D&D 5E last encounter was totally one-sided

[Flamestrike]

The monk won initiative and easily covered a hundred feet's distance to stunlock the archdruid. She never gets to take a single action.

No attacks of opportunity on the way in? Those meat shields (death knight and blackguard) need a speaking to!

For the record, seeing as the Diviner went directly after the Monk, is there any reason he didnt spam Wall of Force to encirle the other PCs and lock them down [letting the NPCs tear apart the Monk at their lesiure]?

I'm unsure if he has it or not. I would have given it to him.

Just seems like your NPCs (all of whom have long range AOE spells and high level effects) didnt bother to use them. I personally would have dumped at least three fireballs on the party on round 1. The Diviner and the Warlock both have AOE (and both went directly after the Monk, and were unstunned) yet somehow despite all the high level spells (between them) they did only 30 points of damage to the Monk.

I dont have a list of the spells (and abilities) the Diviner and Warlock have at their disposal, but that sounds fairly weak.

The Death Knight has AOE as well, and on his turn he just kind of ran towards the party for some reason instead of lobbing a Hellfire ball at the three dudes that just emerged from the town hall.

Also; how come the Archdruid was out of commission for two rounds? The Monk won initiative and ran 100' (presumably via the Ki dash action as a bonus action) and stunned him on round one (landing one or two of his two available attacks, with the Druid also failing his con save).

On round 2 the Monk ran 70' to the Diviner and stunned him (presumably again using the Ki dash action) with one of his two available attacks this turn. This means the Druid loses only one round, and should have been able to act on round two.

Did your bad guys have any lengthy duration buffs (concentration or otherwise) spells cast pre battle?

 

[Caliburn101]

You are not stuck with the generic 'one size badly fits all' spells chosen for the NPCs.

You NPC group essentially came loaded for bear and got a herd of mammoths in the face...

... give the NPCs Forcecage and other lockdown and battlefield control spells and THEN see how such a fight goes!

You don't even need to change the stats - just add a few magic items appropriately compared to the number and power of those your group have.

I once took a 13th level Monk down with a group of six apprentice Wizards with Wands of Magic Missiles...

It's great for your players to have a storming win like this, but sometimes their opponents should make them feel the pain, or what is the point of adventuring?

There needs to be a challenge. Have an NPC study the groups tactics over a time period and then report back to some evil dudes who then prepare appropriately. When the group get out the tried and tested 'IWIN' button, you can lock down most of what they do and bring the pain - forcing them to improvise and make them feel vulnerable and actually IN DANGER!

It makes for a better game, especially at high levels where the CR system pretty much delivers autowins for the party unless you ignore it.

 

[CapnZapp]

Yet, I still spend most of my D&D time budget on making tougher monsters

Some things just can't be explained

 

[Hussar]

I think the take home for this kind of thing is sometimes you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you.

Funnily enough, in our current Dragonlance game, we just had two pretty big encounters, back to back. A very big dragon backed up with a potion of invulnerability (don't ask) followed by an encounter with three undead baddies, several invisible stalkers and a vampire.

The big nasty dragon went down like a chump. We obliterated it, even with its defensive bonuses. This thing got curb stomped, even if it was way above us in level.

The next encounter, with lots of smaller stuff is handing us our asses. We haven't finished the encounter yet, but, it's turned into a MUCH more difficult encounter.

So, it all just goes down to swinginess a lot of times. I mean, in our second encounter, my defensive fighter with a magic buffed AC, still got tagged 5 times out of 6. Granted most of those attacks were at advantage, but, sheesh, they needed an 18 or better to hit my character and still did it 5 out of 6 times. Yikes.

5e can be very swingy at times.

 

[CapnZapp]

Did you use the Diviner's ability to swap out die rolls? Perhaps causing the monk to lose initiative. And how was the archer managing to keep track of things? How did he know when the stun was in effect from such a great distance?

The diviner was on the lookout to swap out allied rolls.

I don't see how you can complain about spotting a stunlock (perhaps the monk watches japanese anime in his spare time and so habitually calls out "stunlock" whenever he succeeds) if you suggest the diviner should replace the initiative roll of an unseen and unknown foe

But the honest answer is: since we enjoy the game aspect, we don't really care so much for witholding information. Sure, I protest if a player is using crucial information his character couldn't know about, but that doesn't include game minutae, at least for us. Not having things out in the open would mean more notekeeping and more slowdowns, so we generally try to smooth the smaller speedbumps out.

