D&D 5E How are you all finding the encounter building rules working out at higher levels?

[Eric V]

Hello,

I am converting all my Al-Qadim modules into a sort of super campaign (anyone interested in the list, by all means, inquire ).

[Note: Shoutout to [MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION] for his great documents on 5e Zakhara]

I am in the process of converting 'Dead Bearing Witness' from 'A Dozen and One Adventures' and figured the mummified head would be a demilich (in the original adventure it's a spellcasting undead head of 18th level of ability).

There are 6 PCs, and they will be 12th level by the time they encounter the head. A demilich in lair is a Medium challenge to 6 12th level PCs. Adding ONE zombie, per the rules, makes it a Hard challenge, and adding another makes it a Deadly challenge.

Although I haven't run anything that high yet, that strikes me as vastly overestimating the value of 2 CR 1/4 creatures...has anyone had any experience running high level encounters that can bear testimony to how the encounter rules work in a practical way? If they don't work well, as written, what hacks, if any, did you use?

-E

 

[kbrakke]

For what it's worth, page 82 of the DM says, for creating encounter with disparate CRs "When making this calculation, don't count any monsters whose challenge rating is significantly below the average challenge rating of the other monsters in the group unless you think the weak monsters significantly contribute to the difficulty of the encounter" So it will not radically increase the adjusted xp value of the encounter.

As for how the encounter guidelines work, I have found time and time again, that minions are the most important thing you can have for a boss style enemy. Which, depending on the minion can radically increase the calculated difficulty. I also think it's important to think of magic items as effective level increases. Also if you want a fight to be hard, it's important to keep the overall adventuring day in mind. My current party is level 17 with many magic items, and they blow through any given encounter unless I make it far far above the suggested deadly. However, if I have them go through several encounters (Most recently, it was effectively 6 medium - hard encounters in a wave style fight culminating in a deadly fight) the the suggested values work out (3 players were down and the last 2 had less than half hp left). Very recently I tried a solo style boss in two phases with legendary actions, and they got low, but it wasn't very deadly. I either needed to stress their resources more earlier in the dungeon, or have more minions for the boss to split their focus.

Overall the guidelines work reasonably if taken as a whole. A single encounter can vary wildly, but if you pace the encounters, the overall day will be roughly correct.

 

[bganon]

A demilich in its lair is CR 20 (24,500 xp), which is a Hard challenge for 6 level 12 PCs, but the whole point of CR is that the DMG recommends caution using monsters with CR significantly greater than PC level. In this example, I'm not sure level 12 characters can dish out enough damage to keep up with Life Drain, and a single Howl could drop half the party and render the rest nearly useless.

And the DMG unfortunately isn't real explicit, but the damage multiplier for multiple creatures is really best used for a group of creatures of roughly equal CR that can meaningfully coordinate their actions. So as mentioned, a zombie or two shouldn't even factor in.

So just adding the zombie's xp and not using the multiplier would probably be best, with the caveat that the resulting difficulty (Hard) is very likely underestimated because of the CR-to-party disparity. Poor preparation or unlucky rolls could easily result in a TPK.

 

[Eric V]

A demilich in its lair is CR 20 (24,500 xp), which is a Hard challenge for 6 level 12 PCs, but the whole point of CR is that the DMG recommends caution using monsters with CR significantly greater than PC level. In this example, I'm not sure level 12 characters can dish out enough damage to keep up with Life Drain, and a single Howl could drop half the party and render the rest nearly useless.

And the DMG unfortunately isn't real explicit, but the damage multiplier for multiple creatures is really best used for a group of creatures of roughly equal CR that can meaningfully coordinate their actions. So as mentioned, a zombie or two shouldn't even factor in.

So just adding the zombie's xp and not using the multiplier would probably be best, with the caveat that the resulting difficulty (Hard) is very likely underestimated because of the CR-to-party disparity. Poor preparation or unlucky rolls could easily result in a TPK.

