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When Fiends Attack: Are Balors, Pit Fiends and Ultraloths too weak?
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<blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 7033527" data-attributes="member: 6787650"><p>I don't know anywhere where it says that, but maybe I'm overlooking something.</p><p></p><p><em>Polymorph</em> certainly seems to feel that level and CR are interchangeable though.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Sure, absolutely. "Medium" fights are a slaughter, like beating up on a kindergartner. The monsters are typically outnumbered and outgunned. The only justification for so-called "Medium" fights to occur is if the monsters think they're dealing with a bunch of standard humans, not actually realizing that it's a whole band of high-level humans. Even there, the realistic reaction is for the monsters to bail out of the fight as soon as they realize what they're dealing with, e.g. after a Fireball gets thrown and another human fells two orcs with two swipes of his axe.</p><p></p><p>One of the biggest reasons I hate "Medium" fights is that after low levels, it's really hard to make them make sense from an in-world perspective. On the other hand, it's pretty easy to explain why fourteen Umber Hulks and their Neogi masters (including an 8th level wizard) don't knuckle under to a mere four humans--that makes it a good encounter from a story perspective, but it's also quadruple-Deadly or higher. Ditto for a squad of eight giants, or a drow war-party. So I just embrace quadruple-Deadly+.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Possibly. Or possibly the solo monster was run poorly. I like spellcasting dragons, but even the base dragon can be a lot more scary if you use it to its full potential as a hunter. (See: discussion on Strahd, earlier in this thread.)</p><p></p><p>That makes the dragon take a lot longer than three rounds though, and it assumes some narrative importance; some people don't seem to like that. They want a straightforward fight with a big brute; these people are the ones who tend to be most disappointed with solo creatures, especially if their players have a high nova potential from paladin smiting or similar. (Sometimes these DMs get disappointed in how quickly their demons/dragons died to a PC nova, without contemplating the cost of that nova to the PCs.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="FormerlyHemlock, post: 7033527, member: 6787650"] I don't know anywhere where it says that, but maybe I'm overlooking something. [I]Polymorph[/I] certainly seems to feel that level and CR are interchangeable though. Sure, absolutely. "Medium" fights are a slaughter, like beating up on a kindergartner. The monsters are typically outnumbered and outgunned. The only justification for so-called "Medium" fights to occur is if the monsters think they're dealing with a bunch of standard humans, not actually realizing that it's a whole band of high-level humans. Even there, the realistic reaction is for the monsters to bail out of the fight as soon as they realize what they're dealing with, e.g. after a Fireball gets thrown and another human fells two orcs with two swipes of his axe. One of the biggest reasons I hate "Medium" fights is that after low levels, it's really hard to make them make sense from an in-world perspective. On the other hand, it's pretty easy to explain why fourteen Umber Hulks and their Neogi masters (including an 8th level wizard) don't knuckle under to a mere four humans--that makes it a good encounter from a story perspective, but it's also quadruple-Deadly or higher. Ditto for a squad of eight giants, or a drow war-party. So I just embrace quadruple-Deadly+. Possibly. Or possibly the solo monster was run poorly. I like spellcasting dragons, but even the base dragon can be a lot more scary if you use it to its full potential as a hunter. (See: discussion on Strahd, earlier in this thread.) That makes the dragon take a lot longer than three rounds though, and it assumes some narrative importance; some people don't seem to like that. They want a straightforward fight with a big brute; these people are the ones who tend to be most disappointed with solo creatures, especially if their players have a high nova potential from paladin smiting or similar. (Sometimes these DMs get disappointed in how quickly their demons/dragons died to a PC nova, without contemplating the cost of that nova to the PCs.) [/QUOTE]
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When Fiends Attack: Are Balors, Pit Fiends and Ultraloths too weak?
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