D&D 5E +What Tricks and Shortcuts Do You Use To Make Monsters and other Hazards More Challenging?

[Ruin Explorer]

I haven't had to change numbers much or anything, but I've been avoiding situations where the PCs simply get the drop on foes.

In most adventures, enemies seem to do a lot of sitting in rooms until needed or patrolling predictable patterns. This is deeply traditional to D&D, and particularly in editions other than 4E, it gives the PCs are sizeable advantage in that they can prepare for the fight, come up with tactics, then do the fight. Some people really love that, and I think it is fun, some of the time.

But what I've found tends to make things a bit more engaging/challenging is if you have more aggressive enemies, who may well be trying to hunt the PCs down, and I'm not talking the kind of who mysteriously appear when the party rests or whatever (I feel like D&D handles that sort of thing so poorly it's just not very interesting), but who are looking for the PCs (or someone like them) and attack on sight. You can also get a similar effect by dumping the PCs into encounters they haven't been able to prepare for (i.e. there's a long liftshaft, and at the bottom are some enemies, who may well be shocked to see the PCs there but the PCs won't be exactly ready for them either).

Just generally keeping the PCs on the back foot a bit can make things significantly more challenging in 5E.

(Notably in 4E this kind of didn't matter either way - you couldn't gain as much advantage by preparing, but you weren't backfooted as hard by not preparing - and that's when I started doing this, and then realized it actually worked in 5E too.)

 

[jgsugden]

I actually find I don't have to do much extra to make things challenging - but I suspect that's partly because my standard for 5e has been "double strength" encounters for a while now - using double the XP budget for a standard encounter given in the DMG (and then planning on having fewer encounters per long rest - it fits our playstyle better to have 3-4 combat encounters per long rest instead of 6-8, which is really why I made that change)....

A way to do this is to 'flow' encounters together so that as one ends, the next begins. This gives you a bit of 'volume control' on the difficulty of the encounter, either directly by deciding when to add more to the combat, or indirectly by spacing creatures that wil enter the combat (potentially) further apart.

For example, PCs in a game I am running assaulted a monastery that had been overrun by drow. The outer courtyard was patrolled by a herd of zombies (that were not impacted by the sunlight during the day), and then drow, demons, quaggoths, ogres, hobgoblins, goblins, etc... were spread throughout the complex. When the PCs tried to sneak in, they alarmed the drow who then began to run to where the PCs were. The result:

The PCs had to deal with zombies in an inner courtyard first, and then four rounds later the first wave of drow arrived. Two rounds later a drider arrived, followed by 2 homebrew demons that arrived three rounds later. This could have been four moderate encounters, or one extremely deadly encounter, but laid out this way it was something inbetween. PCs were able to benefit from spells cast when clearing the zombies (like spirit guardians and spiritual weapon) through the entire combat but also did not have time to heal between waves (no rest time).

 

[Voadam]

I really like the 4e monster types of minions, standards, elites, and solos and have applied them to 3.5, Pathfinder 1e, and 5e monsters.

Minions are easy, take a normal monster and replace it with four duplicates of 1 hp each. Same power/threat for attacks, same toughness for hitting, but they go down after one hit, so they might get in more hits and damage up front but can be taken down quick particularly by multi attacks or area of effects.

Standards are normal.

Elites count as two monsters conceptually, double a normal monster's hp and double their attacks, preferentially so they can attack two foes at once if so there is an incentive to double team them to divide their attacks away from focused fire on a single PC. Good for a tough leader with his own flunkies.

Solos are designed to take on a party alone. Multiply hp by party number. Give area attacks (whirlwind attack melee attacking all around them, single target effects become area ones). Give them a reaction action to handle action economy. Give them some defense against being locked down by effects. 5e Legendary monsters usually try to cover this type of ground, but 4e conceptually does it a little better IMO.

 

[renbot]

I have a doc of all (most?) creature special abilities/attacks/traits like pounce, cunning action, parry, shadow jump, etc. I had one or more to creatures that lack interesting ones or to leader-types to differentiate them from mooks.
Sometimes mooks get "reckless"

 

[Tonguez]

Lair Actions - mooks, obstacles, triggerable traps, class abilities, extra weapons

 

[bedir than]

My simplest technique is to increase damage by a single die

 

[MNblockhead]

Wow, big topic. I'll just summarize. Many of these could be (have been) their own threads.

