D&D 5E As a DM, can I just say, Screw Paladins :)
epithet
Explorer
That's one way to see the tarrasque at first level.
Oofta
Legend
How do you know when the DM is upset?
When you get surprised by the T-Rex that was hiding behind the bush!
I will say you guys are all doing it wrong...just kidding 
An Ancients Paladin is one of the best things a party can have. As soon as the paladin in our party got resistance to spell damage, the party would often purposefully stand in "fireball formation" within 10 feet of the paladin. Fireballs and the like would suddenly be, "Saved and Evasion? 0 damage. Saved? 1/4 damage. 1/2, 1/4, 1/4." It made for some good laughs
My 5e Age of Worms campaign is wrapping up, and the second to last encounter of the AP was against a CR 20 level 20 Paladin of Kyuss and 4 CR 7 Kyuss Knights against the 4 level 20 PCs (some with an epic boon).
The party:
Half Gnoll Ancients Paladin with an 8 Charisma
Half Orc GWM Fighter
Tiefling Wizard
Human Shadow Monk with 24 AC.
I had been feeding the Paladin information that he felt a doom coming. He had gone oathbreaker for story purposes for a while before redeeming himself, and had been having nightmares the last few nights of himself as a fully realized oathbreaker as the time for Kyuss to emerge approached. As they advanced toward Kyuss, he felt the same feeling of doom get closer.
The bad guys had been prepped on the PCs tactics. They let the party come in the room, then engaged. The paladin saw the source of the sense of doom in front of him. I narrated that the two paladins' auras visibly clashed and negated each other in the areas they would normally overlap (so if the paladins were within five feet of each other, you would essentially have two half circles). They Kyuss Knights engaged the wizard, and once he used shield to block some incoming attacks, the Kyuss Paladin cast banishment when the wizard would not be able to counterspell. The Half-Gnoll Paladin disappeared, and everyone started to panic a bit. The wizard retreated after being hammered. The fighter was carving through the Kyuss Knights and Kyuss Paladin until the Kyuss Paladin used its channel divinity to cause fear. Suddenly the GWM fighter could no longer approach, and the good paladin was not around to stop the fear. Then the Kyuss Paladin used its 20th level ability and moved on to attack the monk, bringing him to 1 hp with a hit that included a 5d8 smite. The monk soon went down and was hit once for two failed death saves (funny thing, its still hard to hit AC 24 with a CR7 creature even when you have advantage), and the monk went next and failed his final death save.
We ended the session right there and will see how it finishes next Tuesday. Knowing my players, they will pull it off and resurrect the monk, but it is going to be dicey in the meantime. I did tell the monk's player to roll up his gnoll hating ranger just in case.
Yeah, I would only pull something like this once per campaign.
An Ancients Paladin is one of the best things a party can have. As soon as the paladin in our party got resistance to spell damage, the party would often purposefully stand in "fireball formation" within 10 feet of the paladin. Fireballs and the like would suddenly be, "Saved and Evasion? 0 damage. Saved? 1/4 damage. 1/2, 1/4, 1/4." It made for some good laughs
My 5e Age of Worms campaign is wrapping up, and the second to last encounter of the AP was against a CR 20 level 20 Paladin of Kyuss and 4 CR 7 Kyuss Knights against the 4 level 20 PCs (some with an epic boon).
The party:
Half Gnoll Ancients Paladin with an 8 Charisma
Half Orc GWM Fighter
Tiefling Wizard
Human Shadow Monk with 24 AC.
I had been feeding the Paladin information that he felt a doom coming. He had gone oathbreaker for story purposes for a while before redeeming himself, and had been having nightmares the last few nights of himself as a fully realized oathbreaker as the time for Kyuss to emerge approached. As they advanced toward Kyuss, he felt the same feeling of doom get closer.
