D&D 5E How challenging is Out of the Abyss?

[Eyes of Nine]

I ran Out of the Abyss a few years ago. The first half (level 7), solid. The 2nd half, totally wrecked. There's nowhere near the encounters to reach the suggested levels. It's like they gave up and hoped you'd fill the void with random encounters (hundreds of them).

We farmed Purple worms for money and xp. Seriously. I think we killed 4-5 of them just for the XP to level up.
Now our GM uses milestone leveling

 

[Eyes of Nine]

But it also turned out that one of the players was cheating like a fiend (he is now no longer in the group).

Maybe he was just "role-playing" his insanity?!?

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Heh, yeah, considering how bad it got, it was pretty pathological. I think he said that he scored something like six criticals against Demogorgon (at that point I was onto him and just marked each one as a single HP of damage).

Maybe he was just "role-playing" his insanity?!?

 

[Larnievc]

I just finished reading my copy, and I'm concerned that the later half is going to be rather easy for characters of the designed levels. The major issue that I'm seeing is that most of the fights that you are actually likely to get into (I'm assuming you aren't trying to launch an assault on a noble house in Menzoberranzan, for instance) just don't have enough enemies. Either you are squaring off against a single powerful opponent (maybe with one assistant) or you are fighting a random encounter that is probably going to roll less creatures than PCs (especially if they are powerful enough to be an interesting fight).

Having just finished up running my players through the overland of Isle of Dread--even integrating my own random wilderness encounters into the ones included--I've determined from experience that the 5e wisdom I always agreed with on principle is true: you must outnumber the PCs to have a challenge*.

Numbers of opponents seems so much more important than CR of opponents, that a few dozen goblins with bows might be more of a threat than a couple of trolls (unless you can drop a well-placed area of effect). A party's ability to deal death and destruction with focused fire is just that good.

How have your experiences with the challenges of the second half of Out of the Abyss been? (I'm not focusing on the Demon Lords here--since mine will be upgraded and have high level demon lieutenants.)

* Or pit them against something way above their normal challenge range, in which case you have a different problem--that the party can still probably take it out in a few rounds, and the question is whether someone gets unlucky and dies along the way.

I had to constantly tinker with the monsters and finally just started looking through the various monster books for inspiration. I re did the second half, only using Gravenhollow, the wizard’s tower, the gnoll encounter with the goristo demon. I used none of the Menziberranzan, Wormwirthings or the Labyrinth encounters

In my game an Obyrith called Pale Night played the role of Lolth and they’ll end up in the Abyss facing off against Pale Night, Demogorgon and Pazuzu when we play our final session tomorrow night.

The encounters are fine in the second half but feel more like filler. I ignored the ritual ingredients hunt because we had already been playing for 18 months nearly every week and I wanted to wrap things up.

There’s a lot of filler in that module: take what you like but don’t be afraid to ditch the rest. I fully intend to repurpose the Labyrinth in a future campaign.

 

[CydKnight]

I am running this now with the party at level 11 and about to enter the Labyrinth. There have been a lot of easy battles, some that I thought would be a lot harder for the party than they turned out. A couple of encounters were near fatal for one or more characters.

I have fiddled with it some adding some of my own flavor but it still follows the progression laid out in the campaign guide. We are talking about weeks, even months, of travel between destinations sometimes so there are plenty of chances to roll from the random encounter tables within the book to get players to the level they need to be at the right time. Some of this is a judgement call for the DM based on their foreknowledge of what's to come. They do get boring after awhile especially if you've rolled the same encounters 3 or more times. For this reason I have supplemented with some homebrew encounters as well as encounters found in the DM's Guild inserted where I felt appropriate in the campaign.

No doubt I have put some additional work into this beyond just blindly following the book but I don't mind at all and it's been totally worth it. The player's are loving it which is all that really matters to me.

 

[commandercrud]

My group found nearly every encounter to be too easy.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

My group found nearly every encounter to be too easy.

Wait, every encounter through the entire adventure? Did you react to their apparent savvy and ability to make somewhat more challenging encounters later?

 

[Mistwell]

Isn't there a good add-on, in the DMsGuild, to re-tinker the adventure to be more of an even-handed challenge?

 

[Flamestrike]

I'm convinced, and others have described, a 12th level party could easily take out Demogorgon.

How?

I mean, even assuming the totally impossible odds of Demogorgon just walking around totally alone, and not surrounded by Demons, cultists, sycophants, cambions and so forth (and that would be ridiculous in the extreme), AND assuming the PCs (when they stumble on him just lazily wandering about on his own) are somehow fully rested and at full strength, how exactly?

If the PCs have magic items, lets assume DG has them as well. Likely at least one artifact. For convenience sake lets go with a nose ring of Spell storing (Shield x 2, Counterspell), Bracers of Defence, and a Wand of Fireballs.

Pretty bland for a near deity, but we'll take it.

Underdark encounter, and presume (for some reason) DG is unaware of the PCs intent (despite his near divine nature) and has had no time to plan (surrounding himself with minions, which includes several Balors, and the population of an entire layer of the Abyss, plus mortal followers from multiple Prime material planes, using his Major Image and/or Project Image spells to distract and mislead the PCs etc).

Lets also assume for some reason, DG hasnt been able to set the encounter in an area favourable to him (somewhere that blocks teleportation due to the faezzaeres of the Underdark, or has magical darkness letting him take advantage of his Truesight etc).

He's just some chump standing there in a large underground room, 180' across, him in the middle, which the PCs also happen to be in as well, in formation, and at the edge thereof.

His passive perception is 29 (Truesight) so we can rule out surprise.

How do 5 fully rested 12th level PCs (with default magic items for this level) defeat him?

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Spoilers:


The adventure basically ends with the demon lords and their minions fighting each other in a giant melee, while the players maybe deal with some stragglers on the edge. The NPC fight is supposed to end with one demon lord (Demogorgon recommended by default) still standing, having used up resources, and with no surviving minions. Since they were all summoned here they basically don’t have magic items. That’s the Demogorgon fight the game presents the PCs with.