dave2008
Legend
I haven't updated the spells yet, but I revised the slam/grapple to include the whelm effects, I adjust the AC of the elder water, and I removed untethered from the traits.
I will get to the spells later.
D&D 5E 5e Updates: Monstrous Compendium
- Thread starter dave2008
- Start date
I will get to the spells later.
So here is a summary of the big fight. You should definitely take this with a grain of salt for two reasons:
1) This fight was very unusual in its situation.
2) In terms of competencies, my party routinely destroys monsters WAY above their CR belt. In my last campaign, 6 8th level character with a 13th level cleric assistance and some decent magic items took out a CR 30 encounter of Githyanki (not exaggerating, I statted it up).
So here's the premise. The party is on a diplomatic visit to a sister world (think star gate a bit, they are part of an organization that travels to various worlds for diplomacy, exploration, and sometimes kicking butt). They receive sudden word that a far off town is under assault by "elementals", with no time to lose. The party meets up with one of the "elite" teams in the area, and uses teleport circle to get into the area (that meant they had 1 minute to "buff themselves" while the spell was being cast). This was meant to be a full out fight, bringing in some all stars so every player got to play a couple of higher level characters and just go wild and have fun with it.
The Situation:
1) 2 12th level characters (Fighter and Wizard)
2) 2 11th level characters (Sorcerer and Barbarian)
3) 3 9th level characters (Paladin, Life Cleric, Wizard)
4) 6 7th level characters (Druid, Fighter, Barbarian, Artificer, Bard, Warlock) - the normal party
5) 2 Ballista and a squad of archers (from the city itself)
vs
1) 1 Ancient Water Elemental
2) 4 Elder Water Elementals
3) 9 Regular Water Elements
So under encounter building rules, this was a CR 28 and in theory a deadly encounter even vs such a large group. However, the fight had a different goal. Ultimately the elementals were being influenced, and their goal was to cross the 500 feet gap to get to the city and level it. So ultimately the group's goal was to stop that from happening. Because of this, the elementals primary drive was to keep moving forward, and generally only engaged when they had to, or where they could with minimal issue (because the bigger elementals were much faster than the small ones...they could make attacks and still generally keep up). This matters most for the little elementals, as they were not engaged nearly as much at first.
The Opening
I set up Control Weather ahead of time, so the conditions were the worst possible rain. Since that's not covered in the DMG, I ruled:
a) Physical Ranged Attacks at disadvantage and half range.
b) Concentration DC 10 required every round to maintain
c) Hailstones did a d6 damage to each character unless they had shelter.
d) the elementals were immune to all these effects.
The party was near the edge of the city. The city was starting to flood (I used the elementals control water for this....yes the range was too much but it worked for the flavor of the scene). People are panicking, and the party can see the elementals 500 feet in the distance, steadily closing towards the city. They begin the fight.
Initial Round
In the initial round the party makes their way into the fray. The 7th level barbarian launches himself into the fight on a ballista bolt (because that's how you roll!). The rest of the party got on in the bard's folding boat, and then prepared for a d door of the boat itself into the fight (of course this was too much weight and way way way too many people for the d door to carry, but the bard had never really gotten to use his boat and this seemed the perfect time, so the "rule of cool" allowed it. The party could have just run out and engaged the elementals in the middle ground, but it would have taken longer and been a lot more boring, so we just got into it).
The small elementals mostly move forward. The Ancient and 2 elders engage the barb. They do enough damage to bloody him, but the barb passes all of the strength saves (as barbs do).
Round 2
The party d doors in near the barb, and takes readied or delayed actions to join the party. The life cleric throws a big heal on the barb to help get him back up, and the party fully engages. I'll just note some highlights.
1) A bunch of summoned creatures restrained several elements (with everything I had to run I completely forgot about the restrained and grapple immunities....but ultimately it just meant more of the elementals actually engaged the party so I think that may have been more curse than blessing for them).