One thing I do enforce is not having hit point totals displayed over the heads of creatures. I've asked my players to respond to questions such as "I have a healing spell lined up, how many hit points do you have?" only with if you're bloodied or not bloodied. A great term you might remember for 4th edition: bloodied means "less than half hit points left".

Also honestly, I didn't even think about using Portent on the PCs. Thanks for the heads up!

 

[CapnZapp]

One encounter day. PCs used up a bunch of recourses. Players think they kinda pulled one out of their butts. Sounds like everything went as intended.

Please take your passive agressive BS elsewhere, thank you

 

[CapnZapp]

Is there any reason why the bad guys, who have a *freaking diviner* with them, couldn't ambush the heroes instead of having a face off?

To be honest, I didn't present him as a Diviner.

Why did I pick the Diviner NPC stat block, instead of an Enchanter or Conjurer? Mostly because I liked his spell loadout.

In this scenario his statblock represented Master Thalder of the Cult of the Dragon, first aide to revered Keeper Alandra (the Archdruid) on her mission to ally (read ensnare) Claugiyliamatar, a green dragon of some stature, possibly using (read stealing) the necromantic energy of the local Death Knight.

I did plan on using an ambush (which probably would have been a nicer word for "complete wipeout") if the party had stayed completely passive. That is, if they had entered the village without concealing their Bruenor and Silvanus and Harper allegiances, or if they otherwise would have clued the lord and his guests into the danger they pose, the bad guys would promptly have grouped together to unleash a no-holds-barred ambush.

To give them a fighting chance, I added three possible allies/benefits to the scenario:
1) an old lady approaches them before reaching the village saying "servants of the forest father aren't welcome in this village". This should give them a reason to scout out the village before riding right in with banners and symbols flaring.
2) the villagers all mourn their fallen folk hero, the bar keep Delgara Dauntsword. She challenged the captain of the lord's guard and lost (i.e. the Blackguard serving the disguised Death Knight). By resurrecting her from the graveyard, they would have gained a Gladiator NPC as an ally. (A rather beefy NPC at least compared to commoners and regular militia)
3) if they talked to the teenager girl living in a hut by herself, one player character could have become blessed by the goddess Mystra, who sent the girl here to keep tabs on Myrkul's creation. This blessing would have meant this PC could not be harmed or targeted by the Death Knight, Blackguard or Warlock (but still by the dragon cultists the Archdruid and Diviner).

Since their approach was rather blunt and direct, 2 & 3 never happened.

The scenario started out with the dragon cultists in the inn, the blackguard in the town hall and the death knight and his court wizard up at the keep (by chance they arrived after sunset), so I was open to them taking out their enemies in separate fights. I did give all the bad guys Sendings to regroup as quickly as possible, but as you know, even 6 seconds worth of delay can be devastating in this game.

They came close to taking out the Blackguard on his own, but since they listened to the town scribe detailing the village history, they gave their enemies a minute. Which was all they needed to at least make it one single combat, if not to actually turn the tables on the PCs.

 

[CapnZapp]

No attacks of opportunity on the way in?

You clearly need to spend more time with a shadow monk

An absolutely free 60" teleport (as in, you can do it every round all day long) is probably the single most envied ability of everything the game offers our level 14 party.

Its very powerful, but much more importantly, its fun. We loved the way 4th ed allowed others than spellcasters to zip around the battlefield.

Why? Because if you play a fighter, you want to actually fight. Being prevented from reaching a target to slice and dice is the biggest obstacle for a melee fighter.

In short, no, opportunity attacks aren't really a thing for this monk

Not that it would matter in this fight that played out on an open town square after sunset. The free space makes it easy to round the "zone of control" of medium-sized opponents, especially since D&D nowadays doesn't count diagonals. Essentially, you lose no speed at all unless you're in a narrow dungeon corridor.

 

[CapnZapp]

No attacks of opportunity on the way in? Those meat shields (death knight and blackguard) need a speaking to!

For the record, seeing as the Diviner went directly after the Monk, is there any reason he didnt spam Wall of Force to encirle the other PCs and lock them down [letting the NPCs tear apart the Monk at their lesiure]?

I'm unsure if he has it or not. I would have given it to him.

