D&D 5E actual encounter [high-level play]

[hawkeyefan]

Yep, thanks.

As for AC and DC, I gave the Glabrezu a quick peek, and that's CR 9 (I think). My recollection of using a Glabrezu makes me want to outright switch its type rating with than the ineffectual Nalfeshnees I've used.

The point of the fight was to impress upon the characters that sometimes fighting is perhaps not the best solution (or at the very least not the quickest... in real-world play hours... :-/ ), now that they've graduated to big boy league.

We will see if they'll take the hint. There are some rather nasty upcoming opponents that might be best avoided. (Since this is based on 3E-era Dungeon adventures, the difficulty level is sharply different from 5E and OotA)

(Of course, all this is is theory - since there isn't much of a time pressure, all difficulty can be dialed down to minimum by just resting, but I'm doing all I can given what I have to work with)

How would the players react if they saw a large flock of vrocks coming to reinforce the caravan, or something similar? Given that they're on the demons' home turf, having more demons come to the aid of those in trouble seems like a strong possibility.....maybe that will have the desired effect and make the players think it would be better to run?

Especially if one of them is down already, and they've all used action surge and plenty of other resources, including the magic horn you gave them, on a meaningless battle. I'd think realizing that they're in the Abyss and hordes of demons may just keep coming at them would probably light a fire under them.

 

[Blue]

(Of course, all this is is theory - since there isn't much of a time pressure, all difficulty can be dialed down to minimum by just resting, but I'm doing all I can given what I have to work with)

This IS the first level of the Abyss. You've already had one random encounter, if you can get it in the player's heads that a long rest is far from guaranteed to be quiet they may limit the number of ones they take.

A more fiat approach may be that each long rest the inimical chaos of the plane robs them of one HD, to come back for each night resting elsewhere. So they may not want to stay long.

Of course, I'm the type of DM that after describing the effects of the Abyss would start offering players Inspiration to commit petty acts of chaos and evil, slowly escalating in scope if they accept. Maybe after doing few they start taking disadvantage against Charm spells. Muhahahaha*cough*cough*, I mean, there's a lot to be said for playing up the difference in the planes to make they really feel unique.

 

[CapnZapp]

How would the players react if they saw a large flock of vrocks coming to reinforce the caravan, or something similar? Given that they're on the demons' home turf, having more demons come to the aid of those in trouble seems like a strong possibility.....maybe that will have the desired effect and make the players think it would be better to run?

Especially if one of them is down already, and they've all used action surge and plenty of other resources, including the magic horn you gave them, on a meaningless battle. I'd think realizing that they're in the Abyss and hordes of demons may just keep coming at them would probably light a fire under them.

Heh

Wonder if the DMG guidelines can be made to blow up if you just make the encounters enough times deadly...

 

[CapnZapp]

This IS the first level of the Abyss. You've already had one random encounter, if you can get it in the player's heads that a long rest is far from guaranteed to be quiet they may limit the number of ones they take.

A more fiat approach may be that each long rest the inimical chaos of the plane robs them of one HD, to come back for each night resting elsewhere. So they may not want to stay long.

Of course, I'm the type of DM that after describing the effects of the Abyss would start offering players Inspiration to commit petty acts of chaos and evil, slowly escalating in scope if they accept. Maybe after doing few they start taking disadvantage against Charm spells. Muhahahaha*cough*cough*, I mean, there's a lot to be said for playing up the difference in the planes to make they really feel unique.

The DMG does offer a saving throw for corruption after every long rest, encouraging people (with good alignments anyway) to not stay too long.

Okay, so its weaksauce and trivially fixed, but still.

 

[CapnZapp]

To my questions, then:

A few demons follows the Warlock into the blob of darkness, where some of the Nidavellir Berserkers have been positioned. The Warlock sees in the dark, the Molydeus and Nidavellir don't.

First question: would you say the Warlock needs to stealth (half speed) in order for the demons not to automatically pick her square? Both in general, and in this instance with a lot of combat noise, the Nidavellir chanting their dwarven dirge, and the demons needing to shout commands to each other (when they no longer can see inside the darkness).

Second question: assuming she either makes her Stealth or doesn't need to, the rules say you need to guess the space. But how would you run that, exactly? Do you "spend" one attack in order to clear one square. But what about large greataxes, shouldn't they be able to target a square 10 ft away and auto-clear any squares inbetween? I ran it by rolling a d6: first attack needed to roll 5+ to find the Warlock, the next 4+ and so on. Once the Warlock was found, an attack roll (at disadvantage) would be made, if the d6 indicated the wrong square the attack was an automatic miss.

The darkness is placed right up against the Forcecage, so there really isn't space for a 10x10 creature to to reach the Warlock (even with reach). Now, these Berserkers are spectral, so how do you pass them by?

Third question: despite all three demons acting on the same initiative, I allow them to move in and out of the single place where you can reach the warlock (shouting commands to each other to synch their actions). Again, I felt it a stretch that just three spectral berserkers could completely block these large demons by placing them with a 5 ft gap to the Warlock. What do you think?

