D&D 5E The Minimum* to Keep 5E at a Low Power Level?

[Flamestrike]

If you want to challenge your party in one encounter, you'll need to throw and entire day's worth of EXP in monsters at them in one encounter. In your last thread, you said you have seven level six PCs. That many PCs will earn 28,000 exp in one day. So you'll need that many monsters worth of EXP in one encounter to challenge them. But since you said your group is much stronger then average, let's add another 12,000 exp to that. So you need to throw 40,000 exp worth of monsters at your party in one encounter to actually challenge them. With 40,000 exp you can have encounters like...

800 Drow
4 NALFESHNEE
22 Water Elementals
3 Purple Worms
89 Orges

The XP multiplier for multiple monsters in a single encounter reduces those numbers considerably.

 

[Greggy C]

There's really (at least) two different issues going on:
1) Fixing my current game
2) Making adjustments so that this doesn't happen again

For fixing my current game, I'll need to augment the abilities of the monsters while limiting the PCs' power. This will require re-writing the adventure (even if it's assumed that there are 6-8 characters of higher level than the party I have). This will be more work until we wrap up the adventure - and likely the campaign.

The group wants to do Curse of Strahd next. I think it will be a nightmare. Their attitude is a bad fit for a horror game, which won't work with superheroes and murder hobos. It would be best to just abandon 5e (or at least their published adventures).

Back on 1e/2e I also customized the fights to match the power level of the party.

I never considered that would ever change, unless you make every party identical in power, and what kind of game would that be (4e/PF2 maybe...)

1) For this one just go capture them, take all their agency, throw everything knock them asleep, take all their items, strip them bare, you can't have them running around with free Reverse Gravity.

Then have them wake up in the Tomb of Horrors.

2) You have a lot of characters there, and if they are building optimally, they super strong. Throwing big bosses that one-shot a character isnt great. You need to balance the fight by doing some math

In the old days, before CR, before spreadsheets I would just calculate the total damage** the players can output per round, compare it to the monsters total HP, and do the same for the monsters. Yes you need to total up the fireballs hitting multiple creatures. If you keep adding monsters until it is the same # of rounds to kill each other, it is a good fight.

This kind of fight is the end of the night fight, the dangerous one, you calculate it based on them being at full health and power, and let them rest up before it. The rest of the earlier fights are more flavorful or just dangerous for a single player kill, not a TPK.

** e.g. get the avg AC of the monsters, compare the warriors to hit rolls, and dmg totals.


Once you have a baseline for how much total HP, total dmg/round challenges them you can tweak it from there for each subsequent session.
Forget about creating all the weird home brew rules. Just add monsters. And no, you can't add 1/2 HD monsters against a 6th level party, that is adding absolutely nothing. Your fight there was 7 vs 3 NPCs.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

There's really (at least) two different issues going on:
1) Fixing my current game
2) Making adjustments so that this doesn't happen again

For fixing my current game, I'll need to augment the abilities of the monsters while limiting the PCs' power. This will require re-writing the adventure (even if it's assumed that there are 6-8 characters of higher level than the party I have). This will be more work until we wrap up the adventure - and likely the campaign.

The group wants to do Curse of Strahd next. I think it will be a nightmare. Their attitude is a bad fit for a horror game, which won't work with superheroes and murder hobos. It would be best to just abandon 5e (or at least their published adventures).

Ooof. Yep. Curse of Strahd would not be suitable for a group if they maintain that sort of attitude.
On the other hand, I can't see a game like call of Cthulhu going any better if the players insist on playing overpowered murderhobos either. You can take the "overpowered" out of the game, but you can't take the "murderhobo" out of the player.

For fixing your current game I think reducing the ability of the party to rest is going to be your best bet. Even if it is just a temporary environmental effect caused by the BBEG.

The other alternative if the party is going to refuse to play by the usual adventuring day is to just try to bring the players who aren't having so much fun up to par. Multiply the uses of abilities that refresh on a short rest by three. If almost all your casters use fireball to nova, start using fire resistant opponents. Use spread out opponents or reinforcements to reduce the ability to clear the entire encounter off the board with a couple of spells. Adjust the scale of your combats - if the squares on the mat now represent 10ft, you can have much more open situations.

I've run a high level campaign with 5 players and it was definitely hard to challenge them. In contrast, I'm also running campaigns with 3 players and find the by-the-book monsters and encounter building work well.

If you want to keep things simple, this is my recommendation:

When the characters are in Tier 2, multiply all monster damage by 2.

When the characters are in Tier 3, multiply all monster damage by 3.

When the characters are in Tier 4, multiply all monster damage by 4.

For example, a troll's claw attack normally does 11 damage. But under these guidelines, that would increase to 22, 33, and 44 (depending upon average party level).

Try it. You might be surprised by the results.

I would have thought that this would only exacerbate the issues that the OP is having. By making the opponents much more deadly, you are incentivising nova strikes even more, because letting monsters get into combat is much more dangerous. Furthermore, if they do, the people being punished more are those who traditionally go toe-to-toe with the monsters, and those who need to burn their resources to keep them alive, rather than the people causing the actual problem.

