Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
I'm having issues making fights memorable for my players because they're just a bit too efficient at killing...
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But that's almost besides the point (I think) because:- they can deal A LOT of damage in that round.
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It's really cool that the party can get to be bad-ass, but unfortunately it's also a total anti-climax for them. The party love it when they get through by the skin of their teeth - they talk about it for weeks afterwards. When they one-round the foe they've been chasing down for the past 3 months (human time), it's a forgettable and disappointing experience.
Has anyone got any tips to provide the challenge and entertainment without negating/nerfing their tactics?
My guess is that the DM isn't pushing 6-8 encounters a day. Or at least 4. Because thoses are the symptoms I see for that.
Yes, a party of 10th level should be able to smoke a 200HP foe in a round if they focus fire and have full resources. If you want attrition battles, you need to have a good number of them per day.
Let me unpack "attrition" - there are plenty of ways to have encounter goals that are more then just "who killed whom". Stopping rituals, capturing before the escape, etc. But for the general "live through it by the skin of their teeth" that you talk about, that's your standard attrition - where they get ground away, seeming okay but with a few less resources every time, until when they are dealing with the big bad they don't have those sneak spells left - they used them to get close, they don't have high level slots for smites, or what have you.
And that works well with 6+ battles each long rest, with about two supplemental short rests. You can fudge it some with more powerful encounters, but still many resources are very efficient if used on one big battle so you still can't regularly go under four and still keep that level of wearing away going on.
You didn't mention other encounters at all, let's see how I did. Because these symptoms sound very similar to what I've seen before and i'd like you're feedback if I guessed right.
Are they going in to these boss fights with 4-5+ challenging encounters already done in the same day?
EDIT: There is no shame in doing fewer encounters if it's what fits the narrative. It's just that the 5e mechanics aren't as good at supporting that type of narrative as they are a dungeon crawl.
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