D&D 5E Guidelines for fewer/tougher encounters?

[Eejit]

Once you're out of Hit Dice, the only healing that you can get out of a short rest comes from a Cleric of Life, and not all parties have one of those.

Land Druids can too actually, as well as some Warlock multiclasses.

 

[dmnqwk]

Focus on sapping their abilities before/between combat.

Create scenarios in which the PCs have to use spell slots, abilities and other resources so when they reach a combat situation they have both reduced resources, and have had a lot of fun outside of combat with encounters.

If the PCs are trying to track down some Owlbears and reach a cave, maybe the cave has a cave-in and they need to waste spells/abilities (like a barbarians rage to get adv on the roll) to get past it. Then, once inside, put some magical traps and other dangers to sap away their power until you reach the final encounter - A Mad Wizard who was trying to train Owlbears. The Encounter would have the Wizard, some Owlbears and a specially designed device which prevents supernatural emotion.

The PCs are unable to use spells or supernatural abilities relating to emotion (Rage, Bardic Inspiration, Fear etc) because of a special nullifying device that keeps the Owlbears under his control. They could try to smash the device (perhaps it's resistant to non-magic weapons and immune to other damage (except force) with high hit points - if destroyed the Owlbears go crazy and attack everyone.

If the Players don't enjoy the threat of the cavern's traps then you'd need to look at sapping their resources in a more civilised setting, maybe saving someone trapped down an enchanted well, or a city intrigue where Invisibility or Charm Person come into play.

 

[Uchawi]

Link encounters. So if you want a couple battles per day, develop the challenge, but spread it out. Depending on the party actions, like not taking care of stragglers, using a stealthy approach, not bribing the guards, not collecting intelligence for the area, etc. the challenge adapts to become harder. So in theory you can also allows gaps to increase short rests as an award for good tactics.

So a single hard encounter would involve multiple rooms in a dungeon.

 

[Jenkins effect]

What I have found works is to use taxtics with the combat dont just give them an enemy to fight that is mindless and just going to attack.
use concealment and the environment to give the enemy a bit more danger, Spread out your enemies and make the party think of ways to remove the threats without bunkering up together and just hacking and slashing. If all else fails a Wizard on the enemy team usually spices things up if you run him with some utility spells to use in combat

 

[DEFCON 1]

I don't use math or numbers to figure out encounter difficulty (for the same reasons everyone else have given)... but the two things I do to monsters any time I want to make them more deadly with minimum change is give them all Pack Attack and Sneak Attack +2d6 to +4d6.

I find just by doing that... I turn groups of like four or five monsters (orcs, satyrs, anything really) into much bigger threats. The bonuses they get to hit and crit due to Advantage from Pack Attack plus the additional damage they produce is enough to really quickly reduce party HP, making them start to freak.

I found that almost always hitting, critting much more regularly, and for larger damage swings against many different members of the party (especially when they reach the ones in the back rows) does more to freak my party out than singular large monsters that have huge bags of HP but only wail away on one (or maybe two) party members-- oftentimes the tank-- at a time.

 

[Syntallah]

I don't use math or numbers to figure out encounter difficulty (for the same reasons everyone else have given)... but the two things I do to monsters any time I want to make them more deadly with minimum change is give them all Pack Attack and Sneak Attack +2d6 to +4d6.

I find just by doing that... I turn groups of like four or five monsters (orcs, satyrs, anything really) into much bigger threats. The bonuses they get to hit and crit due to Advantage from Pack Attack plus the additional damage they produce is enough to really quickly reduce party HP, making them start to freak.

I found that almost always hitting, critting much more regularly, and for larger damage swings against many different members of the party (especially when they reach the ones in the back rows) does more to freak my party out than singular large monsters that have huge bags of HP but only wail away on one (or maybe two) party members-- oftentimes the tank-- at a time.

While I understand this mechanically, do you try and justify these changes at all?

I remember a time back in 4E when a player of mine asked during an encounter: "man, why doesn't my telkin do that much damage?!?" [this was a homebrew weapon I yoinked from a novel I had read years ago, basically a spring-loaded crossbow / monsters in 4E did damage based upon level & role, regardless of weapon used; an ogre with a pie tin could do 4d6+ damage...]

 

[DEFCON 1]

While I understand this mechanically, do you try and justify these changes at all?

Yup. They're better and more experienced melee fighters than their usual counterparts. Simple.

Someone could just add a couple "levels of Rogue" or I could just give them a couple extra abilities. It's all the same thing.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I appreciate the suggestions so far. But I'm trying not to change other basic structures of the game. I'd like to keep the rest/healing rules as they are, and I'd like not to rely on lingering injuries. Thank you, though.

That's too bad. Simply adjusting the rest opportunities to make a 'day' whatever in-game period has 6-8 encounters in it, whether it's 3 hours spent in a dungeon or two and a half years exploring a continent, is one way of slicing through the gordian knot of 5e class-balance/encounter-difficulty/pacing interdependence.

I'd like to keep the rest/healing rules as they are, and I'd like not to rely on lingering injuries.

Then you might consider adjusting your pacing to match the guidelines, if you want usable guidelines. I know, not helpful....

I love 5E, but the whole attrition-based "6-8 encounters per day" model doesn't work for me. I vastly prefer one or two fights per adventuring day, but with each one being a lot tougher.

