Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest 7037866" data-source="post: 9369262">How is PC1 doing an average of 70 points of dmg per round, even with Smites? It really should be around 40-45. I can see it once in a while, especially with a crit maybe, but those are outliers, not "average".Anyway, tier 3 encounters rely on environment, numbers, and mixture of foes to keep PCs challenged IME. Combining creatures with huge hp and ones with special features is part of it.Using the environment to keep the PCs from wolf-packing and present danger, such as pulling a PC underwater.Example using water/ underwater:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Many weapons have disadvantage when used underwater.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Young green dragon (CR 7) is amphibious and breaths poison damage, even a wyrmling (CR 2) can pile up some poison damage, especially used in numbers (a recently hatched brood)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Ogre zombie (CR 2) is immune to poison and doesn't need to breathe so can be underwater</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Lizardman Shaman can hold its breath, but also cast entangle on "seaweed/grasses" underwater, has fog cloud, and heat metal</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Green Hag and a couple Sea Hag coven, all amphibious, powerful casters (as a coven, feel free to change the spells, but multiple counterspells can create havoc). All have illusionary appearance so one or more can appear as "bait".</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Obviously a water elemental (CR 5) in such an environment is great</li> </ul>NOTE: casters dragged underwater have limited options. Spells like misty step, which is V only, can't be cast, for example.But, don't make the whole adventure about being around water. If you do, the players will definitely prepare for it. So, you just have it be part of that encounter.Now, when it comes to figuring out the XP balance for a deadly encounter. 4 PCs could face a 11,200 XP budget, at 6 foes that would reduce it to 5,600 XP. This outnumbers the PCs 4-6.One example would be the coven. As part of a coven, the green hag (CR 5) and sea hags (CR 4 each) would comprise 4,000 xp. Toss in a water wierd (CR 3, serving the sea hags) and two wyrmling green dragons (CR 2, pets of the green hag) would add another 1,600 xp.Water weird grapples a PC, dragging it underwater. The coven uses spells and abilities, while the two dragons gang up on another PC. None of the PCs likely have CON saves, so the poison damage can be big enough. All the creatures have enough HP to withstand decent damage by the PCs.If the players are saavy and/or lucky, this might only be a hard encounter, but if it goes against them it could very well be deadly, though not likely a TPK. Remove one of the wyrmlings and thrown in the lizardman shaman for more spellcasting uses the spells suggested above to harass the paladin, for example. The water weird auto-grapples when it hits, pulls a PC underwater, the shaman then casts entangle to further hold the PC underwater possibly.Finally, all of those creatures except the shaman has darkvision, in case your PCs all don't. <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=":)" />For story, perhaps the coven moved in and killed the green dragon, keeping and hatching the eggs? The PCs go there expecting a green dragon, encounter a couple prisoners (1-2 hags) to help them, and then the battle begins with the water weird dragging a PC off of a natural stone bridge into the water below. The water is a stream, so the weird takes the PC downstream with the current, isolating it from the others. The coven uses counterspells to stop PC magic, and their own spells offensively. The wyrmlings both breath on a PC or two, scenario permitting, etc. Should be a fun fight for the players IME.Anyway, that is just one example. I've run a game to level 20, and many more into tier 3, and 5E allows you to challenge PCs, even using the encounter building guidelines in the DMG.Hope that helps? Not knowing magic items your group has, or spells they commonly rely on, I can't say for certain.</blockquote>

Verification