized clan of kobolds

[@hawkname1234]

Great, great video guys. It's awesome to hear experienced DMs talking about their no BS lessons learned on how to do some of the more complicated parts of DMing that really rely on experience and feel.

[@billdavis4363]

On my first campaign, the players were on the surface level (a ruined fortress in the cauldron of an extinct volcano). They entered a building that had a rack of 3-4 small war hammers in the foyer. The rest of the building was a maze of twisting passageways. On the walls, sporadically spaced, were small Terra cotta plaques in the shape of an eye. On the basement level of the building, the maze eventually ended in a medium chamber which was the lair to a Beholder! Everyone freaked! I almost had a mutiny, but they sorted through the details and decided to use the hammers to break the plagues. Each one corresponded to one of the Beholder's eye-stalks, destroy a plaque...destroy an eye. After they finished the last one they fought a blind beholder...and it was still a tough fight!

[@Seafaringslinky]

I swear I was just googling this earlier because my party might be heading into their first dungeon! Just what I needed! Thanks!

[@jordandavenport5784]

A big thing I've been trying to do is add a time crunch to easier combat encounters to create narrative stakes and alternative actions rather than attack them til they are dead. Here's an example I ran 4 players (level 3) into a hostage situation, the kid that delivers the secret ingredient to their favorite bar run by a sweet old lady was taken by a bandit and a berserker (medium encounter). the trade was to happen on a beach with two rowboats, one for the "pirates" to escape with and one to hold the tied up kid. The Berzerker had a potion of giants strength to fight with, but also to row away with. The bandit had a crossbow, boat cover, and alchemist fire in case they looked like they were getting to close. And finally, the beach was littered with standard pit traps (DC10 holes), not to stop them, but to slow a charge enough that they might not be able to get the bad guys and save the kid at the same time. Thus this medium encounter was made dangerous, not to the players, but people they cared about and their reputation.

[@Figgy5119]

I haven't been DMing for long, and my group of friends who have only played limited amounts of D&D one shots before, took on a "clock is running out" style mission, which I *thought* they would understand the need to press forward on. They had to find smugglers of magic artifacts before they could sell them off. I had planned it in this way of a few easy encounters adding up due to the attrition of not taking a break in order to catch up to the smugglers, then having their final encounter be against the smugglers with their two casters. But meeting the smugglers in the pass they new them to be traversing, they legitimately thought they were just simple travelers and agreed to travel with them on the way, took plenty of breaks and rests so the little encounters along the way didn't matter to them, especially with the help of the smugglers, and even when the travelers snuck off in the middle of the night they didn't think anything of it and have still just been taking long rests every chance they get, still thinking the smugglers are going to just come up the pass any minute when in reality they are long gone.

[@jlaw131985]

My favorite one I’ve run so far was a mimic that filled a hole in a wall mimicking a door the players needed to go through, and a gelatinous cube down the hall. The wizard tried the door and got stuck just when the rogue spotted the cube. They had to frantically kill the mimic before the cube engulfed the wizard. (Mimics are immune to acid, so that was a fun synergy)

[@kparish05]

I really liked this vid. Veterans know most of this, but being able to break this out/down and make it easy for new players to understand is OUTSTANDING!! You two are very good teachers and I enjoy your vids! Interesting, relatable and digestible 🥰👍

[@timmulder1227]

I still think my favorite encounter by far is one at the end of an prison dungeon that was plagued by undeath. It featured a Bodak guarding a powerful artifact. While the Bodak is already a marvelously weird creature in itself the artifact gave him some pretty unique lair actions on top of it. on initiative count 20 he could either heal a number of hit points, set of a fire effect from the braziers or fill up his skeleton roster (He had 4 skeletons helping him, and at initiative 20 he could get back whatever he had lost with this option.) It was pretty gnarly because the players decided to go for crowd control at first and it took them 2-3 round to figure out that they had to focus fire on the Bodak, because the skeletons just keep coming back. It was insanely tense and that was only the first of three gnarly combats that night. Never had a session with so much sustained tension. Everyone loved it though and miraculously they made it out alive while also succeeding at what they had set out to do.