Just seems like your NPCs (all of whom have long range AOE spells and high level effects) didnt bother to use them. I personally would have dumped at least three fireballs on the party on round 1. The Diviner and the Warlock both have AOE (and both went directly after the Monk, and were unstunned) yet somehow despite all the high level spells (between them) they did only 30 points of damage to the Monk.

I dont have a list of the spells (and abilities) the Diviner and Warlock have at their disposal, but that sounds fairly weak.

The Death Knight has AOE as well, and on his turn he just kind of ran towards the party for some reason instead of lobbing a Hellfire ball at the three dudes that just emerged from the town hall.

Also; how come the Archdruid was out of commission for two rounds? The Monk won initiative and ran 100' (presumably via the Ki dash action as a bonus action) and stunned him on round one (landing one or two of his two available attacks, with the Druid also failing his con save).

On round 2 the Monk ran 70' to the Diviner and stunned him (presumably again using the Ki dash action) with one of his two available attacks this turn. This means the Druid loses only one round, and should have been able to act on round two.

Did your bad guys have any lengthy duration buffs (concentration or otherwise) spells cast pre battle?

I personally would have loved to dump at least three fireballs on the party on round 1 too Flamestrike

But all five foes were overconfident haughty BBEGs. And remember, none of them knew anything about the heroes, there were no reason to expect them to be frikkin' level fourteen.

There were no opportunities to catch more than a single hero in an area spell during round one. Perhaps a mistake, but the Diviner used an upleveled Scorched Ray since he didn't want to "waste" a Fireball. Once he realized he only hit with one out of five rays he #1 immediately told his allies these people are really dangerous, but at that time it was essentially too late.

Do note that a Fireball stands a good chance of not harming the Monk at all. Wall of Force would have been good. In fact, his only chance would have been to employ the Forcecage tactic where you trap a foe with no save, no attack roll and no way to escape.

Oh wait, the Monk can teleport at will - so not even that tactic would have even slowed him down (unless you're at Yankee Stadium with the power switch for all the floodlights in your hand )

The Death Knight was scripted to "play human" until the game was up. That did not take long, but when it was his turn round #2 he sat in a Forcecage and could only hellball himself

Before running towards the Diviner the Monk reapplied the stunlock on the Druid. I had the Druid at AC 19 so he actually had to spend his Action Surge to achieve this. (Yes, all three fighters in this party has a couple of Fighter levels, including the "ranger" and monk. Action Surge is that good)

---

Look Flamestrike, we don't have to discuss tactics, and you certainly don't have to assume I played my NPCs poorly.

I have already acknowledged this could have become way harder for the party. I just want to share in the awesomeness of it all

 

[CapnZapp]

You are not stuck with the generic 'one size badly fits all' spells chosen for the NPCs.

You NPC group essentially came loaded for bear and got a herd of mammoths in the face...

... give the NPCs Forcecage and other lockdown and battlefield control spells and THEN see how such a fight goes!

You don't even need to change the stats - just add a few magic items appropriately compared to the number and power of those your group have.

I once took a 13th level Monk down with a group of six apprentice Wizards with Wands of Magic Missiles...

It's great for your players to have a storming win like this, but sometimes their opponents should make them feel the pain, or what is the point of adventuring?

There needs to be a challenge. Have an NPC study the groups tactics over a time period and then report back to some evil dudes who then prepare appropriately. When the group get out the tried and tested 'IWIN' button, you can lock down most of what they do and bring the pain - forcing them to improvise and make them feel vulnerable and actually IN DANGER!

It makes for a better game, especially at high levels where the CR system pretty much delivers autowins for the party unless you ignore it.

Thank you for acknowledging that last part.

As for the rest, yes I can think long and hard and wipe the party with relatively small means.

But
1) where's the fun in that?
and more importantly
2) I don't want to

I want the game to present stat blocks that offer a challenge right out of the box.

I want D&D to support plug and play. I want to be able to just plop down a monster on the battlefield and it immediately presenting a danger.

I want the stat block to contain everything I need. I want to read the instructions or recipe on the back of the monster's packaging, and for that to be enough to give the party a challenge.

I know I can apply tactics and play dirty and use tricks up my sleeves. But that's hard work, and I don't want to. More importantly I will never accept that I pretty much have to, in order to challenge the party.

Doing that should be a spice used sparingly; not an essential ingredient in most or even many encounters.