D&D General Do I need an attitude adjustment? (They're gonna nova the BBEG)

[Umbran]

No excuses for a bad DM I guess.

Mod Note:

No excuse for an insulting poster, either. Keep it respectful.

 

[Flamestrike]

Mod Note:

No excuse for an insulting poster, either. Keep it respectful.

Sorry to sound insulting. Wasnt my intention.

The point was that 'If the adventure is underwhelming, the DM is almost invariably the one at fault.'

A good adventure helps the DM, but a talented DM can make almost any adventure challenging and/or entertaining.

 

[Helldritch]

Ishhh...
Strahd isn't something you want to toy with.
With more than four players, I use this.

Single encounter big bad guys
Add 1 feat/ASI per 4 CR (save the first four)
Add 1 legendary action per PC above 4.
Multiply HP by 1 +0.25 per PC above 4.
Add 1.5 AC (round up) per PC above 4.

So Stradh becomes
AC: 22
HP: 288
Gets 7 legendary actions.
Would get 2 more ASI/feat. (you could add a third if your group is heavy on magical items).
I would give him Mage Slayer and Sentinel and any magical items he could wear to enhance his fighting abilities.

Change Strahd spell list to include Dispel Magic and Counter spell, Vampiric touch is a killer as it will heal strahd and potentialy enhance is self healing (with the sentinel feat). Having it cast at 5th level makes for 5d6 damage on an unarmed strike.

Have him use his passwall legendary ability.
Make him concentrate his attacks on the group's healer(s)
Have him use minions like bat swarms to hinder the group.
Put off the lights.
And make him retreat when half his HP are down. 7 rounds (3 with an unmodified Strahd) and:"Heeeeeeeeeeee's baaaaaaaack!"

Players should be affraid of Strahd.
I used these tactics on three different groups. (and one was an unmodified Strahd). They all had a hard time. The third group was at the hobby store and complained that Strahd had been too easy. I offered to re enact the battle to show them. They were a prepared group but chose to fight Strahd during the night without the Symbol of Ravenkind... I TPKed them easily and they could not accuse me of cheating. I roll on the open.

If you use Strahd as a headon fight with no tactical retreats, even with my modifications, he will be an easy fight. Strahd is not there to play fair, he will use every advantages he has to TPK your group and you should play him accordingly.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I think 8 PCs are a lot, but Srahd if he bothers can pick any number of PCs one by one. His lair actions are well. He can literally move through the walls of the castle, attack and disappear. He can close the doors, isolating a few PCs with magically closed doors. He can detach the shadow of someone or raise a dead spirit while within his castle. If he faces the PCs on their Terms, that is his own's fault.
The Tarroka Deck tells the players the one Situation where he will make his last stand, because they find him in quite a suicidal mood.
Otherwise, I can't imagine how 8 PCs will make a beeline out of his crypt.

 

[nevin]

In my experience once you get a party above 6 it gets hard to balance things and combat get real swingy. Player deaths become more common because as you add more to balance the encounters it's more likely one person may get hit with multiple things.

I do agree with that I can't imagine Strahd having a toe to toe fight with a powerful party. There's a reason he's been around so long. He's always been about surviving not winning.

 

[jayoungr]

Sigh. Never mind. I appreciate the willingness to help, but very few of you are actually answering the question I asked. This is why I didn't want to go into specifics about the adventure, because I had a feeling the thread would go this way.

 

[Mistwell]

I'm in the process of wrapping up a campaign that has lasted all year, and I'm kind of dreading the last few sessions. I could use some outside perspective on what I need to do about that. I'm going to try to put this in general terms to start with, but I'm sure I'll leave out some important detail or other, so I'll add more detail if needed.

Note: I'm running a published adventure, so my options for reworking things are limited. But I'm not sure it matter much even if this were a homebrew, as we're at the stage where there isn't much for the PCs to learn; they just need to confront the BBEG.

My group is eight players--way too big, I know. I had my doubts about that from the start, but I thought I could stay on top of it by just making the fights tougher. That's had mixed success; but more importantly, I didn't anticipate the change in interpersonal dynamics the larger group would cause. About half the group used to game together decades ago, back in high school, and I feel like they're reverting to an immature mentality now that they're all together again. I've seen some of the original group change their playstyle with the return of these new people. They're much more prone to mouth off to the BBEG and generally act murderhoboish than they were when the group was smaller.

As of now, the PCs have entered the BBEG's domain, which is large. Their plan is to explore the place thoroughly and loot everything of value they can find, camping whenever they get low on resources (using Leomund's Tiny Hut). Then, when they feel like they've plundered all the good stuff, they'll take a long rest so they're fresh and then take on the big guy.