[@jorge9604]

In my second time GMing my brother's​ half-orc (no class yet just stats) was hired to investigate what happened in a desecrated church he broke the door which attracted attention of 6 roaming zombies (+8 trying to break the doors they were behind) he killed 2 zombies before dying and the goddess of nature offered him the chance to come back to life as her paladin. It was his backstory (kind of) the original idea was that he purified the church and the goddess rewarded him with power but he like how it ended up

[@Sanshaino]

Oh my god, I spent most of last weekend trying to figure out encounter balancing with XP values. This is such a blessing.

[@tuckernorris5753]

Fun combat encounter where two bandits were set up in the start of a mine behind a cart. Our Drow rogue snuck up and hid under the cart. She then tied their laces together before our barbarian charged in and flipped the cart over. That made them trip over their laces backwards where they were easily dispatched. The DM I tended this to be a reasonably easy challenge for our first encounter, but she kinda made it into a two round thing. It was pretty funny though

[@0urher0nik0]

There's some pretty nifty CR calculators too that will help develop encounters. This helped me a lot when I wasn't very sure how challenging everything would be yet.

[@meikahidenori]

I've learned with deadly encounters to give my players wiggle room to get creative if fighting a creature starts to get too difficult. My players wanted to hunt a dragon which was sightly too high for them so I wrote the dragon as extremely vain and scattered mirrors around and as they smashed them the dragon started to back off till the worked out they could make the dragon surrender by threating to smash them all. Giving them an alternative way to taking on a creature that maybe too difficult has worked super well as it gets my players to think outside the box and feel awesome taking a creature down if they end up low on health and resources.

[@jamesmullen3068]

For a party of three third level characters, I recently ran two Nilbogs (cr 1, Volo's p 182) riding two ogre howdahs (cr 2 Mordenkainen's p221). I prepared a couple of verses, jokes, and insults to use with the Nilbog's abilities. If I did it again I think I would add some minions, and I forgot to use the most powerful spells/attacks, but the players LOVED it.

[@peterrosqvist2480]

11:25 I like that insight, a deadly encounter can still be a deadly encounter even if they managed to get through it without a scratch especially if they used their best resources.

[@syrupchugger421]

I love these ideas. Especially the minion and cluster ones. Thanks again!

[@kramerfortuna7228]

I usually run games for brand new players to get them interested in D&D or other games. So far, I haven't had any UNEXPECTED deaths. I have had a few players choose to die while making an epic last stand to protect their comrades, but that's pretty much it. The only exception was a one-shot heist where I pushed the players to betray each other, until only one survived. That survivor became an important villain in the next adventure. I recently decided to take on a group of more experienced players, and I'm looking forward to running some deadlier encounters!

[@andrewhazlewood4569]

If you are accidentally looking like wiping the party invoke the Balrog defence. Have a very powerful enemy scare off or start attacking the current enemies. If it will look like bailing out the party, make it clear the new threat is coming after them next so they have a very short time to pick up or revive party members then get out. Alternatively if you are into fudging to prevent a tpk, have the enemy leader crit fail and stumble on the front line (falling over a body for example). This might give a smart party a chance to negotiate a stand off by threatening the leader.

[@lidular]

My campaign is build in order to make it easier for me as a first time DM to make encounters. The party goes to adventuring college in a separate plane, and is called out for missions(Naruto style). That means if I want the party to fight a horde of goblins in a forest I can just send them there. It takes a bit of agency from the players, but that is kinda part of the setting. It also gives me an opportunity to have a high swoop in and save them if the encounter goes wrong.

[@tristenwilliams6226]

I'm so glad I found this video early on in my campaign!! I have not been doing the best with the combat and haven't been doing smaller encounters! I thought bigger fights be would be more fun but this is really eye-opening! Thank you so much for this :)

[@kevinperkins8994]

Here's a video idea: You mention creative ways to continue a campaign after TPK around 26:19. Why not go into TPK issues, creative ways to play out a disastrous series of critical fails and how a party might continue the campaign (or not?). What if that final campaign-ending battle does go badly for the players? One of your videos mentioned the disappointment of contriving a win in spite of obviously bad rolls, but at the same time, you really don't want things to end badly after months or years of playing. What have you seen be successes or disappointments and what might be some of those creative ways to resurrect a party after TPK?

