D&D 5E How to (almost) kill three 13th level characters.

[DaveDash]

Question to the OP.

Above you state that the partys wizard wasnt casting spells as he was busy maintaining concentration.

Are you aware that you can still cast spells while maintaining concentration?

You just cant cast another concentration spell while maintaining concentration.

I'm curious why your party Wizard wasnt lobbing spells into the battle on his action each round?

The reason I said that is I cannot remember exactly what he did round 1 of combat.

They also didn't want to open up with fireballs and the like because they agreed that they didn't want to kill "innocents", the battlefield has mingled with what looked like common drow and kuo-toa.

From his perspective all the serious enemies were bottled up inside his wall of force. He wasn't aware of the invisible drow wizard until about round 2 or 3. Also he rolled 7 on initiative, so after the surprise round he had a lot of enemies going before him.

Round 1 - I can't remember what he did.
Round 2 - He dashed to get into a better position, the wall of force was blocking line of sight between him and a lot of enemies.
Round 3 - He cast chain lightning.
Round 4 - He cast another wall of force.
Round 5 - He cast hold person.
Round 6 - He cast magic missile.

Something like that anyway. I didn't give an exact round by round account because I can't remember the exact order everything happened in.

 

[Flamestrike]

The reason I said that is I cannot remember exactly what he did round 1 of combat.

They also didn't want to open up with fireballs and the like because they agreed that they didn't want to kill "innocents", the battlefield has mingled with what looked like common drow and kuo-toa.

From his perspective all the serious enemies were bottled up inside his wall of force. He wasn't aware of the invisible drow wizard until about round 2 or 3. Also he rolled 7 on initiative, so after the surprise round he had a lot of enemies going before him.

Round 1 - I can't remember what he did.
Round 2 - He dashed to get into a better position, the wall of force was blocking line of sight between him and a lot of enemies.
Round 3 - He cast chain lightning.
Round 4 - He cast another wall of force.
Round 5 - He cast hold person.
Round 6 - He cast magic missile.

Something like that anyway. I didn't give an exact round by round account because I can't remember the exact order everything happened in.

Ah cool man!

We were getting the concentration mechanic wrong for our fist session so I was just curious.

Sounds like an epic fight

 

[DaveDash]

Ah cool man!

We were getting the concentration mechanic wrong for our fist session so I was just curious.

Sounds like an epic fight

No problem. I actually remember now, he cast a firebolt at one of the drow sentries round 1.

 

[Nebulous]

awesome fight.

 

[Tormyr]

This highlights pretty much the only way I have found to consistently challenge the party, and that is to stretch them. Stretch their resources. Take them to the point where they think they are running on fumes. Our last session, the cleric was clean out of spells. The Paladin was out of spells and only had half his lay on hands. They had just taken a short rest, so the monk was good on ki. The sorcerer and wizard had used a lot of cantrips, so they had some higher spells left. The mind flayer arcanist came at them from 1 side and his octopins attacked from the rear. In the end it was not too difficult, but that was because the mind flayer fluffed his attack roll with advantage on the stunned cleric. No brains for the mind flayer, and the cleric shook it off and it was calamari for everyone.