D&D 5E I think I am going to stop using solo monsters.

[CapnZapp]

Solo encounters work fine, but you have to run them differently... less as dumb meat boxes and more as thinking bad guys. They don't make it to where they are by being meat shields, they obviously have developed some sort of capabilities and tactics. Play them that way

The game should not only work when you "play it my way".

D&D aims to support the beers and pretzels crowd too.

It is a reasonable expectation it should support the common trope of the Big Bad Evil Guy that faces the whole party alone.

And 5th edition simply don't meet that expectation. At high level the ability of solos to challenge the party break down completely - as in, they would need WAY more hit points, WAY better defenses, and especially WAY more tricks up their sleeves.

The high level D&D battlefield is a very tricky place to be, and you are simply outclassed if you don't have a few special tricks to confound or surprise the players with. In this area, 5th edition is considerably weaker than 3e or 4e.

 

[Imaculata]

The high level D&D battlefield is a very tricky place to be, and you are simply outclassed if you don't have a few special tricks to confound or surprise the players with. In this area, 5th edition is considerably weaker than 3e or 4e.

In my experience, even in 3rd edition a powerful single opponent can quickly be beaten to a pulp by a large group of eight adventurers who have a surprise round, and a foe that isn't played to its strengths.

CR's seem mostly designed around groups of 4 to 5 players, and the DM is expected to do more than just drop a monster into a room.

If I drop a high CR dragon into a cave, and eight players all gang up on him from all sides with surprise attacks, then that dragon doesn't stand a chance, regardless of edition. If on the other hand I place the dragon on a ledge, out of reach of the players, and with enough space for it to fly, that changes things a bit. If I then also add some environmental hazards (geysers of lava), and some trash mobs (young dragons for example)... well now you have a proper encounter. And I think the game expects the DM to do this, if they actually want to make that one foe a challenge.

 

[werecorpse]

"Should not only work" ... Meh that's the way it is.

Better to recognise it and work around it than live in denial IMO.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

A summoning spell takes a minute to cast. I would assume that the Marilith would not be surprised. Surprised is a very powerful condition and it should not be handed out easily. Also the timing of the glyphs need to be carefully done or no damage when the marilith enters.
If you want an epic battle, which the players carefully tried to avoid, then make it harder. It is not the CR system that failed here.

 

[Imaculata]

A summoning spell takes a minute to cast. I would assume that the Marilith would not be surprised. Surprised is a very powerful condition and it should not be handed out easily. Also the timing of the glyphs need to be carefully done or no damage when the marilith enters.
If you want an epic battle, which the players carefully tried to avoid, then make it harder. It is not the CR system that failed here.

Good point. It takes a while to cast a summoning spell, during which the Marilith would no doubt realize that it is being drawn to another plane.

Plus, the DM could describe the summoning itself in a way that sets the Marilith up with an advantage. For example, the earth could split, and flames could shoot out around the place where the Marilith is about to appear, forcing the players to distance themselves from the Marilith. And while a gateway is forming, other demonic spawn could seize the opportunity to jump through the gate as well (there's your excuse for trash mobs). The Marilith could also appear amidst dense clouds of flames and smoke, giving the players disadvantage to hit the Marilith on the initial round.

 

[Psikerlord#]

Last night we performed a little test in my 5E campaign. The party of 8 5th level PCs had acquired a collection of magic items that ended up being cursed by a demon (a marilith) and through the item she could spy on the party and even send demonic troops to attack them. They researched ways to lift the curse and opted to use the "summon her and kick her tail (heh) and get to keep the gear" over the "remove curse and lose the items" option.

Now, they were able to specify the time and place of the encounter and prepare in advance. They set up a magic circle and a few glyphs of warding, spending 800gp in the process. They summoned her into the circle which fired off the glyphs, creating clouds of daggers, and got a surprise round on her. She was destroyed before her first action. That is a CR16 creature.

I don't think solo creatures work with 5E at all. Every time I use a boss critter, even one with lair and legendary actions, the large party just runs over them, no matter how outmatched they are by the math. The action economy just does not work at that scale.

