D&D 5E A Mess of OP Characters (magic items, rest mechanics, etc.)

[Retreater]

If you want it to be optional, then it certainly is. You just move the artifact to a different location.

(Granted, it sounds like the deadliness of the area is such that you wouldn't want to make it optional and would want your party to be challenged by going there... but you get what I mean.)

Yes. I could move the arifact, I could make collecting the artifacts unnecessary, etc. But I think the writers by putting the arifact there are intending it to be required.
Concerning the challenge there, I'm equally concerned that it will be too much and not enough at the same time. It's still just "one big bad" - which can kill off a lot of the party if it gets Initiative. If it doesn't, there's a good chance it can get completely shut down and focus fired into oblivion.
Regardless, I don't know if it will be a fun experience.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yes. I could move the arifact, I could make collecting the artifacts unnecessary, etc. But I think the writers by putting the arifact there are intending it to be required.
Concerning the challenge there, I'm equally concerned that it will be too much and not enough at the same time. It's still just "one big bad" - which can kill off a lot of the party if it gets Initiative. If it doesn't, there's a good chance it can get completely shut down and focus fired into oblivion.
Regardless, I don't know if it will be a fun experience.

Is it likely to go first? Unless it has some big plusses to initiative, simple statistics say that some of the party are likely to go first. The larger the party, the more likely that is.

 

[Delazar]

didn't read the whole thread, but on the issue of final boss fights: forget HP!

make it last 5-6 rounds, wait until something super cool happens (a crit, an awesome spell, etc) and then ask "How Do You Want To Do This?"

 

[TheSword]

Yes. I could move the arifact, I could make collecting the artifacts unnecessary, etc. But I think the writers by putting the arifact there are intending it to be required.
Concerning the challenge there, I'm equally concerned that it will be too much and not enough at the same time. It's still just "one big bad" - which can kill off a lot of the party if it gets Initiative. If it doesn't, there's a good chance it can get completely shut down and focus fired into oblivion.
Regardless, I don't know if it will be a fun experience.

I think it’s really dangerous to increase difficulty by relying on boss fights. I did this in Odyssey of the Dragonlords for the last five or six sessions (almost to see just how tough a creature they could defeat out of perverse curiosity).

The problem is, it just drives players to make even more powerful characters and pull even more jinks. It also cheapens the boss fight when everything is a boss fight.

The problem here is that some players fee bored. What about splitting the party at some points?

 

[J-H]

They just got to the Temple of Osiris and are completely willing to help the good priests there defeat the evil being that is defiling their sacred waters below the Temple.
I don't find the Underworld optional - one of the key 9 artifacts is located there.
The monster down there has a breath weapon, legendary actions, nearly 300 hp, and has multi attack. It "could" bring them down.

Fireball (8d6) 27 avg damage per target per round
Greatsword x2 (4d6+20) 34 avg damage per target per round
Longbow x2 (2d8+20) 29 avg damage per round
Your players do around 30 damage per round on average, excluding crowd control and the spread of AOEs. If there are 7 players, you can expect 210 damage per round, +- a bit. Your 300hp monster will last 1.5-2 rounds.

*Strike from ambush so it gets a surprise round
*maximize its HP to about 450
*Give it legendary resistances
*Rework the terrain so the party can't keep it from reaching them, and so it can reach the squishies. Multiattack the Wizard who has Reverse Gravity, not the Fighter. Also give some spots where nobody wants to go, like ponds of murky water or (concealed?) pit traps. If someone's near a trap and between the trap and the enemy, sub in an Athletics check for one attack to shove them into the trap.
*Give it minions. Six cultists spread out around the room, each hiding behind improvised barriers or statues (3/4 cover, which includes a bonus on their Dex saves against fireball), casting Hold Person, Faerie Fire, Bane, Guiding Bolt, etc. at the party. For your convenience, 3 of them cast Bane and 3 of them cast Hold Person, then the next round 3 do FF and 3 do GB, etc.