2) The ballistas get in licks on the medium elementals, but with their resistance to nonmagic weapons it cut the damage in half.
3) The fighter types moved in to combat positions, mainly targetting the elder and ancient elementals.
4) The Sorceror used a Disintegrate on the huge elemental, using Heighten spell to negate my advantage. I failed the save and took a lot of damage (as a DM I was actually happy he used that instead of a twinned banishment....even the Ancient Elemental's Charisma save is abysmal, it would have been cake to knock out 2 elementals that way). This did however knock out the concentration on control weather. I ruled that the super rain was still falling, but the hail stopped immediately.
Round 3
1) I had 2 of the elders launch vitriolic spheres at a large chunk of the group that had gotten near one of the other elders. Ultimately with the paladin's save aura all of that group passed their save. Also the barbarian got to use his mage slayer feat and critted the elder for his trouble.
2) The elders did some good damage to the nearby enemies, I took out the summons and bloodied one of the party, but the life clerics healing took care of that.
3) The 13th level fighter used an action surge + his echo knight extra attack, with some high damage and lucky crits managed to do 120 damage to the elemental in a single round!
4) The druid used his staff of the woodlands to summon a wall of thorns that tied up a 1/3 of the regular elementals.
Round 4
At this point it was just a slug fest. The paladin and barbarians (heavily buffed from the pregame), just went to town and killed the Ancient Elemental. The rest of the party fell suit, and as the dust had settled 3 of the elders were obliterated. Leaving 1 Elder and 5 regular elementals left.
The party was fresh and healthy, and the elementals were still a good bit away from the town so I just called it a win. At this point the regular elementals had no counter to the strong ranged attacks, and I knew they would polish off the last elder very quickly. So the party cheered as they skies began to clear and they saved the city.
Final Notes
Again, this was not a typical fight. I had 3 times the normal party size, and while the party was focusing and organized in their assaults, the elementals were more scattered and trying to make headway rather than gather up and fight. I also allowed the rule of cool to override some of the standard rules. So the outcome to me wasn't unexpected....even if it did scare my party
But that said, my only real note for change:
Spell DCS: The DCs were 13 and 14 I believe for the spells....which is too low. Giving up my action for spellcasting was generally a waste.
1) This fight was very unusual in its situation.
2) In terms of competencies, my party routinely destroys monsters WAY above their CR belt. In my last campaign, 6 8th level character with a 13th level cleric assistance and some decent magic items took out a CR 30 encounter of Githyanki (not exaggerating, I statted it up).
So here's the premise. The party is on a diplomatic visit to a sister world (think star gate a bit, they are part of an organization that travels to various worlds for diplomacy, exploration, and sometimes kicking butt). They receive sudden word that a far off town is under assault by "elementals", with no time to lose. The party meets up with one of the "elite" teams in the area, and uses teleport circle to get into the area (that meant they had 1 minute to "buff themselves" while the spell was being cast). This was meant to be a full out fight, bringing in some all stars so every player got to play a couple of higher level characters and just go wild and have fun with it.
The Situation:
1) 2 12th level characters (Fighter and Wizard)
2) 2 11th level characters (Sorcerer and Barbarian)
3) 3 9th level characters (Paladin, Life Cleric, Wizard)
4) 6 7th level characters (Druid, Fighter, Barbarian, Artificer, Bard, Warlock) - the normal party
5) 2 Ballista and a squad of archers (from the city itself)
vs
1) 1 Ancient Water Elemental
2) 4 Elder Water Elementals
3) 9 Regular Water Elements
So under encounter building rules, this was a CR 28 and in theory a deadly encounter even vs such a large group. However, the fight had a different goal. Ultimately the elementals were being influenced, and their goal was to cross the 500 feet gap to get to the city and level it. So ultimately the group's goal was to stop that from happening. Because of this, the elementals primary drive was to keep moving forward, and generally only engaged when they had to, or where they could with minimal issue (because the bigger elementals were much faster than the small ones...they could make attacks and still generally keep up). This matters most for the little elementals, as they were not engaged nearly as much at first.