The bad guys had been prepped on the PCs tactics. They let the party come in the room, then engaged. The paladin saw the source of the sense of doom in front of him. I narrated that the two paladins' auras visibly clashed and negated each other in the areas they would normally overlap (so if the paladins were within five feet of each other, you would essentially have two half circles). They Kyuss Knights engaged the wizard, and once he used shield to block some incoming attacks, the Kyuss Paladin cast banishment when the wizard would not be able to counterspell. The Half-Gnoll Paladin disappeared, and everyone started to panic a bit. The wizard retreated after being hammered. The fighter was carving through the Kyuss Knights and Kyuss Paladin until the Kyuss Paladin used its channel divinity to cause fear. Suddenly the GWM fighter could no longer approach, and the good paladin was not around to stop the fear. Then the Kyuss Paladin used its 20th level ability and moved on to attack the monk, bringing him to 1 hp with a hit that included a 5d8 smite. The monk soon went down and was hit once for two failed death saves (funny thing, its still hard to hit AC 24 with a CR7 creature even when you have advantage), and the monk went next and failed his final death save.
We ended the session right there and will see how it finishes next Tuesday. Knowing my players, they will pull it off and resurrect the monk, but it is going to be dicey in the meantime. I did tell the monk's player to roll up his gnoll hating ranger just in case.
Yeah, I would only pull something like this once per campaign.
Last edited:
Satyrn
First Post
Shoop in a second rapier, and that's my current character.
(Oh, and if someone actually does so, could you p,ease also shoop in a a pet owl?)
Caliburn101
Explorer
... and right there is the only significant issue I have with 5th Edition.
The GM has to know in detail what the party can do in terms of SRs and LRs and damage types and saves, and ... well, you get the picture. CR is nor guide beyond 5th level, and certain enemies are borked against certain abilities or combinations.
Now I am very experienced and know the game well, but still, I had to pull this lot out of my hat to make it challenging!
I just had a 20th level party of 5 stunlock the Demon Prince of Fire & Vampires (from the Tome of Beasts book) and take him down in one round... I had to maximise his HP on the fly to make him a challenge, and he came pre-loaded with 8 vampire spawn and a horde of skeletons. They then took out TWO Balors, about 20 Ghost Knights, 40 or so Imperial Ghouls, a CR 20 Ghoul Emperor with the Wand of Orcus, 6 winged Barlgura and then they took out VECNA (That's right, Vecna...) - who I had loaded up with 1000 HP, AC 30, Spell DC 25, Legendary Counterspell (automatic counterspell for 1 use) and Legendary Casting (3 spells a round).
They were not heaped on them all at once to be sure, but there was no SR involved.
Now tell me that the CR rules are not a farce and I'll laugh at you heartily, but one of the overwhelmingly constant mega-boosts to the party was that endless +5 save to all things on the Paladin...
... enough said perhaps?
I'm playing in a group that's running Curse of Strahd. We have both a paladin and a cleric in the group. If you think paladins are tough to handle with undead and fiends, clerics are worse. We pretty much decided as a group that we'll just let the cleric handle Strahd and we'll meet him at the tavern in a minute or two.
Though like others have said, there are ways of dealing with paladins and the monsters aren't really supposed to win. Though sometimes as a GM you come up with some encounters that you want to challenge the party and make things a little more fun. No one wants easy encounters all the time. So it can be a bit disappointing when the players walk all over what you had planned without much trouble. You want to make it a challenge for them so the the victory seems that much sweeter. I know I've put together some encounters thinking "this will tough for them!" only to have them stomp on it.
Though like others have said, there are ways of dealing with paladins and the monsters aren't really supposed to win. Though sometimes as a GM you come up with some encounters that you want to challenge the party and make things a little more fun. No one wants easy encounters all the time. So it can be a bit disappointing when the players walk all over what you had planned without much trouble. You want to make it a challenge for them so the the victory seems that much sweeter. I know I've put together some encounters thinking "this will tough for them!" only to have them stomp on it.
Azurewraith
Explorer
No you can't, you can try but they will still turn up.
iserith
Magic Wordsmith
I tried to have the ghost of a hag try to possess the dwarf paladin in my game last week ( [MENTION=6801813]Valmarius[/MENTION], @Lanliss). He succeeded handily in his save, then killed the ghost in one shot.
Later, he was charming enough to bed the (admittedly old and shrivel) leader of a wood elf clan.
...
He must be stopped.
Later, he was charming enough to bed the (admittedly old and shrivel) leader of a wood elf clan.
...
He must be stopped.
Just put more difficult terrain in his path, that'll slow him down plenty. Beyond that, I'm not sure he can be stopped.
Similar Threads
- Poll
