So for last night's session I spent hours making a large, elaborate map with multiple elevations. I created this by placing Dungeon Tiles onto stacks of cut poster board of varying height that were themselves placed on two larger, side by side poster boards, all held together with double-side removable adhesive. This was inspired by my time playing Baldur's Gate 3. There were lots of things to climb, jump across, hide behind, etc. Traps and weird magical effects, too!
Cue Monk with the Mobile feat, Step of the Wind, and Haste zipping through the entire map before coming back to the start in one turn, prompting every enemy in the area to start chasing the Monk back to the small room with two entrances where the rest of the party was waiting, safely away from the haunted webs that were going to trigger a Lair Action at the start of each turn.
The party of three 7th-level adventurers (Bard/Cleric, Monk, and Sorcerer) drew aggro on:
- Drow Arachnomancer (CR 12)
- Homebrew Drider Vampire Spawn Death Cleric (CR 9)
- Banshee (CR 4)
- 6 Homebrew Chitine Warriors (CR 3)
- 2 Mummies (CR 3)
- 4 Sword Wraith Warriors (CR 3)
- 5 Skeletons (CR 1/2)
The Sorcerer's Sickening Radiance spell really wreaked havoc. The Arachnomancer blew two of its spell slots just dispelling Sickening Radiances and also took a lot of damage from Fireball as well, so it just ran away before it could do any damage. The mummies and skeletons likewise were destroyed before they got into range. Things finally started to get hairy for the party when the Drider downed the Monk with Chill Touch (which also meant the Monk couldn't be healed by the Cleric for a turn), downed the Cleric with Blight, and the Sorcerer got blasted with Blight and attempted to run and hide. Since he was back near the entrance of the map and the Drider was on its last legs, though, I decided to have the Wizard who hired the party to clean-out the area show up and finish the Drider Vampire Spawn Death Cleric with a Fire Bolt.
It was a fun battle of attrition, taking about two and a half hours. The party picked a spot where they could take cover, pop out to attack from range, and duck back into hiding. The Sorcerer burned most of his spell slots and sorcery points, and the Cleric used the scroll of Flame Strike she found several sessions ago. I think I could have given the Monk more to do, though. I also could have had more Chitine Warriors or maybe some spiders emerge from behind them to harry them in their hiding place (I did admittedly have three more Chitine Warriors pop up, but by that point the Banshee was near them and the Cleric chose to burn Flame Strike to wipe them all out instantly).
For the Chitine Warriors I looked at the 4E take on the chitine, which all had a power called Web Line. This is my approximation for it in 5E:
Web Line. While climbing, the chitine can use a bonus action to secure a line of webbing, after which it can fly up to 25 feet for the rest of its turn. The chitine falls if it does not end its turn climbing, on the ground, or suspended by some other means.
Beyond that I increased their hit points from the standard 5E chitine, gave them an extra dagger attack, and the ettercap's Web Garrote.