[@l.w.miller4152]

Lvl 6 party (3 players) came across a small one horse town of wood elves. Every day at high noon a portal would open in the center of town. From the portal a Narzugon on his Nightmare accompanied by his Merregon bodyguard would emerge and challenge a resident of the town to a duel. If the resident won they would be spared. If they lost they would be taken the the 9 hells. Seeing that most of the townsfolk who were able to fight had already been taken it was up to the party to stop the Devils. Striking a deal with the Narzugon to take on any challenger the next day bought the party one day to prepare. They set holy water traps and consecrated the ground around where the portal appeared each day. When the Narzugon returned the next day at noon he brought with him an Orthon to fight the party. Using the traps and buildings around the town center, the party defeated the Orthon who knocked out two of the party members with it's final explosion. The last remaining party member stood victorious as the Narzugon went back through the portal, beaten... for now.

[@sovereignvisions5406]

Thank you guys so much for these videos especially this one. As a new DM (also relatively new overall in D&D) with only the 3 book starter kit for resources looking at setting up combat encounters felt daunting and like I was missing vital information. For example I couldn't find anywhere that stated challenge ratings on monsters weren't 1 to 1 for player level but in looking at the stat blocks i felt very uneasy that my players could handle what i was looking at. (I really may have missed it). Trying to research online also didn't really give me a breakdown of the basic mechanics. It seemed like you were just supposed to know already... Thank you for making this clear and concise video. I have baseline knowledge and further resources to look into because of you.

[@paladinofthelostdays7392]

So I wanted to share about a really crazy encounter I threw together recently for my players. So the party, consisting of a level 7 bard, 5 wizard/2 fighter, 4 cleric/3 warlock, and 7 rogue, were fighting there way up a cylindrical spire with a corkscrew path up it leading to the entrance of a hideout for the blackscale crime syndicate. So, I started throwing kobolds at them, a dozen or so, split evenly between the regular kinds and some flying kinds, forcing them to fight up the really awkward battlefield until they got to the top, and then fight more all the way down to the bottom of the spire's interior, where they got a short rest. What made this crazy was the fact that this fight was so heavily effected by the field. Verticality, 3d space, line of sight, all worked together to make this one of the best encounters I have ever run.

[@kenz3125]

my party of two players were taking on a werewolf den and they were lvl 4, no healing spells or potions. but they were fighting on a cliff, so a lot of Athletic checks were made for werewolves getting pushed off the edge and impaled by old dead tree tops, and when they won, they went buck wild with excitement

[@donanausetcscom]

“When pushed to the limit characters can survive some pretty amazing things” - like when the DM homebrews a CR 23 ancient dragon with in instead of Dex saves for characters between levels 8 and 12 and they shomehow kill it with only one death, however 3/5 of the party goes unconscious.

[@Krethean]

I remember a session I ran a few years ago (first campaign as DM, and set in FFXII's Ivalice because it made things much easier for me to do overall), the party encountered Adrammelech as a boss monster (which the party where seeking to deal with for plot) and I was inspired by the idea of the actual boss fight in the game, where the area itself constantly raises zombies. I had the encounter have zombies rise due to Adrammelech's powerful electricity, reanimating the corpses below as a Lair action and force the players to decide how to approach the battle.Its main lightning damage attack also arced to other players who had metal equipment so they had to be mindful of where they were. Also did a kind of Bloodied rule, where it did its strongest attack when its HP reached the half way mark, and while it posed a tough challenge, I was told after that they really liked the encounter a lot.

[@hambinger]

Just did a massively hard combat encounter as a sort of character resolution arc. Then added a huge boss at the end fully expecting the party to flee. They had time as the boss was huge and the characters could see it coming before it was upon them. They were tapped out HP wise and ability, so imagine my surprise when all the party members tried to flee EXCEPT the paladin who dashed TOWARDS the boss. I expected to just chase them off, but now the players were forced to choose to help their party member and die or run, letting the player die. I even named the boss creature (a demon-armored construct the TPK-1000) so they knew they had to run. It was so intense as the players tried to save the paladin. One player even successfully used her last spell slot to charm the paladin to run, but by then it was too late, and turn orders etc... he totes got slain. In horror the party fled.

