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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Vork_Hammerfist" data-source="post: 8653588" data-attributes="member: 7035372">I don't play fifth edition, as I consider it lousy, but I have read it a fair bit. All of the options below will, to varying degrees, help make Nova fights a lot less boring or short, as well as forcing players to think a bit more strategically even though they don't have to worry about resource management as much (or more precisely, they worry about it differently).<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Boost enemy AC.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Boost enemy saves (very important).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Consider using max HP for enemies. This shouldn't be too important if you increase AC and saves.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Spread enemies around the fight area so as to reduce the possibility of large numbers of them being killed in the opening salvo.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Varied terrain, such as water, lava, crevices, tunnels, trenches, and cliffs. This allows you to make it much harder to get to enemies if players don't reserve some spells for handling these obstacles. If players don't prepare spells to handle these problems it will create choke points, raising the possibility of their either having only one tank engaging the enemy at a time while multiple enemies can attack that single tank.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Deploy varied units. Have a good mix of support, artillery, tanks, and cannon fodder. Additionally, the enemy should  have units capable of flight, swimming, or burrowing, dependent on viability of these movement types.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Interactive terrain. Ceilings that can be collapsed when pillars are taken out, creating (mostly) impassable terrain, and dealing damage (or outright killing) anyone within the area of effect. Bursts of lava or geysers that randomly deal damage to anyone within their AoE*, allowing saves for half damage.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Use waves. Enemies should arrive in waves, allowing you to use much larger numbers of enemies without making it drastically more likely to result in a TPK.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Timers. Inform the players that they have X number of rounds until something bad happens, or that if they do X or Y within Z rounds something good happens.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Either allow short rest classes to recharge their abilities between waves, or, better yet, give them magic items.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Harass the PCs. Specifically, have enemies attack them on their way to the big fight. If the long rest classes are trigger happy they may waste some resources. Eventually they'll learn to let the short rest characters handle the small problems.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Give players throwaway magic items. For example: a +1 weapon that is +2 vs the followers of a particular enemy or god, or faction. You can also have items that do the same thing with AC, or saves, or boost the power of certain (or all) spells. This happens sometimes in the Conan stories by Robert E. Howard, and of course the barrow daggers that Merry and Pippin have in LotR (this isn't brought up in the movies, but the dagger Merry uses to stab the Witch King was made specifically to fight him and his followers).</li> </ol>Anyway, that's my two pence/copper.</blockquote>

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