Interesting...any idea why when I enter the data here: http://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder

...it gives me a rating of Medium by adjusting the XP by half?

EDIT: Found it on P. 82. It's considered a medium encounter, because the party has more than 5 PCs.

Any ideas on how much of a differential in CR it should be before you stop including them?

 

[DaveDash]

Current campaign is level 17.

1. Solos don't work that well at high levels, even with legendary actions. Players save their nova abilities for hard fights and can take a single creature down quickly.

2. If you start using numbers in your encounters you generally fight stuff much lower than your CR.

3. I'm still using CR5 creatures to make up numbers at high levels, and have even used low stuff like CR1/4 Skeletons.

4. When it comes to calculating difficulty I use the following formula: (mCRA*n*multiplier)+(mCRB*n*multiplier). So to figure out the budget of having 10 skeletons in the fight, you only multiply the skeletons by the multiplier for the increase in their numbers, not the whole encounter.
This means a lich and a Kobold isn't an encounter that's 1.5 times harder. It's CR21*1*1+CR1/8*1*1.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Any ideas on how much of a differential in CR it should be before you stop including them?

You have to play it by feel, unfortunately (or fortunately for those like me who don't mind that).

As far as using lower level monsters with more powerful critters, here is what you do (this isn't what the book says to do, but this is what you should do):

1) Determine the effective XP of the encounter with the high CR critters, ignoring the presence of the lower level critters.
2) Determine the effective XP of the lower level critters, ignoring the presence of the higher level critters.
3) Add both of those XP values together for the effective XP of the encounter, then determine difficulty from there.

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=6779717]Eric V[/MENTION]
Thanks for the shout-out Always happy to see my homebrew work get put to use.

As for your question: What sort of challenge would a demilich (CR 20) be for a party of six 12th level PCs?

First, there is the by-the-book answer (DMG pg. 82): Your party's Hard XP threshold is 18,000 and their Deadly XP threshold is 27,000. So strictly by the XP numbers your encounter is Hard. But you need to know more than just the XP numbers.

However, the DMG warns you to use caution when using a much higher CR than your party's level. And CR 20 vs. 12th levels certainly qualifies.

Second, you need to do the work comparing the proposed monster (demilich) to your PCs stats and abilities. I don't know your party's composition, but here is an example of the sort of pre-game work you need to do if you want to use an excessively higher CR monster. My litmus test if a monster is over-powered is if they could theoretically drop the party cleric on the first round of combat.

Let's say your party's 12th level cleric has 87 hit points and a Constitution save of +6. First round, let's see what happens if the Demilich focuses fire on the cleric. Be aware that a Con save +6 is generous, most likely your cleric doesn't have proficiency in Con saves and so his Con save is more like +2 or maybe +3.

Howl. DC 15 Con save. Cleric has a 40% chance of dropping to 0 hit points outright. If the cleric's Con save is +2 this jumps up to 60% chance which is probably higher than is fair.

If the demilich uses Vile Curse on the cleric first, imposing disadvantage on his saves, then that chan of dropping to 0 hit points goes up to maybe 55%. And if the cleric's Con save is +2 then you're looking at maybe a 75% chance of instantly dropping the cleric to 0 hit points - definitely hire than is fair.

Alternately, let's assume the demilich uses Flight or Cloud of Dust for defense, and hits the Cleric (and whoever else is nearby) with Energy Drain. Again the Cleric has a 40% chance of reducing his maximum HP by 10.

Now what about the Demilich's lair actions?

Well,the cleric already took 16 necrotic damage for entering the tomb for the first time assuming he is non-evil.

And the Demilich probably used one of the following lair actions, depending on how buffed the cleric is with spells/magic. If very buffed, the Demilich uses the anti magic field, but if not buffed much, the Demilich prevents healing.

So the +6 Con save cleric has a chance of still standing after the first round. The + 2 Con save cleric not so much.