I had tried to set up a much more tense situation. I originally thought they would confront the BBEG sooner rather than later, and I'd envisioned a dramatic standoff with him that would bring in some character-specific plot threads that have been building for a while. I actually do think the players of the characters those threads would affect would enjoy having those threads become important, but they're caught up with the energy of these new folks and are now actively avoiding any situation that will make it easy for me to bring in these ideas. (For reasons that would take too long to explain, I can't make the BBEG come to them at this stage.)

Anyway, the main thing is that I feel like the players completely have the upper hand, and I'm not sure what is the best way to respond to that. How do I balance what's fun for my players with what's fun for me?

It's not that I want to kill PCs, but I'd like to make the climax of the campaign tense and memorable. I'd like the players to have to use abilities they don't usually have to pull out, and maybe be inventive sometimes. And yeah, I'd like for the bad guys to get some good hits in, to show off their own abilities and make the situation seem serious. But then on the other hand, it seems like players always remember combats as more tense than they look from my side of the screen, so maybe I'm overestimating the importance of that aspect.

I know that getting attached to the idea of specific scenes happening is always dangerous, but do I try to salvage any of the showdown I'd hoped for, or do I just let it go?

Do I try to make things harder for them? Try to bring back some of the roleplay? Or is that me trying to impose my will and take away their fun?

How do I psych myself up to run a BBEG who's going to go down like an absolute chump when confronted with eight fresh PCs? I'm actively hating the thought right now, but maybe I just need to get over myself and learn to like it. I remember someone saying that the goal of being a DM is not to win, but to lose with style. I'm just not sure even how to do that when I feel so completely outmatched.

Sorry for the long post. Any thoughts or advice will be carefully considered.

Gather the big bad and his minions around their tiny hut. Dispel the hut, before the PCs have recharged. Big battle.

 

[Oofta]

Sigh. Never mind. I appreciate the willingness to help, but very few of you are actually answering the question I asked. This is why I didn't want to go into specifics about the adventure, because I had a feeling the thread would go this way.

Well, your original post basically boiled down to "How do I psych myself up to run a BBEG who's going to go down like an absolute chump".

The answer is - you don't. Strahd isn't designed to be a brute. If you try to run him like one or if you aren't willing to modify the mod to a level appropriate to the number of players you have then there is no answer. As the stat block for Strahd says, "you must play him intelligently and do everything you can to make him a terrifying and cunning adversary for the player characters."

In addition, I always beef up my legendary creatures a bit if I have more than 4 characters because monsters are designed to work best with that number of PCs.

I'm not sure what you want - if you want a tougher encounter you're going to have to make modifications. If you are unwilling or unable to reduce the PC's threat level through resource attrition, you have to do it by using different tactics, adding more monsters and/or buffing the bad guys. Not sure what other options there even could be.

 

[jgsugden]

To answer the specific question: How do you balancer your fun with the player fun?

You're in a relationship with your players. In a good relationship, you want to make your partner(s) happy, and find joy in making that happen. Sometimes you need to sacrifice your preferences to make sure that things are good for your partner(s).

That being said, if you're sacrificing too much, perhaps it isn't the right relationship and you need to rethink it and try a different approach, such as not being the DM, playing a different campaign that better suits your desires, or otherwise creating more opportunities for fun.

I'd handle this situation by:

1.) Let them wrap it up with a big win. They came up with a good strategy. Let the story play out and let them get their win. If the story naturally develops to give them more challenges - great! If not, they'll lament that the BBEG wasn't as much of a challenge as they expected ... but they'll likely do it with a smug smile trying to escape.

2.) It sounds like you're not enjoying the railroad of a published adventure. I find a lot of DMs get frustrated trying to keep players 'on track', so I'd recommend getting off the track. In the future, if you're going to get a published adventure, try approaching it as a place setting, and not a script. Let the published materials give you the starting position for the story, but spend no effort keeping the PCs on track. Let them go off the rails and mix things up, sidestep things, or explore areas not listed. Heck, they may abandon the main storyline. Let them and play in the Sandbox. I've run one published adventure path with three different DMs. One stayed close to script while the other two went wildly off script to the point that I could barely recognize the later chapters. I had a blast in all three, and the DMs all enjoyed themselves.

 

[billd91]

Sigh. Never mind. I appreciate the willingness to help, but very few of you are actually answering the question I asked. This is why I didn't want to go into specifics about the adventure, because I had a feeling the thread would go this way.

If you mean the question you bolded in your OP, the answer is to do something to the situation that will increase your fun without completely torpedoing their fun. If that means having Strahd harass or confront them rather than let them slow roll through his castle's crypts, then do it. If you aren't having fun with the possibility of him going down like a chump, stop having him act like a chump.

Sometimes it's perfectly appropriate for the BBEG to go down like a chump - usually because the players have worked hard to get there and set it up. But it doesn't feel as good if they're cake-walking or crypt-farming their way toward it. Make it more climactic.