The Opening
I set up Control Weather ahead of time, so the conditions were the worst possible rain. Since that's not covered in the DMG, I ruled:
a) Physical Ranged Attacks at disadvantage and half range.
b) Concentration DC 10 required every round to maintain
c) Hailstones did a d6 damage to each character unless they had shelter.
d) the elementals were immune to all these effects.
The party was near the edge of the city. The city was starting to flood (I used the elementals control water for this....yes the range was too much but it worked for the flavor of the scene). People are panicking, and the party can see the elementals 500 feet in the distance, steadily closing towards the city. They begin the fight.
Initial Round
In the initial round the party makes their way into the fray. The 7th level barbarian launches himself into the fight on a ballista bolt (because that's how you roll!). The rest of the party got on in the bard's folding boat, and then prepared for a d door of the boat itself into the fight (of course this was too much weight and way way way too many people for the d door to carry, but the bard had never really gotten to use his boat and this seemed the perfect time, so the "rule of cool" allowed it. The party could have just run out and engaged the elementals in the middle ground, but it would have taken longer and been a lot more boring, so we just got into it).
The small elementals mostly move forward. The Ancient and 2 elders engage the barb. They do enough damage to bloody him, but the barb passes all of the strength saves (as barbs do).
Round 2
The party d doors in near the barb, and takes readied or delayed actions to join the party. The life cleric throws a big heal on the barb to help get him back up, and the party fully engages. I'll just note some highlights.
1) A bunch of summoned creatures restrained several elements (with everything I had to run I completely forgot about the restrained and grapple immunities....but ultimately it just meant more of the elementals actually engaged the party so I think that may have been more curse than blessing for them).
2) The ballistas get in licks on the medium elementals, but with their resistance to nonmagic weapons it cut the damage in half.
3) The fighter types moved in to combat positions, mainly targetting the elder and ancient elementals.
4) The Sorceror used a Disintegrate on the huge elemental, using Heighten spell to negate my advantage. I failed the save and took a lot of damage (as a DM I was actually happy he used that instead of a twinned banishment....even the Ancient Elemental's Charisma save is abysmal, it would have been cake to knock out 2 elementals that way). This did however knock out the concentration on control weather. I ruled that the super rain was still falling, but the hail stopped immediately.
Round 3
1) I had 2 of the elders launch vitriolic spheres at a large chunk of the group that had gotten near one of the other elders. Ultimately with the paladin's save aura all of that group passed their save. Also the barbarian got to use his mage slayer feat and critted the elder for his trouble.
2) The elders did some good damage to the nearby enemies, I took out the summons and bloodied one of the party, but the life clerics healing took care of that.
3) The 13th level fighter used an action surge + his echo knight extra attack, with some high damage and lucky crits managed to do 120 damage to the elemental in a single round!
4) The druid used his staff of the woodlands to summon a wall of thorns that tied up a 1/3 of the regular elementals.
Round 4
At this point it was just a slug fest. The paladin and barbarians (heavily buffed from the pregame), just went to town and killed the Ancient Elemental. The rest of the party fell suit, and as the dust had settled 3 of the elders were obliterated. Leaving 1 Elder and 5 regular elementals left.
The party was fresh and healthy, and the elementals were still a good bit away from the town so I just called it a win. At this point the regular elementals had no counter to the strong ranged attacks, and I knew they would polish off the last elder very quickly. So the party cheered as they skies began to clear and they saved the city.
Final Notes
Again, this was not a typical fight. I had 3 times the normal party size, and while the party was focusing and organized in their assaults, the elementals were more scattered and trying to make headway rather than gather up and fight. I also allowed the rule of cool to override some of the standard rules. So the outcome to me wasn't unexpected....even if it did scare my party
But that said, my only real note for change:Spell DCS: The DCs were 13 and 14 I believe for the spells....which is too low. Giving up my action for spellcasting was generally a waste.
