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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 6952954" data-attributes="member: 6785785">I don't think I am selling PCs short. Indeed, I understand how potent they are. And when compared to monsters, they do tend to be the more powerful (assuming some kind of "equality" in levels and/or HD/CR). However, that's all the more reason to try and use the monsters effectively. In your OP, you mentioned how all had fun and the encounter was cool. So that's good. But if you are citing this as evidence that the game is heavily flawed, then I have to point out that if it is so, it is only made worse by not utilizing the monsters as effectively as possible. Or even just a bit more effectively. I mean, you cite the fact that this group of PCs defeated such vaunted foes as the reason that it was cool..."wow, look what we did"....but these foes were not played as vaunted foes in any way. It may as well have been a bunch of low level threats. You basically made a Death Knight as scary as a plain old skeleton. I don't think the design did that so much as the play.Which is fine, if that's what you want to go with and if everyone had fun and so on. But I think the lesson to learn here is not "wow, high level threats are feeble" so much as "wow, high level threats can be ineffective if not run thoughtfully". So why not make the enemies more than 100 feet away? Or whatever distance they need to be in order for the monk to not reach them immediately? Such a small change would then make the monk have to actually think about what she has to do instead of just flipping her on switch and going full combat mode. Should she approach the far off villains, knowing that the end of her move will leave her within their range, but far from her slower friends? Or should she instead slow down and remain close with her allies? The choice is one of her speed possibly working against her, or her speed being neutralized. The battle field conditions are largely up to you....and since you have a group of players who are clearly optimized (many multiclassed, set tactics, etc.)...then you have to tip the scales back the other way a bit, and you have options on how to do so. Not just monster abilities, but also when and how a fight breaks out. And you also mention NPC behavior being "scripted" at times....I would say if these are the results, then go off script immediately. At least, if you want to avoid this outcome....which I am not sure you do, so YMMV, You cite hubris as the reason your NPCs didn't perhaps consider the PC as threatening as they could have....and that's fine. Perfectly believable. But it works both ways. Have you ever had your PCs get in over their heads? I mean, did they have any idea the kinds of enemies they were approaching? Because just going into full on attack mode makes me think they either thought these were lesser foes, or were not worried at all about the foes that they actually were. "Death Knight? Bah, CHARGE!!!!!" (Not a perfect example because I know the DK was disguised, but it illustrates my point). These PCs seem to have hubris in spades, and my guess is that they've been conditioned to feel that way. Okay, so here is where my ignorance may affect things. I don't have Volo's Guide yet. Does the NPC Diviner stat block allow a reroll as their Portent ability? Or is it like the Diviner PC ability where they have two rolls they can swap out if they want? Because that would affect how useful it was. But either way, stunning a foe for that many rounds, and possibly using flurry, is going to use up a good amount of Ki. And I am sure the monk has plenty of ki, but if you're going to give the fight away, at least make the PCs have to spend resources to do it. And although I don't want to use any triggers for you <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt="(:" title="Smile    (:"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname="(:" />p), if there was another battle to follow, then this would matter more. I'd personally immediately follow up such a fight with a second wave ("Lord Farquat and his powerful allies have been killed! We must avenge them!!!!" and a horde descends upon the PCs), but that's just me. Yes, the game favors PCs. It favors them even more if they optimize using multiclassing and feats and tactics. And then it favors them even more if the enemies they face do not use what they have, the battlefield favors the PCs, and the enemies don't use any tactics at all. At the end of the day, I agree to some extent about wanting enemies that are a little more effective or have some more variety in their abilities at their base entry. I'd like to see that. I personally use the Legendary Action design space to help make BBEGs that can face a party. I also use full PC Creation rules for a handful of major NPC Villains. I know the rules say to generally not do that, but nah, I'm gonna do what works best and creates a satisfying villain. But I don't think I agree with you about the extent of the problem. To me, there are bigger contributing factors to the scenario you gave than the monsters lacking abilities. I mean, they didn't really get to use most of their abilities before they were utterly destroyed....right? Even if they had a ton of bells and whistles to put into play....unless they could do so while stunned or forcecaged, then those abilities would have been just as useless as the ones they do have.</blockquote>

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