[@fleetfoxification]

Last session my players reached the triple locked door of the wererat crime syndicate’s sewer hideout, only to find that the sewers were infested with demons. The fighter/rogue picked locks while the other three held off increasingly challenging waves of CR 2 or less demons. The hard cast cloud of daggers at a choke point so the all the manes (CR 1/8 I believe) died instantly, but just kept running into the blender. The dretches and bulezaus got through though. I didn’t pull punches with this potentially deadly encounter and they rose to the occasion!

[@alexwilson9881]

4e's breakdown of role (artillery, brute, lurker, skirmisher, soldier) was great for building and playing encounters. Like the minion rule, it's something you can easily port to 5e.

[@meowfulsoul2450]

I've been running The Lost Mines of Phandelver module and my players have been saying they'd like to make this a proper campaign enjoying how I've been running things (and as a new DM, its quite flattering) so I decided to not just make my first proper encounter, but also used homebrew creatures I took from the Witcher and it went really well. I was honestly afraid they were going to die and while I did end up putting the barbarian down, I didn't outright kill anyone given the narrative I had created around it. The narrative being the barbarian, who had been wearing a cursed amulet the party found, ends up back at a creepy cabin with Agatha where the voice within the amulet used the barbarian's body to pretty much resurrect herself and Agatha was mostly being the tank given she literally couldn't deal any damage to the undead creatures that were trying to get to the very living ones just beyond her. So the barbarian ends up going in, smashing the first one and as it pops and does damage on death, they backed up and started throwing javelins in order to achieve their end goal. They survived by the very teeth they had, but did lose their "horse" (the barbarian is a goblin who calls everything in the manner she has most relatable to her, so the ox she had was a horse.) But the rest of the group showed up just as she was going down and managed to save her before she had to make any death saves.

[@chrisburgin7599]

My most recent combat reached its climax when the villain fled back in to his wizards tower, pursued by the rogue and barbarian. After being corralled in his room at the top, he polymorphed his cat in to a young dragon and hopped on his back while the dragon nearly gibbed the rogue. As he came around the tower to descend on the cleric and caster (she's a homebrew witch), the barbarian found line of sight through a tower window and managed to hit the wizard with a javelin. The baddie failed concentration and died from a 70 foot fall.

[@coreyl6221]

Great insight on having encounters not being marathons as I've fallen into that trap as a new DM and it's taken a toll on players enjoyment. Also it cracked me up the wardrobe change from 1st video to this one was just shedding a layer😂

[@rodjacksonx]

Man, this is good stuff! As a new DM (first session of first campaign starts in just over a week!) this is exactly what I needed. Thanks!

[@jodylester9118]

I ran one of my favorite encounters last night. It was with a slightly homebrewed version of a Night Hag that could turn the party members on each other with a variant of Phantasmal Force wherein seeing their party members they would instead see enemies from their backstory or earlier in the campaign (they could make a Wis save at the end of their turn to break the spell). She could also summon these shadow minions (that followed the 4e minion rule). To make it even saucier I had her try to run for the well at the end of the fight, after killing her the party looked down in the well to realize it was more than just a well, but a series of tunnels. What they're going to find out next week (if they choose to explore that) is that those tunnels lead to other wells of the other hags in her coven. What started as a sidequest could end up being a pretty major aspect of the campaign.

[@evietenshi2467]