• Increase the action economy for big bad. Legendary, lair, and mythic actions.
  • Also, I really like "villain actions" from the MCDM's upcoming Flee! Mortals book. They work like legendary actions, but less powerful and are good to use for low level boss fights or to make a big boss's lieutenants more challenging without trying to turn everything into a legendary monster. Basically, there are three actions that can be used after another actor's turn. You can only use one. And you can use each only once per an encounter. You can see what this looks like in the free 24-page preview MCDM makes available for free at Flee Mortals Preview PDF
    
• Increase the action economy with multiple enemies. Avoid slogging things down with minions (one hit and dead), swarms, and gang rules
  • For gangs/mobs I don't use RAW, there are some good threads on gang/mob rules that I think work better than whats in the DMG. Basically they are all individual so not as easy to take out their influence on the action economy as a swarm, but far simpler ways of resolving how many hits, how much damage,etc. Also they all go as a group on the same turn and have some special features like overrun while their numbers are high enough.
    
• Give more boss and mid-manager creatures reactions like the Goblin Boss's redirect-attack ability. There are differen't abilities, both official and from third-party publishers that allow certain creatures to redirect attacks, sacrifice a minion to regain hit points or powers, and other abilities that keep the boss in the fight longer.
  
  
• If you have the time, think through how creatures can more strategically use their powers and how they would act in a combat. A really good book to help with this, especially for more common, standard monsters is: The Monsters Know What They're Doing: Combat Tactics for Dungeon Masters, by Keith Ammann. He has two more books, the second for player tactics, and the third with tactics for more monsters. I've only read the first but it is very helpful, both as a good read and even more as a reference to read for a specific monster or similar monster to one you plan to use in an upcoming session.
  
  
• The hardest, for me, is to know the characters abilities and create encounters that will challenge them. But for me this is just spice on a campaign. Especially in my current campaign, which is a sandbox. I let the chips fall where they may and just try to play the monsters in a what that makes sense to me in how they would act. But where a villain is aware of a party and has the means to gather intel on them, you better believe that villain is going to be prepared for them. For very important fights I will actually run through a simulated combat on Foundry and write up encounter notes with strategy and tactics, because I'm awful with remembering all the abilities in play and making good tactical decisions off the cuff. But this can be time consuming, esp. at higher levels, so I only do it for the real important encounters.
  
  
• Terrain. Everyone says this, because they are right. It can make a huge difference in making combats challenging and interesting. But it can be hard to remember to call for checks, give the locals the advantages they may have, etc. The VTT I use has a GMs view and a Players view. I just outline areas with text on the map explaining what checks or effects those areas have. Make the map messy looking for me, but it really helps to not forget hazzards, areas of difficult movement, cover, traps, etc. Google "Tuckers Kobolds" on how terrain and well planned defenses can make even a group of lowly, bog-standard kobolds deadly to even high-level parties.
  
  
• Tweak powers, resistances, and advantages of well-known monsters. Nothing like a "troll" to come walking out of a fireball blast unaffected to keep players on their toes. Again, I keep this a spice to be used sparingly. Putting aside the player knowledge vs. character knowledge debate, player do enjoy recognizing iconic monsters and knowing how to handle them. Also, it makes the monsters who deviate from tradition and expectation more impactful if they are rare. Beside, I still find it more fun to take a bog-standard, low-level group of monsters and using them to their fullest. Its fun to see a group of 10th-level characters get worried about goblins.
  
  
• Raise the stakes with dillemas and timed-events. If players have to take risks to save the children or stop the ritual, it makes things more interesting. But not everything has to be a high-stakes fantasy version of an episode of 24. This can tie into terrain features. The tide is comming in, the area is flooding, there are loose rocks, boiling oil that some minions can drop on you after two round of effort, you only have a couple rounds before the minions set up or reload the hwacha. Make it hard for players to always just focus fire on the big boss.
  
