D&D 5E Keep on the Borderlands - OOC (Filled UP)

[EarlyBird]

I will leave that up to the players - as everyone plays differently. It is meta so it should be how you like to play.

I do not mind everyone being engrossed in both.

 

[Li Shenron]

Group 1:

Tassarion to finish the round.

Already 24 dmg to the thing and it may be prone to boot.

Everyone:

As these were to be fun test campaigns a question for all out there.

Given an average CR (lvl equal to party STR), are one big creature encounters more challenging than a bunch of smaller monsters to you as a player. I know there are a bunch of factors in how you would play it, but I thinking overall, have you found overwhelming numbers more or less of a challenge than say the big bady with a bunch of attacks.

This encounter could have easily been a group of harpies, and I wonder now if that wouldn't have been a bit more of a challenge, especially with the day about to end and the group at full strength.

My personal opinion :

An encounter with lots of small monsters can benefit from doing lots of attacks (action economy) BUT it makes a HUGE difference whether they concentrate their attacks on a single PC or spread them around.

A single powerful monster usually always focus on a single target (unless you make it change each round).

Tactically, it is always convenient to focus fire. But from a gaming point of view, it is very risky for the DM because losing a PC obviously doesn't have the same weight on the game as losing a monster. This is metagaming territory, but usually I cringe when I hear DMs claiming that the realism of war should take precedence, and I wonder if they've ever thought how action movies would last 5 minutes if they were realistic.

Because of that, I am generally more worried when using a single big monster because I know that it can kill a PC just by winning initiative, even if in the course of the whole encounter it might have a lesser damaging impact on the whole PC party. But as a DM I would MUCH prefer to have an encounter that ends with all PCs down to few HP but still alive, than having one dead PC and all the others unscathed!

As a player, I would fear the focused-fired monster army even more, but as a DM I always have control over that.

 

[jonathonhawke]

(Group 2) If someone else moves into melee with the Swamp Giant, I can get Advantage on attacks from my Pack Tactics feature.

 

[EarlyBird]

Group 1: Got it right this time.

I'm ready to advance, does everyone wish to go find the Bee-Man or go find the lumber jacks/land shark??

 

[jmucchiello]

I didn't remember there were lumberjacks (as they aren't on the map). Which direction are they in relation to the bee man?

 

[EarlyBird]

Unknown to the party as their camp moves - I think the group was told to follow the tree line.

 

[KahlessNestor]

Yeah, I'm not reading the other group's IC, mostly due to time and RP reasons (my character wouldn't know what happened). As for solo vs. mobs, keep lair actions in mind if you want a truly solo boss, too.

I'm going out of town for my grandfather's funeral for the rest of the week, so won't get to post again. I will be back next week to play catch up.

 

[EarlyBird]

My condolences to you and your family. We will be here when you return.

 

[KahlessNestor]

Thank you. I'm back and slowly catching up in all my games.

 

[EarlyBird]

WB, will be advancing this soon-ish, going to be busy at work do to the weather. Treated lumber likes nice dry heat not the soggy days we are about to get.