TheBoredGM
Beneath our modern banality, we're just savages.
Since your players are probably way too confident of themselves right now, why don't you say Ogremoch got angry about the whole thing. Throw him at your players, and see how they do.So here is a summary of the big fight. You should definitely take this with a grain of salt for two reasons:
1) This fight was very unusual in its situation.
2) In terms of competencies, my party routinely destroys monsters WAY above their CR belt. In my last campaign, 6 8th level character with a 13th level cleric assistance and some decent magic items took out a CR 30 encounter of Githyanki (not exaggerating, I statted it up).
So here's the premise. The party is on a diplomatic visit to a sister world (think star gate a bit, they are part of an organization that travels to various worlds for diplomacy, exploration, and sometimes kicking butt). They receive sudden word that a far off town is under assault by "elementals", with no time to lose. The party meets up with one of the "elite" teams in the area, and uses teleport circle to get into the area (that meant they had 1 minute to "buff themselves" while the spell was being cast). This was meant to be a full out fight, bringing in some all stars so every player got to play a couple of higher level characters and just go wild and have fun with it.
The Situation:
1) 2 12th level characters (Fighter and Wizard)
2) 2 11th level characters (Sorcerer and Barbarian)
3) 3 9th level characters (Paladin, Life Cleric, Wizard)
4) 6 7th level characters (Druid, Fighter, Barbarian, Artificer, Bard, Warlock) - the normal party
5) 2 Ballista and a squad of archers (from the city itself)
vs
1) 1 Ancient Water Elemental
2) 4 Elder Water Elementals
3) 9 Regular Water Elements
So under encounter building rules, this was a CR 28 and in theory a deadly encounter even vs such a large group. However, the fight had a different goal. Ultimately the elementals were being influenced, and their goal was to cross the 500 feet gap to get to the city and level it. So ultimately the group's goal was to stop that from happening. Because of this, the elementals primary drive was to keep moving forward, and generally only engaged when they had to, or where they could with minimal issue (because the bigger elementals were much faster than the small ones...they could make attacks and still generally keep up). This matters most for the little elementals, as they were not engaged nearly as much at first.
The Opening
I set up Control Weather ahead of time, so the conditions were the worst possible rain. Since that's not covered in the DMG, I ruled:
a) Physical Ranged Attacks at disadvantage and half range.
b) Concentration DC 10 required every round to maintain
c) Hailstones did a d6 damage to each character unless they had shelter.
d) the elementals were immune to all these effects.
The party was near the edge of the city. The city was starting to flood (I used the elementals control water for this....yes the range was too much but it worked for the flavor of the scene). People are panicking, and the party can see the elementals 500 feet in the distance, steadily closing towards the city. They begin the fight.
Initial Round
In the initial round the party makes their way into the fray. The 7th level barbarian launches himself into the fight on a ballista bolt (because that's how you roll!). The rest of the party got on in the bard's folding boat, and then prepared for a d door of the boat itself into the fight (of course this was too much weight and way way way too many people for the d door to carry, but the bard had never really gotten to use his boat and this seemed the perfect time, so the "rule of cool" allowed it. The party could have just run out and engaged the elementals in the middle ground, but it would have taken longer and been a lot more boring, so we just got into it).
The small elementals mostly move forward. The Ancient and 2 elders engage the barb. They do enough damage to bloody him, but the barb passes all of the strength saves (as barbs do).
Round 2
The party d doors in near the barb, and takes readied or delayed actions to join the party. The life cleric throws a big heal on the barb to help get him back up, and the party fully engages. I'll just note some highlights.
1) A bunch of summoned creatures restrained several elements (with everything I had to run I completely forgot about the restrained and grapple immunities....but ultimately it just meant more of the elementals actually engaged the party so I think that may have been more curse than blessing for them).