I had a caravan encounter where the PC's were escorting some armor and weapons to a camp of captured bahumut fighters. The party was level 4, with 1 level 5 member. They started their journey on 2 carts that were to give them food and supplies for the long ship ride to a doomed island that bahmut was trying to rescue. The initial encounter was built as a "luck based encounter" (a new method i was trying out to curb my generally weak encounters) It opened with 3 bandits and a bandit boss, who had gotten word of rare and powerful armor on a caravan. To make it interesting the session before this i had the PC's do some hunting quests. They didn't care about the queens bandit problem and left it alone (came back to bite them here) As they were fighting i was rolling 1d100's. For the first few turns they kept landing on "nothing happens" so i kept fighting as normal, Close to the end they landed on "kobolds" (again this is a dragon themed arch so i aimed to keep everything in line with that or with bandit themes). So the bandit boss fires off a flare gun, and a turn later all these kobolds rush the players 2 inventors throw in some cool stuff and the combat continues. Durring this time i have the bandit leader realizing his buddies are dead and not trusting the kobolds flee. The players wipe up the kobolds, but midway through that fight, the boss had alerted his assassin who he paid handsomely that the loot was going to get away. The assassin tried to intervene, but low on HP, and with the armies decimated he realized that the day had been lost. He spent turns escaping and the players lost the pursuit. During all of this only 1 PC fell (which was good i was aiming for a tough fight but not a lethal one.) they got the player back up, and asked if they can take a short rest on the carts (i allowed it) . Encounter 2 comes about and it was scheduled to be just some kobolds. I decided that since the boss got away, AND the assassin got a way, they also spent time licking their wounds and alerting their allies. The kobolds who had now been alerted, plastered traps everywhere they could. The PC's fought valiantly, our paladin making a mighty roar as he brings down justice. feeling all was lost. our mage opens a scroll he hunted down, gives a tearful goodbye, and BAM! a fireball blasts the immedate area around him, finishing the fight, but in the process knocking him down and setting a 20 foot radius on fire. the party burned a TON of hp running through the now onfire difficult tarrain and rescuing their valiant mage. Everyone came out ok and the session ended. The PC's LOVED it and said the combat finally had some stakes that they were excited for and our mage (who was part of bahmuts pantheon) said he enjoyed how the difficulty wasn't just a stomp fest.

[@DoveArrow]

I was a little surprised that you guys didn't talk about using terrain to make an encounter more challenging. It's one thing to encounter kobolds in an open room. It's a whole different thing to have them behind murder holes or atop a tower wall.

[@BlackShadow1991]

Thank you for making these guides, Dudes, they are fun, informative and well made :D

[@Meloncov]

While it's not as simple as adding more monsters, there are plenty of ways to save an encounter that's going against the players. If you do it right, you can have players lose a fair percentage of their battles (thus raising the tension in future battles) without many player deaths. Obviously none of them should be overused, and most work better in some situations than others, but combined they give the DM plenty of options: 1. Plan the encounter with an escape route, so the players can run if things go south. 2. An ally comes to save the players (obviously don't overuse this one, but a few times per campaign is fine) 3. Give the players some one-time use magic items that can save them. A scroll of Teleportation, for example, is a great thing to make sure the party has in their back pocket. 4. The enemies finish whatever dastardly business they're up to, and have no further need to bother with the PCs. 5. The enemies decide they want to try and capture the PCs alive (perhaps to interrogate, or perhaps just so they can eat them fresh once they're hungry). 6. The players "discover" a weakness you just added to the enemies. If they cast the first fire spell of the battle after they're clearly losing, declare the enemies are vulnerable to fire. Or, if that's too cheat-y for your taste, give some clues as to the enemies pre-existing weaknesses that the players have not yet exploited. 7. An enemy might decide it's not worth the losses or enemies to keep fighting. A band of bandits probably isn't willing to lose half their number to wipe out the PCs, even if they're winning. They may just break and run, or offer a truce, because even if they won, it'd be a pyrhic victory. 8. Perhaps some environmental effect, or the arrival of some other monster, ends the fight prematurely. The monsters defeating the players might scatter when a larger, more dangerous, but critically slow enough for the players to outrun, monster arrives. The key to making sure this doesn't feel cheap is to ensure that the players still lose something when they lose a fight. At a minimum they miss out on the loot from the encounter, and perhaps their entire plan is foiled and they have to return to square one.

[@nikitabelyaev4126]

I have not ran this yet but the players will definitely face this later in the campaign. A level 10 wizard that controls a city’s magical items trade excels in illusions, enchantments, and teleportation. The players will enter his wooden mansion trying to find information on him (can’t use fire spells) they will find some small enchanted objects trying to fight them (flying swords and the rug) after which they will find a portal and seeing the wizard flee through it they follow. The portal takes them to a dirty dungeon (dim lighting and full of tunnels and large rooms) as they go on they fight some easy spiders until they enter a big room with a giant spider. The creature stays on the ceiling of the cave the whole time (forcing ranged attacks) as it shoots webs at the players and hits the ceiling making rocks fall (improvised damage) on them making them do a DEX save and causing difficult terrain. As soon as the spider is hit it vanishes in a fog, it was an illusion caused by the wizard. The players fight a couple more flying swords most of which are illusions. As they enter the last room the wizard begins to create illusions of himself and teleporting from place to place making the players confused as to where he is while fighting off his enchanted objects. The wizard has very low AC and low HP so a couple hits is all he can take. Once he sees he’s loosing he opens his portal to his gold storage above the players making coins rain down on them (taking damage) after which they finally corner him hiding in a a protective bubble (wall of force) as he begs for them to spare his life. I think this is a good encounter because he doesn’t have spells that do that much damage and I control how many minions he has. It almost doesn’t matter what level the party is.