The next question is do you care about "class balance" at all.

If you do, you'll have to make some adjustments: [sblock="Balance"]
Problem is, all the classes, and all but maybe 3 or so of the sub-classes are absolutely affected by attrition across multiple encounters, and experience it to different degrees and in different ways - and the remaining few are balanced against those classes when experiencing the expected level of attrition. With very few encounters/day, some classes will have such a glut of resources that they'll be able to expend all their most powerful stuff, every encounter, and still have some un-used, others classes won't be able to rise to the level of performance that would result it.

You'd have to substantially re-balance the game and modify classes. For a 'daily' ability to feel limited, for instance, you need to have fewer uses of it than you'd expect to have encounters in a 'day.' If you're having 1-encounter days, such abilities become exactly as available as 'encounter' or 'short rest'-recharge abilities, so any character with more of the former than the latter becomes relatively over-powered. Similarly, if you can use a short-rest or daily ability every round of every encounter, they're just as available as at-wills, and there's no reason for them to be any more powerful than an at-will.

One thing about a big combat is that it can last a good deal longer. Put enough rounds on the table, and you can tease out a difference in availability between rest-recharge and at-will abilities. You still might need to reduce daily resources. If you really have only 1 encounter per day, there should be fewer daily resources available than corresponding short-rest-recharge abilities (the opposite of how 5e is designed, since it assumes 2-3 short rests between each long rest). If you have 2-3, put a short between all encounters to reduce the problem. Between that, and making combats much longer, in rounds, you can force some of the resource attrition (and thus balance/challenge) of standard 'day' into even a two-encounter day.[/sblock]

If you don't, next problem...

Thus far, I've been winging it, trying to run by feel, but I'm still finding myself struggling.

Personally, I find that 5e really lends itself to that style. It may just be a matter of getting used to running that way. It can be a lot of fun.

I almost always wind up with either 1) a fight that's not as tough as I intend, or 2) a fight that has too many creatures and thus takes way too long to complete.

The obvious solution is to stick to a smaller number of creatures, and ratchet up the CR of the enemies and/or give them additional advantages (Lair actions, legendary actions, terrain features, non-PC-usable items, mission parameters that constrain the PCs strategies, etc).

I'm hoping that some of you who might share this preference, but are more mathematically inclined than I am, have come up with some vague guidelines. I'm not looking for anything too specific, but more just like a "build an encounter that's X-times harder than 'deadly' for a group your size and level" sort of thing.

Between bounded accuracy and the variability across classes (and thus party compositions), there really can't be nice clean guidelines. The existing guidelines just aren't dependable w/in the pacing of encounters they're intended for, they're not going to get any better outside that range.

Or, to put it another way, I'm not looking to make attrition workable. I'm looking for a way to make fights dangerous and fun without the use of attrition.

Larger (in numbers of creatures) and longer fights wouldn't quite be the thing, then, because that would be re-introducing attrition, just over rounds instead of over a day. Neither would just turning encounter difficulty up to 11 by dialing up CRs exactly accomplish that.

(I'm already familiar with techniques like waves of combatants and the like. But I really am just looking for better ways to estimate the challenge of a single fight. I want the group to come through it feeling like they've gone through the wringer, but not take so long or become so repetitive it gets boring.)

I wish I had a greater variety of advice for you, but I honestly think you're already on the right track: Don't worry so much about stating it out in advance, and feel your way through each battle to manufacture the experience you want for your players. It's an art, and you'll get better at it as you go.

 

[derickmoore25]

So, this topic's come up a lot here and there, but I don't think I've seen a thread devoted to it.

I love 5E, but the whole attrition-based "6-8 encounters per day" model doesn't work for me. I vastly prefer one or two fights per adventuring day, but with each one being a lot tougher.

Thus far, I've been winging it, trying to run by feel, but I'm still finding myself struggling. I almost always wind up with either 1) a fight that's not as tough as I intend, or 2) a fight that has too many creatures and thus takes way too long to complete.

I'm hoping that some of you who might share this preference, but are more mathematically inclined than I am, have come up with some vague guidelines. I'm not looking for anything too specific, but more just like a "build an encounter that's X-times harder than 'deadly' for a group your size and level" sort of thing.

(I'm already familiar with techniques like waves of combatants and the like. But I really am just looking for better ways to estimate the challenge of a single fight. I want the group to come through it feeling like they've gone through the wringer, but not take so long or become so repetitive it gets boring.)

Quick easy solution class lvls. 5 goblins ohh this is easy. 2 lvl 5 golbin barbs, a lvl 5 goblin wizard, and 2 lvl 5 goblin clerics. Suddenly not the kind of encounter to take lightly.

 

[Rhenny]

Quick easy solution class lvls. 5 goblins ohh this is easy. 2 lvl 5 golbin barbs, a lvl 5 goblin wizard, and 2 lvl 5 goblin clerics. Suddenly not the kind of encounter to take lightly.

definitely. Even a few levels of fighter gives an action surge so the base humanoid monster can surprise the pcs with more attacks and extra hit points. I was able to challenge an 8th level fighter PC who had ac 20 and thought he was invulnerable by pitting the party against 6 hidden bugbear fighters (2 levels of fighter each) and 1 bugbear shaman (5 levels of wizard).