2) The ballistas get in licks on the medium elementals, but with their resistance to nonmagic weapons it cut the damage in half.
3) The fighter types moved in to combat positions, mainly targetting the elder and ancient elementals.
4) The Sorceror used a Disintegrate on the huge elemental, using Heighten spell to negate my advantage. I failed the save and took a lot of damage (as a DM I was actually happy he used that instead of a twinned banishment....even the Ancient Elemental's Charisma save is abysmal, it would have been cake to knock out 2 elementals that way). This did however knock out the concentration on control weather. I ruled that the super rain was still falling, but the hail stopped immediately.
Round 3
1) I had 2 of the elders launch vitriolic spheres at a large chunk of the group that had gotten near one of the other elders. Ultimately with the paladin's save aura all of that group passed their save. Also the barbarian got to use his mage slayer feat and critted the elder for his trouble.
2) The elders did some good damage to the nearby enemies, I took out the summons and bloodied one of the party, but the life clerics healing took care of that.
3) The 13th level fighter used an action surge + his echo knight extra attack, with some high damage and lucky crits managed to do 120 damage to the elemental in a single round!
4) The druid used his staff of the woodlands to summon a wall of thorns that tied up a 1/3 of the regular elementals.
Round 4
At this point it was just a slug fest. The paladin and barbarians (heavily buffed from the pregame), just went to town and killed the Ancient Elemental. The rest of the party fell suit, and as the dust had settled 3 of the elders were obliterated. Leaving 1 Elder and 5 regular elementals left.
The party was fresh and healthy, and the elementals were still a good bit away from the town so I just called it a win. At this point the regular elementals had no counter to the strong ranged attacks, and I knew they would polish off the last elder very quickly. So the party cheered as they skies began to clear and they saved the city.
Final Notes
Again, this was not a typical fight. I had 3 times the normal party size, and while the party was focusing and organized in their assaults, the elementals were more scattered and trying to make headway rather than gather up and fight. I also allowed the rule of cool to override some of the standard rules. So the outcome to me wasn't unexpected....even if it did scare my party
Spell DCS: The DCs were 13 and 14 I believe for the spells....which is too low. Giving up my action for spellcasting was generally a waste.
dave2008
Legend
Thanks for the insight. That is an incredibly odd encounter, I don't know how I much I can glean from that, but thank you for sharing!So here is a summary of the big fight. You should definitely take this with a grain of salt for two reasons:
1) This fight was very unusual in its situation.
2) In terms of competencies, my party routinely destroys monsters WAY above their CR belt. In my last campaign, 6 8th level character with a 13th level cleric assistance and some decent magic items took out a CR 30 encounter of Githyanki (not exaggerating, I statted it up).
So here's the premise. The party is on a diplomatic visit to a sister world (think star gate a bit, they are part of an organization that travels to various worlds for diplomacy, exploration, and sometimes kicking butt). They receive sudden word that a far off town is under assault by "elementals", with no time to lose. The party meets up with one of the "elite" teams in the area, and uses teleport circle to get into the area (that meant they had 1 minute to "buff themselves" while the spell was being cast). This was meant to be a full out fight, bringing in some all stars so every player got to play a couple of higher level characters and just go wild and have fun with it.
The Situation:
1) 2 12th level characters (Fighter and Wizard)
2) 2 11th level characters (Sorcerer and Barbarian)
3) 3 9th level characters (Paladin, Life Cleric, Wizard)
4) 6 7th level characters (Druid, Fighter, Barbarian, Artificer, Bard, Warlock) - the normal party
5) 2 Ballista and a squad of archers (from the city itself)
vs
1) 1 Ancient Water Elemental
2) 4 Elder Water Elementals
3) 9 Regular Water Elements
So under encounter building rules, this was a CR 28 and in theory a deadly encounter even vs such a large group. However, the fight had a different goal. Ultimately the elementals were being influenced, and their goal was to cross the 500 feet gap to get to the city and level it. So ultimately the group's goal was to stop that from happening. Because of this, the elementals primary drive was to keep moving forward, and generally only engaged when they had to, or where they could with minimal issue (because the bigger elementals were much faster than the small ones...they could make attacks and still generally keep up). This matters most for the little elementals, as they were not engaged nearly as much at first.