[@MrGoulio]

25:56 "you need to know what your player characters are expecting [in combat encounters: cake walk vs. challenging]" -very true statement, but also true for me as a new DM. I find that when an encounter seems to be tipping to the point of deadly, I get scared the party is going to die. Sometimes I think I get more scared than they do.

[@blakdragon2202]

My players loved how I can make even the lowest encounters seem a little different than the normal monsters. Imagine fighting goblins with temporary magical items or a giant rat that swallowed a ring or regeneration. the later ended up being called a troll rat by them. Giving seasoned players a slight twist and different flavor in a game they know like the back of their hand is a fun challenge.

[@nicirochi0]

Holy man, Thats is REALLY good, almost a Combat-Tutorial for D&D, writted so many things. Thanks dudes. Youre the best!

[@atomicnectar]

I made this one encounter based off the PCs exploring what they believed was a rat lair filled with oozes and giant rats. They found out the hard way that the lair actually belonged to a Black Dragon that demanded human sacrifices! Oh boy it was hilarious listening to them convince this dragon that they’d find a better meal for him XD

[@WoollyLuke]

This video & the Monster stats video are the best out there for understanding combat mechanics for the dm.

[@kylecefalo1292]

I ran a game where there were 3 goblins eating dinner, the players wiped them and proceed down a ladder under a trap door without lighting the room below. the goblins were being lead by a bug bear that heard the commotion and snuffed all the candles in the room he was in at the bottom of the ladder. when the first player got into the rom they was immediately grabbed by the bugbear who made quick work of them the players then had to quickly light the room and fight the bugbear who was standing over the unconscious body of their fighter. they were level three, the bugbear would have been a cake walk if they had seen him coming, but they wasted 3-5 actions dealing with their decision to enter an unlit room from a 20 ft ladder. in all the bugbear dropped 2 PCs before the party incapacitated him.

[@Redgerman1]

I love having an NPC pop up every now and then to help. I have a wizard, fighter, and cleric adventuring party wandering my world who can occasionally show up. My players are always checking bounty boards so it makes sense that other parties can show up

[@tukman16]

Funny. I think the section in the DMG is easier than the one in XGtE. It just seems easier to add monsters of different challenge ratings in the same combat. For instance, last week I ran a fight of 3 level 20 PCs against 2x CR7, 1xCR8, 1xCR9 and 1xCR11. I just created a google sheet to do all the calculus for me. This is a great video and different from most I see about encounter difficulty. Most people just talk thrash about how the system is broken but don't take into account what is actually written on the same section about critical thinking, environment and the combat trigger conditions

[@polvotierno]

I made my own system to rate the CR of monsters and NPCs using an Excel sheet that simulates the combat. The CRs raise the HPs, AC, attack bonus and attack damage. I input the stats for the PCs, choose a number of different CRs, and Excel instantly tells me the difficulty rating and about how many PCs could die from the encounter. I can then change the difficulty accordingly. The difficulty rating then determines XP per PC. The Excel simulation includes some adjustments for resistances and more. It is very easy and fast. Once I have my CRs, I simply match the stats to the monsters or NPCs, Then I have their HPs, AC, attack bonus and attack damage. HPs are determined by dice, for example, 2d12+20. So no matter the level of the party, I can quickly set a difficulty rating customized for their particular stats. So leveling up is made easier. Each level requires 500 XP to level up. A moderate encounter customized to the party always receives around 70 XP.

[@Ogmetaldad9155]

I recently started GMing again after many years (back in AD&D 2nd) and inadvertently made an encounter that was far too difficult for some lvl 1 chars. Fortunately I mentioned in advance that the gobs were inclined to not fight if odds weren't in their favor (as a hint that there were more hiding) and was thus able to realistically have some of them run away when they took some good hits. PCs barely survived, but ended up making some good plans to work together in future fights.