Fourth question: Why doesn't the rules make spectral foes exceptions to the "pass through space" rule?

The rules does not allow you to pass through another creature's space (without acrobatics etc). But these guys are incorporeal! That makes them immune to grappling and pushing, but I'm not on board with how this leads to them becoming effectively impossible to pass through. The very fact you can't grapple them should logically mean you can pass right through them.

I ruled that the demon could squeeze past, despite the darkness and despite not knowing exactly where the spectral dwarf was. I also ruled the berserker did get an opportunity attack because of this, despite the rules not normally granting OAs when you don't threaten, which you don't when you're "blind". I could see that my players weren't too happy with this though. But I couldn't let the rules make spectral foes effectively impossible to pass through or push aside.

 

[CapnZapp]

They seem to enjoy battlemaster, so I know people will be proned and disarmed. They have a lot of battle field crowd control abilities. Things like this significantly reduce the difficulty of monsters who heavily favor melee.

Actually, my players are mostly into maximizing damage. Killing enemies is the best kind of battlefield control, it appears.

The best maneuver (that they have found, at least from my perspective) is Precision Attack. This is because it allows you to shoot using -5/+10 against a target even if it has quite respectable AC.

First the Monk stuns the foe, granting advantage to every shot you make. Then the "Ranger" makes his five attacks, using Precision Attacks to turn misses into hits. His attack bonus becomes +12 - 5 (advantage) + d10, which translates into a hit probability of 95%* against AC 17.

*) Feel free to doublecheck my Anydice coding here: http://anydice.com/program/a818

This way he reliably deals at least 4d6+64 DPR (this includes one miss; or more likely, that his Horde Breaker attack isn't interesting to our discussion). Using Action Surge he can deal 150 damage in a round (this doesn't include the risk of missing, but also doesn't include the very substantial chance of scoring at least one crit, which I'd say makes the average DPR higher, not lower**).
**) Anydice can't cope with rolling that many dice, so I can't prove it

So far, they haven't found any combination of abilities that can top this. Feel free to share if you have any suggestions.

 

[cooperjer]

It's funny that you say that, because this version of the Molydeus is somewhat similar to the Nalfeshnee as far as CR goes, hold monster makes them more difficult to deal with though. With that in mind I treated the encounter as if it was 9 Nalfeshnees and a CR 14 variant. It's a deadly encounter going by the DMs guide, but that system is incredibly flawed, so I want to say that it will probably be a trying fight. I noticed many of your martial PCS are multi classed. They seem to enjoy battlemaster, so I know people will be proned and disarmed. They have a lot of battle field crowd control abilities. Things like this significantly reduce the difficulty of monsters who heavily favor melee.

Out of curiosity, if you use the un-modified XP for the encounter and divide it by the daily total of the four level fifteen characters what is the estimated percent of their resources consumed? Based on the description, I'm going to guess between 25% and 40%.

The players should start to feel concerned with not coming back alive once they hit 60% to 70% of their daily XP.

The unmodified XP is the encounter XP without the multipliers for number of creatures.

 

[transtemporal]

BTW, what would you say is the CR and ECL of my encounter, Dyson? (Just curious)

As statted, the molydei are just single target melee damage sponges. My guess is the encounter builder probably tells you this is a deadly encounter. A level15 party should handle ths pretty easily I would've thought.

 

[Tony Vargas]

To my questions, then:First question: would you say the Warlock needs to stealth (half speed) in order for the demons not to automatically pick her square?

Yes.

Second question: assuming she either makes her Stealth or doesn't need to, the rules say you need to guess the space. But how would you run that, exactly?

Randomly.

Third question: What do you think?

Seems cheesy because of the oddities of visualizing turn-based initiative. Wouldn't worry about it.

Now, these Berserkers are spectral, so how do you pass them by?

'Spectral' in what sense? Presumably they aren't entirely intangible or they wouldn't be able to attack? Or are they just illusions?

Fourth question: Why doesn't the rules make spectral foes exceptions to the "pass through space" rule?

That's what DMs are for. "Rulings, not rules."

 

[CapnZapp]

Randomly

Could I inconvenience you to provide a teensy bit more detail about this?

'Spectral' in what sense?

Incorporeal, like a specter for example. I lifted the immunities from incorporeal undead - they all have the same stat line:

Condition Immunities charmed, exhaustion, grappled,
paralyzed, petrified, poisoned, prone, restrained
(some add unconcious to this list, but not all of them for some reason)

If you can't grapple someone, you can't push or shove them out of the way. If you can't do that, you can't pass them by (their own square, not an adjacent square), at least not without fancy acrobatic tricks.

Logically, to me at least, the reason for their immunity to "grappled" is because they're incorporeal, because when you attempt your grapple your hands pass right through (possibly not without harm, but still). You shouldn't be able to have a monster that technically is impossible to barge through. Either you are allowed to use game rules to shove them aside, or you need to be exempt from the rule that says you can't pass through somebody else's square.

At least that was my on-the-cuff rationale. I ruled you could pass thru the square, but that the spectral berserker got its OA (despite the rules saying you don't threaten if you can't see).