That doesn't mean the demilich is going to be a fair Hard (or more likely Difficult) challenge for the party, but it means I wouldn't rule it out as fair outright. So in this case I would suggest you do your homework. Simulate a fight between the demilich and the party, and see what you discover.

My hunch is, with the Demilich's low hit points and great survivability, the stronger alpha strike the PCs can bring the less likely the demilich will prevail. However, the longer the battle goes, the more likely the odds will turn in the Demilich's favor. Generally speaking. Again, I don't know what your party is capable of. One of the deciding points may be the cleric's (or other healer's) con save

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

A demilich in its lair is CR 20 (24,500 xp), which is a Hard challenge for 6 level 12 PCs, but the whole point of CR is that the DMG recommends caution using monsters with CR significantly greater than PC level. In this example, I'm not sure level 12 characters can dish out enough damage to keep up with Life Drain, and a single Howl could drop half the party and render the rest nearly useless.

There is a winning strategy for a level 12 party, and it's not even very difficult if the party knows what they're facing (has done their research). Here's what I'd do:

1.) (Easy way, old school) Cast Fog Cloud. The demilich's life drain only works when it can see you, and Truesight doesn't let you see through heavy obscurement, only through darkness. Similarly, stop up your ears so that you can't hear it howl. Now just kill it with cantrips--it's practically helpless against you so even if you just Fire Bolt it for 9.08 points of damage per round (+9/3d10 vs. AC 20) it will be dead after 10 rounds.

In a real game of course you'll do much better than one Fire Bolt per round; my test party would be hitting it with two Agonizing Eldritch Blasts, a paladin's Sacred Weapon, and a strafing Shadow Monk for about 70 points of damage between them if the paladin smites or 40 if he saves his spell slots. It's dead in about two rounds, and this party isn't even damage-optimized. (It's optimized for safe exploration and versatility.) In any case, the point is that without life drain the thing is toast.

2.) (Almost-as-easy way, doesn't feel as cheap as just shutting down all its attacks) The demilich has only Str 1, so it will always practically always fail Strength (Athletics) checks. If you have a barbarian or other Str-based, Con-proficient fighter type in the party, have him grapple it, reducing its speed from fly 30 to zero. Since Life Drain is a 10' range DC 19 Con 6d6 attack, and the barbarian is proficient in Con saves, it basically has a 50% chance of dealing 21 damage to him each round, healing 21 HP in the process, at the cost of an action. If you have a cleric you can Bless the barbarian to improve the odds further. Its legendary actions are basically irrelevant (Flight does nothing when you're grappled because your speed is zero, and Cloud of Dust has only a 10' range). The cleric can also Death Ward the barbarian in advance to protect against Howl. Now all you have to do is inflict 80 HP plus whatever it sucked off the barbarian, which you could do with Scorching Ray or Eldritch Blast or just by casting Magic Weapon on the fighter's bow or the barbarian's one-handed backup weapon and letting him beat the thing to death while you Fire Bolt/Sacred Flame it.

If you don't have a barbarian or similar in the party you could either summon something (mephits) or even make someone else do it. In fact, even a Str 10 wizard untrained in athletics (+0) would probably do just fine against the demilich's weakling -5, although the demilich will suck more HP out of him than it would out of the barbarian.

 

[Prism]

It can be swingy.

We fought a demilich just last week. The party was made up of three 20th level characters. The demilich won initiative and all three of us failed vs the howl. Almost a TPK except one character had a save reroll so managed to survive long enough to get the unconscious members out, but not before the cleric failed all three death saves

A couple of rounds later it found us and it was just the two if us versus the demilich. This time we killed it in about 2 rounds with lots of scorching rays and melee attacks.

I'm not sure any calculations could have predicted all that but it was certainly a scary fight

 

[pming]

Hiya.

I guess I'll be the voice of the Great Curmudgeonly Grognard...

