D&D 5E Novice Dm help

[Imaculata]

[*]Give the tree a lair action or bonus action allowing it to summon more shrubs with a sprout that starts to form over the course of a round before creating a new shrub.

I love this sort of stuff for a boss battle. Because it adds other tasks for the players to focus on, and encourages teamwork. Maybe one person focuses on burning down the new shrubs that are growing, while another focuses on keeping the tree busy.

Maybe the tree also has a special action, where it summons a wall of vines, that allows him to split up the party, unless they cut or burn their way through the wall.

Maybe it can also launch a cascade of seeds, that creates the effect of an entangle spell on the location it hits.

There's so much you can do with this to make it a really interesting fight. I'd definitely also put some thought into the environment in which the fight takes place. Maybe the tree can use its roots to lift itself to higher ground, or to lower itself down into a hole. The thing could be constantly on the move, and using the environment against the players. Maybe fire gives the players an advantage early on in the fight, but then during the fight, the tree moves to a source of water. This could allow it to extinguish fire attacks, or maybe allow itself to heal by sucking up the water. Maybe this source of water is a geyser, which the players can block by dropping boulders on top of it. Or maybe it is a lake, and the players have their movement reduced because they are waist deep in the water while fighting this thing.

I like fights that require the players to pay attention to their surroundings.

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=6801286]Imaculata[/MENTION] Nice!

I suppose if the OP wants to be a rat bastard DM he or she could put a living hostage imprisoned in the trees roots, which could present a dilemma for PCs wanting to burn the tree down. Either rescue the captive first (by hacking away at roots, or casting a spell, or creative thinking) or else risking hurting/killing them from smoke inhalation and fire damage.

But that would definitely be establishing cred as a RBDM.

 

[Daern]

You know, a lot of these suggestions remind me of Curse of Strahd. If you are into getting adventure books, there are a whole bunch of corrupted druid/hag/treant scenarios you could use if you wanted to just ignore the vampire stuff.

 

[Goblinslayer]

Nerves kicking in about sorting this later. That example battle of the hook for the party, traveling to a new village on a rumour I'm going to amBUSH them on their journey simple battle to get myself used to combat from this side of the DM screen and delay them a little because I want them to do more social in the town of I can before they wander off to the forest to investigate


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Imaculata]

[MENTION=6801286]Imaculata[/MENTION] Nice!

I suppose if the OP wants to be a rat bastard DM he or she could put a living hostage imprisoned in the trees roots, which could present a dilemma for PCs wanting to burn the tree down. Either rescue the captive first (by hacking away at roots, or casting a spell, or creative thinking) or else risking hurting/killing them from smoke inhalation and fire damage.

Haha! I love that idea, that's brilliant.

The tree could even threaten to kill the innocent hostage by crushing it to death. And if you want to be really evil, make the hostage a character that the players have grown attached to, instead of a complete stranger.

 

[Goblinslayer]

First session down, encounter was too easy with shrubs as thought so added a second awakened tree, they lasted ages rarely hit but when did put the spook on the PCs.

Generally good session, did have a PC try and Con a merchant to paying 500gp for 2 statues worth 200gp but wasn't going to let that fly