D&D 5E [5e] Tales from the yawning portal too easy

Johanus said:

Thanks all,

I have bumped hp's, but there is the feeling of never missing at the moment, so may need to bump ACs too.

Adding foes is a choice too, even just as cannon fodder lol

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To keep things simple at making NPCs tougher, here's what I do:
Little Bump: +2 across the board: +2 per HD, +2 to hit, +2 AC, +2 to saves.
--This will usually keep NPCs a little below the players, still making most chumps feel like chumps, but tough chumps.
Medium Bump: +4 across the board.
--This will often bring average NPCs on par with the players. Typically I use this when I want players to fight a smaller group of NPCs, or the leader of a group of fodder.
Large Bump: +6 across the board.
--This will typically put NPCs ahead of the players. Chumps won't feel like chumps. Even leaders will pack some oomph.

Why 2/4/6? Because I 1/2/3 is too little and too incremental.

If you need to go higher than +6 on any NPC, you're better off custom building an NPC from scratch.

shidaku said:

Why 2/4/6? Because I 1/2/3 is too little and too incremental.

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Same, though I tend to use 2/3/5 instead of 2/4/6. I'm not sure how I arrived at those values anymore, though.

Johanus said:

to take the rogue, for example, dex = +5 +1 rapier, +3 proficency so +9 to hit

to hit the matial arts adept with an AC of 16, only needs to roll a 7 or more to hit

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In theory published modules are based around the 15,14,13,12,10,8 point array. Using that array it is impossible at 5th level to have a Dex of 20. Add to that a character gaining what is really the perfect magic item for a melee rogue and you have the +9. In most games that rogue is running around at 5th level with a 19 dex and a normal weapon, that means +7 to hit.

Now I am going to assume it was hyperbola when you said they regularly beat target rolls by 10-15 or more. To do that with a target of 16 mean a minimum of rolling a 17 or better on average. That is an incredibly high dice rolling average and it will not last. In fact it may result in a horrible party TPK when they get overconfident and their dice inevitably turn to a normal appropriate average.

Mistwell said:

Right now to escape the dungeon without a fight we cannot handle, we'd need to 1) pay the Duergar off most of our treasure, or 2) pay the dragon off most of our treasure. Hence, we're trying to figure out how to kill either the Duergar or Dragon or both. At least we have a handle on the Succubus for now.

My point is, this is so not in the realm of "easy".

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Lets see

assumption 4th level fighter with +2 con assume avg results has 12+8+8+8= 36hp.
If we assume con 16 it goes to 48

One shot from breath averages 49 and required a DC14 dex save which is likely not the best save for the fighter.

So assuming fresh but not buffed the odds of the fighter (tough guy) not getting one-shotted by the first acid spray is like... less than half.

A good lesson in what the DMG says about using higher CR critters and which apparently their own writers did not consider.

that is without magic support to cut that damage down so whether or not you have the ability to give everyone acid resistance is pretty big.

Add in the lair advantage... it gets worse of course.

As a rule normally:
i would work to get acid resistance and to not give a dragon more than two targets in any one stream. (terrain there may hurt that.)
i would look for getting the ability to withdraw. Many times your ability to recover if unmolested for just a few rounds is good and better than the monsters, so a few shots in and withdraw is good if you can repeat it even two times over say a 15m span. (here terrain makes that difficult.)

In truth, a common "dragon tactic" calls for the dragon to withdraw for 2-3 rounds to recharge breath but with a 30' breath that may not be the best choice for the dragon. if you can drop maybe 30 hits on the dragon during each pass and you then can recover your losses during the interim by somehow getting enough cover/distance circumstances to let you heal up) then each pass turns into a net plus for you... until the dragon changes tactics and weighs in for sustained melee plus breath.

the math gets better at 5th level chars given the increase in output and spells, but frankly, i agree the odds are pretty slim looking without some idea of any unusual assets you have.

Johanus said:

I have a party of 4 level 6 characters working through some of tales from the yawning portal, butthey are breezing through the encounters.

The party consists of a Halfling Rogue and Human fighter (twins!!) a human cleric and half-orc druid.

Their stats are on the high side as they rolled rather than used a standard array, but only slightly above average. They wanted to roll everything; stats, hp etc for this campaign and why not...

How would people recommend making the encounters more of a challenge?

Many thanks in advance....

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Since no one mentioned it. Advantage for the monster when single or less 4 monsters in the room. Shrine is more trap, encounter problem than combat dungeon. I think most of the time my group was over level for the dungeon.
White plume will be interesting. I would give all monsters max. And the wander monster check of one per 10 minutes will really mess up short and long rests. Hit the adventure league forum for my write ups.

Thanks all, we are playing again tonight so will try what has been suggested.

If allowed, mix up boss and mini-boss abilities. Toss in some PC class abilities - a troll paladin in plate/shield wielding a greatsword one-handed and adding in smites is a fearsome thing indeed.