Eh? Whats that? Encounter CR budget? What in carnations is that? ...ehhh....never mind. Probably one of those new-fangled mathmaticaly-type doo-dad rules some young whippersnapper came up with to make himself feel better about lettin' a whole party o' 12th level PC's die when they up n' run inta'a demi-lich in it's lair or sum'mn'.

Yeah, back in my day...er, wait...I still do this to this day so can I even say "back in my day"? Anyway, I've never used any formula, CR math, or XP budget for my games. I'm a DM who "builds" encounters without regards to the PC's well-being other than a general "this is their level, so I'll keep things about their level". In other words, I wouldn't put a demilich in a cave for their 12th level PC's to fight. Too much of a difference.

That said...IF the party heard of "Oh, don't go to the Cave of Whispers! The long-dead lich Mogg was slain a decade hence, but everyone says his evil was so great, and his desire for power so consuming that his head still haunts his lair!"... and they still choose to go get 'em? Well, in the immortal words of one E.Gary Gygax, I "Let the chips fall where they may".

So, if they, as a group, have knowledge or at least serious contention that a demi-lich is there...go ahead and build away. I'd go with the demi-lich, one vampire "aid", and perhaps a pair of sexy female ghoul twins just to spice things up a bit. Would I be worried about a TPK? Nope. Not my job to worry about a TPK...that's the players job. If I say "You open the door, revealing a 40' square room with a 30' heigh ceiling. The far wall has a 5' wide ledge up at about the 20' mark. On that ledge you can see a pedestal with an old, purple, velvet pillow with gold tassels on the corner. On top of it sits what looks like a mummified head with gems for eyes and teeth. All along the ledge on either side of it is treasure, almost spilling over onto the ground. On the ground directly below it is an ornate coffin. To either side of the coffin, two obviously female ghouls slowly rise to their feet and smile at you. As one they speak, 'Our masters have been waiting for you...'.; ...so, what do you guys do?".

If the party replies with "We attack!", then I've done my job as DM and wash my hands of any responsibility for the outcome.

Conclusion: Play it by ear and base it on internal campaign logic and consistency FIRST; PC capabilities come a fairly distant SECOND. Use your knowledge of your players PC's overall toughness and set that for your 'gut-feeling foundation' for creating your adventures...but don't be afraid to put something significantly tougher or weaker against them, as long as they have reasonable suspecian about that tougher/weaker encounter.

The whole CR thing starts to break down (rather quickly!) the moment your PC's start to fall outside the norm upon which it is all based. For example, if your PC's have magic items...the CR creaks a bit; you are using Feats in your game...the CR groans noticeable; your players party makeup is two paladins, a druid and an edritch knight...the CR visibly cracks in multiple places. Now, toss in a group of players that work well together and are adept at tactics "outside the box" (like being really good at using normal equipment and terrain together to gain a significant advantage over their foes), and ker-BLAMMO! The CR system is now mostly moot. So you definitly have to take the "overall level" (character level, player level, power level, etc) of your group and use that as a base; just trying to go by the numbers will work less and less the more and more your players and their PC's fall outside the "norm" upon which the CR system is designed.

For the record...virtually every single game I've ever played has had a group that is falling "outside the norm"; some only slightly, some vastly. This has taught me one thing: the CR "system" for building an encounter is only remotely useful as a "baseline generalization". If it takes you ten minutes to whip out your calculator and do a bunch of math to figure out the 'correct power level' of an encounter, and at the end of it you are thinking "Hmmm...that doesn't see right..."...then chances are it isn't right!

My suggestion for your situation? Add more zombies and skeletons, but make sure the Players can find out that "the demilich is guarded by a dozen or more skeletons and zombies!". Notice I said can find out and not do find out? Yeah, if the Players just rush into things like fighting a demilich and his undead retinue when they are only 12th level...well, IMHO, there are no stupid players with 20th level PC's for a reason. (or at least, there shouldn't be...*sigh*... ).

^_^

Paul L. Ming