[@fenixmeaney6170]

If the encounter is going to tpk you could have the monsters offer surrender depending on the type of enemy If there are too many foes, some could leave the encounter in order to get past the party to, for insurance, capture the npc or destroy the object the party was tasked to guard. The party them has to decide between risking failure but having an easier encounter, or risking a tpk to bring down as many foes as they can

[@whynaut1]

00:18:05 - the monster math

[@spencernoble6824]

My party were doing Baldur's Gate, and attacked Bel. Like mercilessly went for him. I was torn apart for throwing that encounter against them, when they were level 13.

[@bromossunstarranger8706]

what about combining a Puzzle, Trap, & Combat together

[@deplorablemecoptera3024]

Bromos, Sunstar Ranger well designed combat encounters are puzzles from the start. Ranged enemies are vulnerable to attack and pose a threat only if the heroes can't close, thus the object is to close to melee with the ranged enemies. Preventing this is the terrain between ranged enemies and the players as well as melee focused enemies. Ideally the players want to deal with the ranged enemies first and melee enemies second, however they're going to have to be clever to achieve that. The wildcard enemies in an encounter might be able to do something funky to the players or buff either group of enemies adding an additional element of strategy to the combat encounter. All of this while the enemy is also trying to win by exploiting party openings to rush the squishy backliners. Interesting combat should feel like a puzzle. As to adding trap elements, you could have traps littered around the battlefield glyphs of warding in the necromancers evil lair or bear traps guarding the bandit camp might be reasonable examples of such things. The other obvious option is making the combat encounter itself a trap, in common parlance we call a battle which is a trap for one side and ambush. You might treat ambushes like traps and adjudicate them similarly. Of course this is just spitballing. I'm not sure I would run a combat encounter that included an actual puzzle as I feel players being forced to dedicate some of their brain power to combat would make the puzzle even more frustrating. Of course there are puzzle like monsters like the troll, which has a puzzle like ability, having conditional abilities for creatures can make them more interesting for veteran players and can throw a curveball at the party particularly if it's home brewed or obscure. Imagine a mirror dragon which reflects all elemental damage back on the attacker, or a fire troll which regenerates unless it is hit with cold damage. These kinds of puzzle elements work pretty well in combat because the party can win without solving them but will get a real sense of accomplishment when they figure out the trick and can best the thing much more easily next time around.

[@jessy5241]

One of the campaigns my home group was running before Covid is a space campaign. The recent arc has been a weird mess of dimension hopping into different Disney story plots that have been twisted and corrupted versions of themselves. In one world (I forget which), we landed in a game show type setting and one point, ended up fighting a mindflayer with a few minions attached. While the mindflayer did manage to grapple and stun our cleric a couple times, my Swords bard managed a couple of hits and our monk just went to town with Stunning Strike and Flurry of Blows. The fight ended in 3 rounds. Even our DM was impressed and expressed that through the narrative. That was our big 5th level fight so far, I think. The next world was a beach party version of Alice in Wonderland and we had a 5mph golf cart chase where my bard made two of the drivers chasing us crash with Vicious Mockery.

[@bankasai3120]

I’m currently running a campaign, where the only player I’m not afraid to kill is the sorcerer/Fighter because of how tanky he is. I feel like this video might help me FAIRLY injure my players without making them feel cheated or giving them an easy pass against even the hardest of creatures. I allowed them to fight a dragon on fair playing field and regretted it immediately as they all used their most powerful abilities, and I think this will help me build my dungeons and encounters. Thank you for the advice.

[@BeyondtheRecord]

level 1 fight against a ghost: They have to perform a rite that takes 6 turns to complete. As they start the ghost appears the ghost is literally unkillable. If he is destroyed he reforms next turn giving players 1 free turn to perform the rite. the ghost has extra abilities like chill touch and can posses an enemy once. Add in lair actions with the battlefield becoming foggy, then dark, then super cold as the rite progresses. 5 vs 1 "easy encounter" became an epic fight to protect the guy reading the scroll while the ghost used everything in his powers to stop him. My players were super thrilled!!