I think, therefore, I am going to adjust my encounter philosophy: bigger, more diverse groups where the "boss" critters aren't necessarily simply tougher but are the ones capable of wrangling such groups. I am also throwing out the CR system for 5E completely: it just does not work any better than simply eyeballing it, IMO.

Anyone have different experiences?

You are right, solos work poorly in 5e. Maybe try Low Fantasy Gaming rpg instead for threatening boss monster templates.

 

[Reynard]

I wonder if the players actually enjoyed the encounter quite a bit. They were taking what they viewed as a sizable risk and made a solid plan. When the Marilith showed up the plan was executed to near perfection. High fives all around.

Now, I will grant you the OP D.M. seems disappointed with the result. However, sometimes players really relish steamrolling an encounter like this. Fun is fun.

If the players were disappointed that is more of an issue IMO.

Everyone had a blast, even me. It was great fun for sure, and watching my expectations evaporate was part of that fun (if you had asked me before the battle I would have said the PCs would win with 2 dead). I don't want to give the impression it wasn't fun or it made me hate 5e or anything. Rather, I came away with a clearer comprehension of just what a big party at the ready could do, especially with a master planner type player in the lead.

By the way -- some people are suggesting I reduce my number of players. I have 8 friends spread across the country able to get together to play D&D one a week on Fantasy Grounds. I am not giving that up for anything. That's why I say I am adjusting my DMing style to accommodate that group. As far as I am concerned having a big group excited about your game every week is the Holy Grail of DMing.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

By the way -- some people are suggesting I reduce my number of players. I have 8 friends spread across the country able to get together to play D&D one a week on Fantasy Grounds. I am not giving that up for anything. That's why I say I am adjusting my DMing style to accommodate that group. As far as I am concerned having a big group excited about your game every week is the Holy Grail of DMing.

Yeah man, never give in to people telling you not to play with all of your friends - change anything else you can, change game systems even (I have for "doesn't work well with this large of a group" reasons before), but never put yourself in the position to be cutting good and available players from your table roster.

The good news is that, despite what some folks will tell you, 5th edition actually handles large groups just fine - so long as you realize that CR and the encounter building guidelines are designed to give encounters that are less difficult that their named difficulty intuitively suggests (most notable when a "deadly" encounter is only a decent risk of some character ending up dead, when the intuitive reading of the word would suggest solid risk of every character ending up dead).

My advice on encounter building for a large party is simple: consider any monster that is CR equal to or less than the party's level okay to use a handful of in an encounter, don't bother calculating encounter budget or difficulty, use numerous encounters between rests (if your players are the type that won't play that way without mechanical insistence that they do so, use the optional rest rules to fine-tune things) rather than a small number of "big" encounters, and use larger numbers of monsters in most encounters because that is the perfect counter-balance to the larger party of PCs gain in action economy.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

D&D aims to support the beers and pretzels crowd too.

Are you implying that aim is one that 5th edition misses? Perhaps my reckoning of "beers and pretzels crowd" doesn't match to yours, but I find that (or casual despite experience and regularity of play) a fitting estimation of my own group, and 5th edition has supported our preferred play style quite well.

It is a reasonable expectation it should support the common trope of the Big Bad Evil Guy that faces the whole party alone.

And 5th edition simply don't meet that expectation. At high level the ability of solos to challenge the party break down completely

5th edition meets that expectation the way I run it, and I have not yet seen any break down because of higher levels - which is a thing I am watching for like a hawk, because it's a significant part of why I ended up not wanting to run 3.5 ever again.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Slap a curse on them, hound them with demons and devils. Maybe the most famous party member gets summoned by the demons! Turn about is fair play right? Have their families get killed off or become corrupted"Mom? Not you to mom? Noooooo!"

For the sake of all players at all tables, I recommend that you not target their families.

When the DM starts targeting the family members of the PCs, the message that it says is that players should only play characters who are orphans. If their social bonds are used against them, then it teaches players to avoid forming social bonds.