This is mostly the same advice given back on page 1, just specific to this encounter.
You are the change you are looking for.

 

[dave2008]

Yes. I could move the arifact, I could make collecting the artifacts unnecessary, etc. But I think the writers by putting the arifact there are intending it to be required.
Concerning the challenge there, I'm equally concerned that it will be too much and not enough at the same time. It's still just "one big bad" - which can kill off a lot of the party if it gets Initiative. If it doesn't, there's a good chance it can get completely shut down and focus fired into oblivion.
Regardless, I don't know if it will be a fun experience.

Since your party is oversized and you don't have confidence in the adventure design, I would suggest adding the mythic trait as an option for that monster.

 

[AnotherGuy]

@Retreater I do not have the module you're using so I cannot offer you advice on that.
And I'm assuming restarting is out of the question, but my gut feeling is you'll end up in the same situation soon enough.

What you have to do is Hardcore your Monsters, and I'm not JUST talking about maximising hit points, adding an extra damage die or increasing the attack bonus by +1.

• Touch Attacks for ethereal Undead like ghosts, wraiths, spectres and shadows flat out ignore basic armour. Wearing plate armour, carrying a shield means nothing to ethereal opponents, unless there is a + bonus and then you ONLY take the + into account. It makes Mage Armour so much more valuable since that is force, like the spell Shield.
• Knockdown prone or push 5-10 feet is automatically added to every monster melee attack from a monster of large or greater size that hits successfully. The DC is 10 + monster STR
• Do not be afraid to increase monster movement by 5-10 feet. They are far too slow in the MM.
• Give opponents Class Features - metamagic, combat manuevers, channel divinities, second story work, invocations, feats, fighting style...etc

Imagine the Ogre Magic Twinning Spells or the Centaur having Polearm Mastery, Greater Weapon Mastery and the appropriate fighting style.

• Upgrade Resistance. So resistance to x means the monsters takes 1 damage per damage die. Skeletons now only suffer 1 hit point from non-magical piercing. While magical piercing does half damage.
• Give spell-using demons/devils and other supernaturals the rechargeable ability to cast one of their spells as a Bonus Action while they engage in melee. Often as DM you're forced to choose in combat and before you know it the combat is over and you didn't even get a chance to showcase the monster. So this way, you get to use their cool spells such as Darkness, Stinking Cloud or whatever while also attacking.
• Give creatures Skills and Expertise on certain skills you feel they should have. i.e. Canines or birds of prey having Expertise on their perception skill...etc
• Use Antimagic Zones, Unhallow Ground which may give undead Advantage on saves, Everchanging Terrain due to the monsters i.e. Green dragons could create floating poison clouds, red dragons create scorched earth or set things alight, giants create pockets of difficult terrain on their misses, spectres leave a necrotic energy in their wake, mummies defile the area around them..etc
• Realistic Concentration. Areas/monsters which force concentration checks due to piercing noises, incessant mind-burrowing sounds, violent movement, illusionary distractions, fear/horror...
• Give opponents Additional Abilities i.e. lycanthropes that emit fear inducing howls as a bonus action (save once successfully, and you're immune for 24 hours) or Shambling Mounds whose roots burrow into the mouths of their engulfed victims, cutting down the Suffocation time to just mere rounds instead of minutes.
• Have opponents Steal (via grapple check) the Items (necklaces, amulets, wands...etc) in combat. Why would they not?
• Have monsters Sunder Items, such a foci or holy symbols, even shields and weapons - depending on size of monster. Perhaps in this setting the breath of adult dragons and older have the ability to destroy magical items, saves are needed.

And so much more...there is use of Cover and the complications of Firing into Melee, Environmental Obstacles, the use of Madness for things alien or first-time encounters with the weird and wonderful, effects/attacks that create Exhaustion, Bleeding Wounds, Gritty Rests, PCs being set alight from fire attacks...etc

But whatever you do, do not EVER line-up your bad guys for easy Fireballs. As a DM you should be lining them up during combat for that surprise Lightningbolt. Good luck!