  
• Make it harder for players to just sneak up to an encounter. I many situations it makes absolute sense that the bad guys know the players are coming. Maybe they don't have time escape or get reinforcements, but they often should have time to set up defensive positions, cast buffing spells, cast area control spells, etc.
  
  
• To make combat more interesting, make what happens outside of combat more interesting. Make higher level spell casters have to make tough decisions on their use of spell slots. Traps, wards, and wandering monsters are classic waits of preventing short rests and forcing the use of some spell slots outside of battle. You are trying to rescue someone? Maybe they are found in a state that needs a greater restoration. Maybe on your way to the big boss you find stores of dangerous artifacts to be used for evil that can only be destroyed by magic means. And intelligent, magic using bad guys, are going to have ways to prevent detection and access by non-magical means.
  
  • That said, I don't like to make every high-level encounter a "no, you can't do that, because magic." For example, it can be frustrating with higher level parties being able to teleport in and out of dangerous areas. Sometimes, yes, the evil cleric will has forbiddance permanently cast, but usually I find it more interesting to handle this with timed events, allowing enemies to relocate, increase defenses, etc. depending on the time available (smart, powerful enemies can do a lot in 24 hours).

Always fun to read how other DMs make encounters interesting and challenging. I always get new ideas reading these kinds of threads.

 

[el-remmen]

Two main things:

1. Terrain/Setting - like @pogre mentioned, verticality is a big one. As is big spaces where multiple enemies are far enough apart with ranged weapons and abilities that require the party to consider spreading apart - plenty of things for both sides to duck behind or better yet move while completely out of sight. A while back I was playing with a guy who was new to my group and to my style of DMing and at one point he stopped after missing an enemy to say "I don't want to be that guy, but why when Player B hit AC 12 that was a hit, but when I just did it was a miss?" I replied, "Look at the table. From where your PC is there is a rock half in the way of your target, from where Player B is a clear shot." The querying player apologized and commented that they had never had a DM who took that stuff into account!


2. Goals for PCs and/or Opponents other than Kill Everyone: This one is also a common suggestion. Complete the ritual. Go through the Portal. Lock the doors. Kill the sacrificial victim. Dominated opponents. Opponents that are not evil but have a different PoV the PCs can understand but can't agree with, etc. . .

 

[Blue]

Tricks I use to make them more challenging: I flip it. I actually make them more challenging - more, tougher foes. Often much more challenging. And then use tools to reduce how challenging the encounter actually is so that it's winable (or survivable for some).

Much rather have players telling stories about how they defeated something really cool, never realizing that by sending the foe in waves I greatly cut down on their actual deadliness.

Have a group I was well used to estimating what they can handle based on their synergies, tactics, and what they have done in the past. When when fully rested I would expect a battle against five hill giants would be possible character death, but not into TPK area. So I put them against twelve of them including a stronger leader type with a magic maul, coming back from a raid. So all were hurt to some degree or the other, and resting. As long as they were smart about the scouts and not making too much noise waking them up they could break it into a number of smaller combats - and that favored the PCs.

Did they kill 12 hill giants in one scene? Yes. And they were rightfully quite happy about it because it took a lot of cleverness and thought - and some luck - to capitalize on the opportunity. It was well earned and definitely boast-worthy.

I had another time when they were ambushing a clearly superior force. They rolled really well and used some resources in both their scouting and picking the place. I drew the basic forest on the battlemap and then tossed them a good number of forest Dungeon Tiles and told them that since they were successful in selecting the place for the ambush, they could build it. They could arrange those any way they wanted. They created choke points, and high ground, and a narrow corridor with difficult terrain, and gave themselves every advantage they could. On top of it they pulled out some illusion magic and really went to town.

So I don't give them weaker opponents that I've uplifted through math or tricks, I give them genuinely more challenging opponents that I've given them the opportunity to pull to their level.

 

[Hussar]

Ohh, one good thing is surprise healing. Remember, those guys that got knocked down aren't actually dead. At least, not usually. Have a reaction "Mass Healing Word" go off about halfway through the fight and watch the players freak out as all the baddies that were on the ground suddenly start acting again. Sure, they will go down with one hit, but, it can really add spice to the encounter.