The Opening
I set up Control Weather ahead of time, so the conditions were the worst possible rain. Since that's not covered in the DMG, I ruled:
a) Physical Ranged Attacks at disadvantage and half range.
b) Concentration DC 10 required every round to maintain
c) Hailstones did a d6 damage to each character unless they had shelter.
d) the elementals were immune to all these effects.
The party was near the edge of the city. The city was starting to flood (I used the elementals control water for this....yes the range was too much but it worked for the flavor of the scene). People are panicking, and the party can see the elementals 500 feet in the distance, steadily closing towards the city. They begin the fight.
Initial Round
In the initial round the party makes their way into the fray. The 7th level barbarian launches himself into the fight on a ballista bolt (because that's how you roll!). The rest of the party got on in the bard's folding boat, and then prepared for a d door of the boat itself into the fight (of course this was too much weight and way way way too many people for the d door to carry, but the bard had never really gotten to use his boat and this seemed the perfect time, so the "rule of cool" allowed it. The party could have just run out and engaged the elementals in the middle ground, but it would have taken longer and been a lot more boring, so we just got into it).
The small elementals mostly move forward. The Ancient and 2 elders engage the barb. They do enough damage to bloody him, but the barb passes all of the strength saves (as barbs do).
Round 2
The party d doors in near the barb, and takes readied or delayed actions to join the party. The life cleric throws a big heal on the barb to help get him back up, and the party fully engages. I'll just note some highlights.
1) A bunch of summoned creatures restrained several elements (with everything I had to run I completely forgot about the restrained and grapple immunities....but ultimately it just meant more of the elementals actually engaged the party so I think that may have been more curse than blessing for them).
2) The ballistas get in licks on the medium elementals, but with their resistance to nonmagic weapons it cut the damage in half.
3) The fighter types moved in to combat positions, mainly targetting the elder and ancient elementals.
4) The Sorceror used a Disintegrate on the huge elemental, using Heighten spell to negate my advantage. I failed the save and took a lot of damage (as a DM I was actually happy he used that instead of a twinned banishment....even the Ancient Elemental's Charisma save is abysmal, it would have been cake to knock out 2 elementals that way). This did however knock out the concentration on control weather. I ruled that the super rain was still falling, but the hail stopped immediately.
Round 3
1) I had 2 of the elders launch vitriolic spheres at a large chunk of the group that had gotten near one of the other elders. Ultimately with the paladin's save aura all of that group passed their save. Also the barbarian got to use his mage slayer feat and critted the elder for his trouble.
2) The elders did some good damage to the nearby enemies, I took out the summons and bloodied one of the party, but the life clerics healing took care of that.
3) The 13th level fighter used an action surge + his echo knight extra attack, with some high damage and lucky crits managed to do 120 damage to the elemental in a single round!
4) The druid used his staff of the woodlands to summon a wall of thorns that tied up a 1/3 of the regular elementals.
Round 4
At this point it was just a slug fest. The paladin and barbarians (heavily buffed from the pregame), just went to town and killed the Ancient Elemental. The rest of the party fell suit, and as the dust had settled 3 of the elders were obliterated. Leaving 1 Elder and 5 regular elementals left.
The party was fresh and healthy, and the elementals were still a good bit away from the town so I just called it a win. At this point the regular elementals had no counter to the strong ranged attacks, and I knew they would polish off the last elder very quickly. So the party cheered as they skies began to clear and they saved the city.
