D&D 5E [+] How do you make 5E more challenging?

[Horwath]

I also am very liberal with giving enemies spells. Things get a little weird once they the king's platoon drops a hold person followed by fireball on you.

or just carry a potion of fireball.
8d6 on a DC15 goes a long way in a hand of some disposable henchmen.

 

[Shardstone]

or just carry a potion of fireball.
8d6 on a DC15 goes a long way in a hand of some disposable henchmen.

Imagine a hallway with three waves of henchmen with wands of lightning bolt. These are the kinds of encounters I like to drop on my party.

 

[Quickleaf]

Imagine a hallway with three waves of henchmen with wands of lightning bolt. These are the kinds of encounters I like to drop on my party.

 

[grimmgoose]

I also am very liberal with giving enemies spells. Things get a little weird once they the king's platoon drops a hold person followed by fireball on you.

I'll +1 this.

Coming from 4E, I spent the first half of my 5E career avoiding spellcasting enemies, mainly because my campaign world was low-to-mid fantasy, and - compared to 4E - running spellcasting monsters is terribly clunky.

I've changed my campaign world (because 5E is inherently high fantasy - no getting around that), and after playing for nearly a decade, I know most of the spells. So past level 5, there is very rarely an encounter with creatures that don't have spells, or spell-like abilities.

 

[Shardstone]

I use an OSR-philosophy of "come up with interesting plans to cheat the game" which enables me to use deploy such righteous evils against my players. Various wall spells, or just bringing up blockades, or around the corner firing tactics, lobbying your own explosives down there, etc are just a few ways I can see to clear the hall.

 

[Quickleaf]

I use an OSR-philosophy of "come up with interesting plans to cheat the game" which enables me to use deploy such righteous evils against my players. Various wall spells, or just bringing up blockades, or around the corner firing tactics, lobbying your own explosives down there, etc are just a few ways I can see to clear the hall.

I mean… if the possibility of collapsing the dungeon doesn’t come up when they’re planning, are your players really playing at 100?

 

[TwoSix]

or just carry a potion of fireball.
8d6 on a DC15 goes a long way in a hand of some disposable henchmen.

Consumables are always the answer. You get the tactical complexity of spellcasting without the narrative need of every enemy being a spellcaster.

And if the party can defeat the encounter without the enemy using the consumable, they get rewarded for it.

 

[Oofta]

One other aspect of making games more challenging at high levels I haven't seen is controlling the number and rarity/effectiveness of items. While I do give out special items to PCs to help shore up weak spots (especially giving strength based PCs options for flying/ranged targets), I don't give PCs everything they might want. At level 20 The highest AC in the group was 22. Most of the PCs had a single legendary item (I'd have to double check if they all did but I had to deactivate that campaign to make room), a very rare and maybe a rare item or two.

They certainly weren't lit up like Christmas trees, they had items that made sense and were fun to have but not unbalancing.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Ive been thinking about Death Saves.

In my current 5E game I house ruled we use the Shadowdark system for Death. Basically a bleeding out effect.

Anyways, after talking with one of my players I've reconsidered Death Saves because it was pointed out that it gives the player something to do on their turn. And as much as I hate multiple saves and think 5E takes it to easy on players, that is a fair point. I may even let this carry over into other D&D type games. This of course would still be an issue if someone gets turned to stone or whatever but hey, don't get turned to stone.

So I reinstated it with 1 addendum, you gain a level of exhaustion whenever KOed.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Ive been thinking about Death Saves.

In my current 5E game I house ruled we use the Shadowdark system for Death. Basically a bleeding out effect.

Anyways, after talking with one of my players I've reconsidered Death Saves because it was pointed out that it gives the player something to do on their turn. And as much as I hate multiple saves and think 5E takes it to easy on players, that is a fair point. I may even let this carry over into other D&D type games. This of course would still be an issue if someone gets turned to stone or whatever but hey, don't get turned to stone.

So I reinstated it with 1 addendum, you gain a level of exhaustion whenever KOed.

Better hope you don't have to make more than five--because that means making a sixth death save automatically means instant death!

God I freaking hate 5e Exhaustion rules.

And as for the thread topic at hand...given the number of "just throw unwinnable bovine feces at them" posts...

Do folks have examples that aren't "meatgrinder" or "load up every enemy with a bazillion nasty spells"?