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

[Oofta]

One other thing to note. Get feedback from your players. Find out if they're having fun or if they're bored. While I don't like cakewalks (nor would I enjoy a grindhouse campaign), different people play for different reasons. I try to celebrate the wins of my players just as much as they do.

You can talk to them directly, solicit answers offline or even set up an anonymous survey. I've started playing around with ranked voting for campaign direction, it's anonymous and free. That way we don't have one person dominating the conversation and always getting their way.

Good luck.

 

[matskralc]

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.

I think the discussion went to "well, this is how I would amp up the challenge" because nobody here knows what you should do. That's a DM/player dynamics question that can only be answered by you having a discussion with your group in which you lead off by asking "would this be more fun for you guys if it was more challenging? I know I'm not having a ton of fun right now".

Edit to add: you don't have to read far between the lines of the OP to discern the problem. New players to the group have the group playing the game in a way that the OP doesn't enjoy. That problem isn't solved with doom clocks, re-statting BBEGs, or a careful consideration of monster tactics.

 

[jayoungr]

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".

Because the players have gained control.

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.

If I gave the impression that I'm not willing to modify, then that was a mistake. I am absolutely willing to modify the difficulty and in fact have got a tougher version that I'm planning on using. But I don't have a lot of confidence in my own ability to make any solo monster versus eight fresh PCs with all their nova abilities into a compelling fight. I was hoping to have some additional encounters to soften them up before that.

One other thing to note. Get feedback from your players. Find out if they're having fun or if they're bored. While I don't like cakewalks (nor would I enjoy a grindhouse campaign), different people play for different reasons. I try to celebrate the wins of my players just as much as they do.

At least one of them has told me they find combat challenging enough. It looks easy from my side of the screen, but as I said in the original message, players apparently find it more tense because they don't know the statblocks. It is true that they never seem to take much damage, though, largely because the party has a glamour bard with catnap (read: free movement and 40 HP spread across the party every round, regained with a ten-minute rest).

 

[Retreater]

Have him dominate a few of your PCs and set them against each other as they try to fight him and the surplus party members.

 

[iserith]

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?

The main thing in my view is to redefine what is "fun for you." My criteria for this is that the players had the agency to do what they wanted within the constraints of the game and the existing fiction and that a story was created as a result of playing. "A story" not "the story I wanted to tell." I try my best not to imagine what the outcomes will be. Sometimes the story is a dramatic confrontation where the PCs barely pull off a victory. Sometimes the story is that they slap down the villain and steal his loot. The fun for me is finding out which outcome it is, regardless.

 

[matskralc]

But I don't have a lot of confidence in my own ability to make any solo monster versus eight fresh PCs with all their nova abilities into a compelling fight.

You shouldn't. Nobody should.

Solo monsters are near impossible to run in 5E against a "normal" sized party of four. Against eight, the action economy advantage will absolutely wreck you. Lair actions and legendary actions can only go so far. If you've got eight fully-rested level 10 PCs, I wouldn't even consider engaging with anything less than Strahd, a CR 10 lieutenant, and a handful of CR 4-6 minions. That's well beyond a deadly fight, but still only roughly half of the daily budget. If the PCs are resting up and preparing, then so is the BBEG.

 

[Oofta]

Because the players have gained control.


If I gave the impression that I'm not willing to modify, then that was a mistake. I am absolutely willing to modify the difficulty and in fact have got a tougher version that I'm planning on using. But I don't have a lot of confidence in my own ability to make any solo monster versus eight fresh PCs with all their nova abilities into a compelling fight.

I don't know what timeline you're on or other details, I've never even run the campaign even though I purchased the monsters in DndBeyond because I plan on having a potential enemy in my campaign being a vampire.

Having said that, I think you've boxed yourself in a bit unnecessarily. It doesn't need to be a single fight against one BBEG, and I agree that a solo (in any edition) will always be difficult to set up as a challenge. So the question seems to be, how do you change the scenario to be a challenge?

If you want to take the game time, set up a scenario where there is significant attrition of resources. You can't change what's happened but set up a scenario where they have to have multiple fights without a rest. It can be as simple as "You go to rest but nightmares stop you from getting any rest." If they try to leave every time they go out the door they find themselves just walking back into the castle. Another option is to use a doomsday clock where they simply don't have time to rest. It may well mean however that you need to make secret caverns under the castle and generate new encounters.

Alternatively give Strahd a bunch of minions. In particular, give him a minion made to look like him that they attack and after a round or so have reinforcements appear. They could come out of secret doors, teleport in or perhaps they were just invisible. Be sure to have them come from multiple directions so that everyone feels threatened. After they're softened up a bit, have Strahd come in and start attacking the most vulnerable.

Set up challenges other than killing Strahd that requires people to do something other than fight the vampire. A side ritual is going to sacrifice a bunch of kids and if it completes Strahd will gain immense power. The group can't focus on both threats.

Or ... just cheat. Well, not cheat, but get creative. Set up a mirror house that splits the party into two different groups. Have each group fight a mirror copy Strahd. This might be a bit tough to run, I'd recommend doing one full round for group A and then switch over to group B. Personally I think this could be a lot of fun, especially if after defeating the "mirror" versions of Strahd they have to face the real thing.

