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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SlyFlourish" data-source="post: 9608143" data-attributes="member: 54840">The easiest way to increase the threat of a battle is by adding more monsters. Any encounter building guidelines you may be using don’t compare to your own experiences with your own players and their characters. All of the major crowd control abilities they have are relatively limited to a smaller number of monsters — the more you add, the harder it is to control. I’d avoid trying to circumvent the abilities they like to use. Instead lean in on them. Add big brutes they can control. Add big packs of minions they can blow up. Run waves of monsters, one right after another. Also run easier fights along the way. Too few GMs recognize the value in running an oscillation of easy battles and harder battles. For big boss monsters, clarify that they’re just plain immune to this type of crowd control. State it before they even try. Tell them that all the other monsters in the battle are susceptible, but not the boss. You can do this with legendary resistances, plain immunities, or a trick like “this boss automatically succeeds on all saving throws until bloodied”. Tales of the Valiant Doom points are another option — several points, visible to your players, that let the boss “cheat” in various ways:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">getting another action on their turn</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">ignoring spells or status effects</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">piercing though resistances or immunities</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">transferring damage to minions</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">sucking health from minions</li> </ul>Stuff like that. Hope those ideas help!</blockquote>

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