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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 7199825" data-attributes="member: 71699">Fights for my party playing through OOTA vary from easy to deadly, and from a pushover to extremely tense. I'll try and capture why in some tips for you<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Focus on means and motivations over difficulty rating. By this I mean that if it makes sense for a foe to bring more to the fight than would be fair, nevertheless allow them to bring more to the fight. Your PCs will need to learn when to disengage. A concrete example of this in OOTA is the drow pursuit. If a low-level party dallies foolishly, then they could have a very, very tough fight on their hands.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Anticipate possible fights prior to your session and look at your participants. Look at Ilvara. Her spell selection is fine for downtime in Velkynvelve, but nonsense for a pursuit that she expects to result in battle. Consider swapping out irrelevant spells for useful ones. Think about things like Death Ward. Another example is the the Chamberlain and Bridesmaid fight in Neverlight Grove. With a bit of reflection you can see that the job of those bridesmaids is to lock-up some characters while chamberlains gang up on the others.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Be vicious. Don't use bridesmaids on the character with the best save, use them on the character with the worst save. You obviously must be reasonable with this: don't give the NPCs information there's no way they could have, but do concede them skill and experience with their abilities. When dealing with elites, like the drow, concede them excellent combat choices much of the time. They'll milk their innate spells for maximum effect. Darkness on casters. Floating out of reach and snapping poison bolts off at low AC targets. Make sure the goblin boss is always next to another goblin so that she can use her special ability. Where it makes sense, don't waste attacks on characters that can't be harmed by them. Drow won't attempt to take down the plated, shielded dwarf, when squishy casters are better targets.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Be flavourful. Think about NPC motives and nature. Does an evil NPC take time to stab an already dead PC one more time, wasting an action? Certainly. Will overpowered goblins flee, hide stupidly, etc? Certainly. Don't be afraid to throw away resources. You're the DM. You can always make more. Drow won't hesitate to call upon PCs to surrender, or see their mage with the drow's sword at their throat die... or their dead mage have a sword shoved into their brain making them nigh unresurrectable (organ destroyed).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Consequences! Make sure you have a sense of what resources your NPCs can call on, and what other parties might be interested in their fates. Escalate where escalation seems reasonable. Don't flinch from PC death (and relatedly, I would advise playing straight - let the dice fall as they may).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The number of enemies table is useful for reminding that small groups and solo foes will be more easily overwhelmed, but the multipliers for larger groups of foes are too generous.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">A three-sided fight is frequently more interesting than a two-sided one. Betrayal, double-crossing, triple-crossing... these spice things up. Especially when it isn't clear how far an "ally" can be trusted. Jorlan is a good example of that in OOTA.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Make sure that rests are applied meaningfully, otherwise you'll end up in an all-alpha-strike, all-trivial or all-deadly cycle. I'd suggest making your long rests long enough that they need a pause that matters, and easy enough to disrupt that they need safety. For OOTA I'm using 24 hour long rests and 3 hour short rests, and any fight or cast interrupts them. I can post those suggestions if you are interested. The fact is, if you let players use their abilities over too few encounters, they'll find those encounters much easier than the encounter guidelines expect.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Ultimately, the most interesting foes are going to have character-class-equivalence or at least be given a decent number of additional options. For example, I've taken a drow priestess, switched her from Lolth to Vhaeraun, given her trickery domain abilities, added a couple of levels of rogue (assassin), bought her some Wyvern poison and now have an NPC capable of giving the PCs a run for their money. OTOH her brother - Jorlan - is crippled and must take a cautious approach to any fight due to his disadvantages. Sacks of hit points straight out of the MM become far more interesting when you bring them to life as a variant, and this can't usually be done on the fly but needs work before the game so that it feels fair and consistent with your world. Another example I have is an elite cohort of orcs using polearms with polearm mastery and carrying bags of caltrops.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Learn spells. As you guessed, spells are important. Ilvara can precast Aid. She can be Death Warded. She and Ash can walk around bringing multiple PCs into their 15' of Spirit Guardians and forcing those PCs to make another save when they start their turn. They can both take Healing Word and bring their elites back into the fight from range.</li> </ol>It's a mix of playing it imaginatively, but very straight at the same time. You can't so easily in clear conscience kill characters if you're fudging it all the time (a DM who fudges a roll to kill a PC? is that really a thing!?) 5e difficulty ratings are set to "easy" so you generally will need to add something into the mix, but that something could be a series of easy encounters that burn PC resources before the critical encounter. I'd suggest strengthening foes a touch with additional options, without usually increasing their XP value or at least making any increase conservative. Think about their society, think about their desire to not die, and what resources they can call upon to that end. For me motives are very key. My NPCs usually don't want to die. They may be greedy, bold or cowardly. They may be vicious or merciful.The foes of your characters will be thinking about their weak points. What is the cleric's worst save? What are the barbarian's movement options? Can he keep up with a mobile, flying or swimming opponent? Why are your casters anywhere the Barbarian can reach them? How well does your Sorcerer deal with a poison bolt from ambush? What about a "shield" of halfling slaves? Who do your PCs threaten and what resources might they dedicate to dealing with them?</blockquote>

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