Final Notes
Again, this was not a typical fight. I had 3 times the normal party size, and while the party was focusing and organized in their assaults, the elementals were more scattered and trying to make headway rather than gather up and fight. I also allowed the rule of cool to override some of the standard rules. So the outcome to me wasn't unexpected....even if it did scare my party
Spell DCS: The DCs were 13 and 14 I believe for the spells....which is too low. Giving up my action for spellcasting was generally a waste.
dave2008
Legend
That should by Olyhydra for the water elementals. I haven't updated my stats for her yet, but I will.
dave2008
Legend
Remember deadly only means a chance of 1 or 2 part members being reduced to 0. I also don't think the encounter builder is geared to such massive fights. I think it would have been a more interesting encounter if it was:So here is a summary of the big fight. You should definitely take this with a grain of salt for two reasons:
1) This fight was very unusual in its situation.
2) In terms of competencies, my party routinely destroys monsters WAY above their CR belt. In my last campaign, 6 8th level character with a 13th level cleric assistance and some decent magic items took out a CR 30 encounter of Githyanki (not exaggerating, I statted it up).
So here's the premise. The party is on a diplomatic visit to a sister world (think star gate a bit, they are part of an organization that travels to various worlds for diplomacy, exploration, and sometimes kicking butt). They receive sudden word that a far off town is under assault by "elementals", with no time to lose. The party meets up with one of the "elite" teams in the area, and uses teleport circle to get into the area (that meant they had 1 minute to "buff themselves" while the spell was being cast). This was meant to be a full out fight, bringing in some all stars so every player got to play a couple of higher level characters and just go wild and have fun with it.
The Situation:
1) 2 12th level characters (Fighter and Wizard)
2) 2 11th level characters (Sorcerer and Barbarian)
3) 3 9th level characters (Paladin, Life Cleric, Wizard)
4) 6 7th level characters (Druid, Fighter, Barbarian, Artificer, Bard, Warlock) - the normal party
5) 2 Ballista and a squad of archers (from the city itself)
vs
1) 1 Ancient Water Elemental
2) 4 Elder Water Elementals
3) 9 Regular Water Elements
So under encounter building rules, this was a CR 28 and in theory a deadly encounter even vs such a large group. However, the fight had a different goal. Ultimately the elementals were being influenced, and their goal was to cross the 500 feet gap to get to the city and level it. So ultimately the group's goal was to stop that from happening. Because of this, the elementals primary drive was to keep moving forward, and generally only engaged when they had to, or where they could with minimal issue (because the bigger elementals were much faster than the small ones...they could make attacks and still generally keep up). This matters most for the little elementals, as they were not engaged nearly as much at first.
The Opening
I set up Control Weather ahead of time, so the conditions were the worst possible rain. Since that's not covered in the DMG, I ruled:
a) Physical Ranged Attacks at disadvantage and half range.
b) Concentration DC 10 required every round to maintain
c) Hailstones did a d6 damage to each character unless they had shelter.
d) the elementals were immune to all these effects.
The party was near the edge of the city. The city was starting to flood (I used the elementals control water for this....yes the range was too much but it worked for the flavor of the scene). People are panicking, and the party can see the elementals 500 feet in the distance, steadily closing towards the city. They begin the fight.
Initial Round
In the initial round the party makes their way into the fray. The 7th level barbarian launches himself into the fight on a ballista bolt (because that's how you roll!). The rest of the party got on in the bard's folding boat, and then prepared for a d door of the boat itself into the fight (of course this was too much weight and way way way too many people for the d door to carry, but the bard had never really gotten to use his boat and this seemed the perfect time, so the "rule of cool" allowed it. The party could have just run out and engaged the elementals in the middle ground, but it would have taken longer and been a lot more boring, so we just got into it).
The small elementals mostly move forward. The Ancient and 2 elders engage the barb. They do enough damage to bloody him, but the barb passes all of the strength saves (as barbs do).
Round 2
The party d doors in near the barb, and takes readied or delayed actions to join the party. The life cleric throws a big heal on the barb to help get him back up, and the party fully engages. I'll just note some highlights.