Remember, Strahd isn't just a vampire, this is his domain. You certainly don't have to let the players do whatever they please and you don't have to follow the mod.

Personally I prefer smaller groups, and would never run a game with 8 players other than for a one-shot so I understand the challenge. But another thing to remember is that setting up difficult challenges does not mean you have an adversarial relationship with your players, overcoming difficult challenges is part of the fun for most people.

 

[TheSword]

If you want to be really cruel... while one half group is playing have the other. Create characters that are three levels lower than the PCs no magic items. Standard points buy. Get them to summarize them for you AC, Hp, Stats, Saves, Feats, damage and to hit on a standard attack, 3 go to spells. Have the other half do the same while they’re waiting. Suggest these might be back up characters if they die.

Then when they meet Strahd have some or all of those characters be his charmed slaves. Fighting in his defense. Previous heroes who bowed to his will!

Lol.

 

[Bawylie]

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.

To balance competing interests, look for areas of common ground and see what fits in that territory. Identify must-haves and nice-to-haves, and then make sure the must-haves are included.

I think you can definitely salvage some of the scenes you’ve pre-written, but likely not As Written. Probably, you can tease out the essential elements of those scenes and turn the key moment into a bullet-point. (Keep a list of these bullet points).

Now, your players are going to want to rely on their plan A (hunker in a hut and come out guns blazing). So there should be opportunity for that to happen. They also want to talk some smack, it seems to me, so there should be an opportunity to do that too.

I think if you re-cast the scenario, you don’t have to worry about the chump-thumping. One avenue that occurs to me is to protract the scene into 3 to 5 different encounters in which performance in the early encounters affects the final showdown in the last encounter. Then I’d use those encounters to drop in the bullet-point must-haves.

If I were psyching myself up and reimagining the showdown, it might look like a pursuit of strahd up a tower, each level locking behind the party so they can’t retreat. And it’s not “can you beat strahd?” It’s more like “can you beat strahd 3 to 5 times?” So the nova strat works out well at first, but as they move up the tower, they have to dig deeper to get those victories. So the sub-strahd bosses are perhaps his shadows and each has strahd’s stat block but a preferred strategy based on his abilities and accounting for your must-haves (legendary resistance turns into legendary power - grants the shadow an automatic success on whatever ability it is using). Defeating each shadow drops the key to the next floor and the wedding is at the top.

I’d do the strahd shadow encounters like this:
1st encounter - Beasts. The Shadow takes Strahd’s bat form and also summons some swarms of bats. Legendary Power affects his Bite Attacks when used. (Use the encounter space to drop in your must-have RP stuff. Strahd’s disembodied voice can do a lot go back-and-forth with the players).
2nd encounter - Charm. The next Shadow uses Charm (Legendary Power, if needed).
3rd encounter - Predator. The next Shadow uses Greater Invisibility, Spider Climb, and Multi-Attack.
4th encounter - Spells. The next Shadow focuses on Strahd’s Spellcasting. Make sure to use fog cloud, blight, and all 3 fireballs.
5th encounter - Strahd. By now, your 8 players have run a decent gauntlet of all your must-have scenes/RP encounters, have either used their nova strategy or played to conserve some firepower, and depending on how fast they did it all, they either catch Strahd during the wedding (so he’s surprised) or late (so he has some wolves summoned and some spells up). I’d also let him cast Animate Dead on any fallen PCs as a legendary action.
(This is all just by way of example. There are probably hundreds of ways to push your party off of plan A).

Anyway, the protracted encounter(s) would give you the room you need to balance the fun. And instead of a blowout there’d be a decent attrition before a final showdown. And you have the time to do the stuff you wanted to do. It might not be exactly how you envisioned, but it could still have a lot of what you’d planned.

 

[Argyle King]

He isn't. The "revised version" literally changed about four sentences, mostly to remove references to Vistani characters' current levels of sobriety.

Thanks for the info.

Further thoughts: The last group I played through Strahd with approached things from the perspective that most of the NPC

Strahd has a variable difficulty. He has the tools to wipe the floor with almost any party around 10th level, but that doesn't mean an individual GM will play him that way, or that it will be a satisfying climax for the party. But you can split the difference. I mean a wedding ceremony is just asking Strahd to cast seeming and make everyone who fails the save look like Strahd. Including the players.

The most recent group I played through the game with horribly stomped Strahd... like it wasn't even close.

Part of that was due to a combo of lucky rolling and having a paladin who could dish out a ton of radiant. Critical smite in round 1 - followed by everyone saving against whatever it was that he had attempted. Offhand, I don't remember exactly what was attempted because it was a few years ago. But I do vaguely remember Strahd being crushed badly contrasting strangely with a near TPK against the jackal-headed thing.

I'm not sure that making other folks look like Strahd would have meant much to that party. The general consensus was that a large portion of the NPCs in the setting were kinda dbags. By the end, the group was somewhat apathetic toward doing anything other than murdering Strahd and leaving.