 

[AnotherGuy]

There is much that can be done within a new campaign where the table Started Over

Start with less Ability Points
Limit Hit Points: PCs gain hp every 2nd level or cap depending on size (S-M at level 6, Large 12, Huge 24, Gargantuan 25+)
Increase the Rest periods, reduce the benefits gained from a Rest
Increase XPs required for each level

Magical Items: Remove the +x Magical Items, Magical Items are not Rechargable, limit Attunements to 1 item per PC at a time
Hardcore the Monsters (as per my post in the other thread)
Other: Take advantage of Item Breakage, Clothes being set alight, reduce Suffocation rates by 50% or less when in Combat, Replace the Flanking Rule in the DMG with +1 per allied opponent threatening in melee

 

[DarkCrisis]

I’ve had the same kind of misgivings. The party levels so fast that just as I’m getting the swing of building encounters for their power, they’ve leveled again and I’m starting over getting used to balancing encounters again.

I’ve had an unpopular opinion that the inherited 3E-ism of ability bonuses every two ability scores, and ease of boosting them, has had strong effects on power levels of characters.

I wished ability scores gave a +1 at 14-17 and +2 18+. And only magic items grant over 20. It scales DCs and saves back. Attack and damage bonus are scaled down.

So AD&D then?

I’m glad I went back to it. Happiest I’ve been DMing D&D for awhile.

 

[Retreater]

So AD&D then?

I’m glad I went back to it. Happiest I’ve been DMing D&D for awhile.

I've suggested AD&D. The other old timer in the group (a dad of some of the teens) actually requested it. My wife is balking at it because of the lesser power and thinks it's going to be difficult to learn.

 

[amethal]

My only problem is that I'm getting complaints from some players that it's too easy and not all of the players are having the opportunity to do cool things. Like if the sorcerer nova's with a reverse gravity or fireballs every round, the other characters don't feel like they're contributing (or having fun).

If the sorcerer likes to nova, I'd have some more monsters turn up a minute later.

 

[Oofta]

The XP multiplier for multiple monsters in a single encounter reduces those numbers considerably.

Which is why I ignore the multiplier.

 

[jgsugden]

I've written a few times regarding not being able to challenge my groups. (Most recently in this thread: D&D 5E - A Mess of OP Characters (magic items, rest mechanics, etc.))
I want to work on a house rule document to present before the start of the next campaign to keep this type of experience from happening again.
What am I trying to avoid?

• ...

What are you trying to avoid? The feeling that the PCs are overpowered and can do anything. The answer to limiting this feeling I'd advocate is not reducing their chaces of survival by limiting their power and survivability. It is instead giving them challenges they can fail without it ending the game. You do not need to change the rules if you instead change what your challenges are. This is advice woven into the DMG, but that could be expressed a lot better and - in my experience - when a DM embraces it, they tend to see their campaigns really reach new heights of enjoyability.

Why do I favor this approach? Because it doesn't %@# on the PCs. It doesn't make them feel like they're nobodies in the world that are struggling just to get by. It allows them to feel like the heroes - but to still have stakes, wins and losses. In each of the approaches I discuss below, powerful PCs can still be in a position to fail - and if they fail it doesn't destroy the game. Instead, it evolves the storylines in new directions.

Rescue Missions: If the PCs are more powerful than their foes, there is no real risk that the PCs will die. However, that doesn't mean that everyone else they care about isn't at risk. What if the story involves enemies kidnapping an ally of the PCs and the PCs needing to figure out how to invade the enemy hideout, and then rescue the ally without the enemies 1.) escaping with the ally, or 2.) killing the ally (rather than letting the ally escape)? That is a very different challenge - and one in which a Vorpal Sword in the hands of a first level PC becomes fairly irrelevant.

Escape/Timed Scenarios: Being able to kill everything doesn't mean they won't slow you down. If the temple is filling with acid or collapsing, and there are 5 treasures in different rooms: The PCs have to decide what to pursue and what they can't get before it is lost/destroyed. The challenge stops being about whether they survive and instead becomes how efficiently they can get small victories. You can set these up so that the PCs die if they don't escape in time, but you can also set them up so that they just lose access to things as the time expires - which is often the better approach for this goal.

Defenders: Similar to a rescue, but the PCs are on their home turf and the enemies don't care whether the PCs survive - they are going after the things the PCs are defending, whether that is people or treasure. A staple of my low level adventures is when the PCs have to defend a small fortification throughout a night when a raising party wants to get in and take something. The PCs may be facing brute force, stealth, magical surveillance, or a wide variety of other concerns. The enemy may realize the PCs are a real threat - and instead of trying to fight them, they'll do everything not to engage the PCs. That first level PC with a Vorpal Sword has to figure out how to get that sword to his foes here without giving up the defense obligations they have. In many ways, this reverses the normal roles of the PCs - instead of being the murder hobo, they are stopping the murder hobo.

Uncertainty: The PCs are in town. They're at their favorite establishment for beverages when a fight breaks out. Both sides start screaming that the other side has to be stopped. One side claims the other is trying to set off a bomb. The other side claims that the first side is protecting a ritual spellcaster that is summoning a powerful Demon as they speak. If the PCs do nothing, if either is telling the truth, something horrible could happen. While the battle rages the PCs have to figure out who to stop, and how to do it without something bad taking place. They have to solve the puzzle, while in the fight, without using their full capabilities. How useful is a vorpal sword if you don't know who to use it on?

Utilizing these types of encounters, instead of just, "Can you survive THIS battle?" encounters really does reduce, if not eliminate, the feelings that underly the types of concerns brought by the OP. The challenges and battles gain depth, variety and stakes that you can't have in a 'just kill everything' game (because if you have a real risk of PC death all the time, you're just going to kill off PCs a lot - which gets old).

 

[Mort]

A good starting point to beef up monsters are the various The monsters know what they're doing articles.

These cover various tactics so you don't have to come up with everything yourself.