Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Oofta" data-source="post: 9436739" data-attributes="member: 6801845">Let's see, I do various things.  I try to switch things up, so I don't do all of these I just kind of mix it up.  Also remember that sometimes no matter what you do the dice gods will smile on the players and they'll stomp on what you thought was a difficult encounter.Rests: Like you I use the gritty rest rules and typically aim for 4-6 medium to hard difficulty fights. Difficulty: The DMG encounter guidelines seem to be aimed at the lowest common denominator, so don't hesitate to bump up the XP budget.  I have a spreadsheet I got on this site ages ago (see attached), XGtE has an updated version as well.  Depending on group I may add a level or two to the party if I'm not challenging them.Also consider adding in a mix of levels.  This can be multiple things like a lower level cleric that just buffs the bad guy, archers on the balcony or even just disposable goblins that run up and help the big bad.Modifying monsters:Sometimes I add or max out HP, especially for casters.  More frequently I'll add to attack bonus and damage, or just give the monsters advantage on all their attacks.  Sometimes I'll add AC as well.I also will simply bump up a monster that makes sense that's a little too low a level by adding levels.  One reference I use for leveling up monsters or making new ones is the monster CR on a card from Blog of Holding which is also attached.  I even redo some monster's stats using it, especially those from the MM.Some to the 3PP monsters are also far more threatening, my latest acquisition was Kobold Press Tome of Beasts 1.Tactics: Don't always have the monsters show up in fireball formation.  Come in waves, come from different directions, flank.  Focus fire when it makes sense.  Intelligent humanoids always have backup and ranged weapons.  Even monsters that don't will duck under cover or into spots where ranged attacks are less effective.Goals:Switch up the goals of the party and how the monsters will react.  Sometimes the foe should be unbeatable, but the goal is to just survive or get the McGuffin. Sometimes monsters fight to the death, sometimes they'll just focus on one PC and drag them off to be eaten in peace.That's about it off the top of my head.  Just remember, you have infinite dragons!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

Verification