 

[Retreater]

The problem here is that some players fee bored. What about splitting the party at some points?

They split the session before last to gather some supplies and intel. Even then it was hard to convince them to do so. ("NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY!!!!!!!!!)
I think that splitting the party to cure boredom will have the opposite effect ("I'm just waiting around until something happens with my half of the table.")

Since your party is oversized and you don't have confidence in the adventure design, I would suggest adding the mythic trait as an option for that monster.

Which is (IIRC) double the hit points and unlock extra abilities when it's "bloodied."

 

[FrozenNorth]

I think the most important thing to do, with respect to both you and your players, is to recalibrate expectations. With 7 players, the amount of spotlight each player will receive is greatly reduced. The best way to deal with powerful groups is to use the action economy against them by including more enemies, but in a group with 7 players, that will tend to slow combat to a crawl and reduce further the spotlight each character gets.

With that in mind, here are some practical steps you can take to manage a large group. Since you are playing a module, these all involve modifying the module.
1. Use more Level Up monsters. Level Up monsters tend to have better defenses, better reactions, and extra attacks when bloodied. This makes them more threatening to 5e groups;
2. “Modified” Scatter spell. The Scatter spell is in XGE. As written, its restrictions don’t make it a great NPC spell, but with a couple of modifications, its awesome for large parties. First, make the save Cha instead of Wis (Cha is a dump stat for many characters). Second, increase the scatter distance and allow it to scatter across walls. Third, create at least two nearby rooms that meet these criteria: (i) something interesting or threatening in the room; (ii) no obvious way back. Suddenly, the main fight consists of just the bard and the paladin, while the wizard is single-handedly dealing with a roper in another room, and the fighter has to pick a trapped lock to get back to the main room.
3. Subvert expectations: you should know your party’s SOP by now. Throw in combats where this isn’t the optimal approach. My favorite, BBEG + lieutenants. Most parties try to take down the BBEG and ignore the lieutenants. Here’s the flip, the BBEG has ridiculosly high defenses snd saves, but only does moderate damage. The lieutenants are 4e strikers, that do massive damage but aren’t as tanky (I like Star Spawn Manglers for this role).
4. Environmental Effects. Real ones, not the weaksauce ones in the DMG. I like this one since it increases difficulty of combat without having to modify the creatures in combat. In a room with flying monsters, on initiative count 1 of combat, the floor disappears, dumping the characters 10’ into acid. The take acid damage at the start of every turn. At initiative count 1 of the second round, the floor reappears, separating the characters who climbed out (who are facing the remaining monsters) from those that are still in the acid. Necrotic miasma covers the room that affects all characters but not their undead opponents.
5. Split the party. (1) the classic room with many pits with monsters that can shove characters (and there is a bigger monster at the bottom of the pit).
(2) To open the doorway to the next level, two keys need to be turned simultaneously in separate rooms. Once the two parties get into place, they are attacked simultaneously by two separate groups.

Good luck!

 

[dave2008]

Which is (IIRC) double the hit points and unlock extra abilities when it's "bloodied."

It is a bit more nuanced, but that is the basic idea. You don't need to add the extra abilities, those are just to give it more options and change the fight half way through. Here is what I did for Acererak:

Lord of the Tomb (Mythic Trait, recharges after a Rest). If Acererak is reduced to 0 hit points in one of his Tombs, he doesn't die or fall unconscious. Instead, all conditions and effects he is suffering end for him, all of his abilities and spell slots recharge, he regains 285 hit points, and he can use his Mythic Actions.

Now, 285 hit points was taking him back to full HP; however, you could recharge fewer HP and have the monsters mythic actions do more damage (for the same CR). The point is it acts like two monsters of the same CR.

So instead of the mythic trait recharging the monster in your example back to 300 HP, it could recharge it to 450 HP and the mythic actions add about 50% more damage. which is kinda cool and scary!