1) A bunch of summoned creatures restrained several elements (with everything I had to run I completely forgot about the restrained and grapple immunities....but ultimately it just meant more of the elementals actually engaged the party so I think that may have been more curse than blessing for them).
2) The ballistas get in licks on the medium elementals, but with their resistance to nonmagic weapons it cut the damage in half.
3) The fighter types moved in to combat positions, mainly targetting the elder and ancient elementals.
4) The Sorceror used a Disintegrate on the huge elemental, using Heighten spell to negate my advantage. I failed the save and took a lot of damage (as a DM I was actually happy he used that instead of a twinned banishment....even the Ancient Elemental's Charisma save is abysmal, it would have been cake to knock out 2 elementals that way). This did however knock out the concentration on control weather. I ruled that the super rain was still falling, but the hail stopped immediately.
Round 3
1) I had 2 of the elders launch vitriolic spheres at a large chunk of the group that had gotten near one of the other elders. Ultimately with the paladin's save aura all of that group passed their save. Also the barbarian got to use his mage slayer feat and critted the elder for his trouble.
2) The elders did some good damage to the nearby enemies, I took out the summons and bloodied one of the party, but the life clerics healing took care of that.
3) The 13th level fighter used an action surge + his echo knight extra attack, with some high damage and lucky crits managed to do 120 damage to the elemental in a single round!
4) The druid used his staff of the woodlands to summon a wall of thorns that tied up a 1/3 of the regular elementals.
Round 4
At this point it was just a slug fest. The paladin and barbarians (heavily buffed from the pregame), just went to town and killed the Ancient Elemental. The rest of the party fell suit, and as the dust had settled 3 of the elders were obliterated. Leaving 1 Elder and 5 regular elementals left.
The party was fresh and healthy, and the elementals were still a good bit away from the town so I just called it a win. At this point the regular elementals had no counter to the strong ranged attacks, and I knew they would polish off the last elder very quickly. So the party cheered as they skies began to clear and they saved the city.
Final Notes
Again, this was not a typical fight. I had 3 times the normal party size, and while the party was focusing and organized in their assaults, the elementals were more scattered and trying to make headway rather than gather up and fight. I also allowed the rule of cool to override some of the standard rules. So the outcome to me wasn't unexpected....even if it did scare my party
Spell DCS: The DCs were 13 and 14 I believe for the spells....which is too low. Giving up my action for spellcasting was generally a waste.
1 Primal
2 Ancients
4 Elders
12 regular water elementals
I just looked for Ogremoch on your monster list and didn't see it. The one I found online....honestly not impressive at all for a CR 20. The only thing it really had going for it was Wall of Stone at will, which if used really well could definitely cut down a party into small chunks, depending on terrain.
Well like you said, the encounter generator is just not good at handling parties of that size, so its a complete guessing game as to how deadly something could be. For example, if I had all of the regular elementals circle up and attack the party, instead of trying to march to town....could have been more deadly. But this was meant to be an oddball encounter, not your usual fare, so its very hard to stat the difficulty.
However, funny you should mention a more interesting encounter. So in my game, there are current "reality shenanigans" going on, and in the next game were are repeating the same day, except in this reality the party is actually the elite team.
So its going to be 6 12th level characters....but they won't have all of that extra backup this time. So we will be running the same scenario but with a smaller but higher level party. So I'm trying to figure out what water elementals to throw at them this time to really up the challenge. I may add in an aberration as well, as they are a big villain in this current plot.
dave2008
Legend
I did an Ogremoch (CR 25) and Olyhydra (CR 23) in my 5e Epic Updates: Elementals. They will eventually get updated and added to this thread, but I haven't started on the "epic" monsters yet.
Just checked it out, yeah that thing could do some rocking
I think the jagged earth is the coolest ability, effectively means that unless you can fly, teleport, or have means of avoiding difficult terrain you are never getting to this guy, which is appropriate for basically an avatar of earth kind of thing.
