D&D 5E The Glass Cannon or the Bag of Hit Points

[Lord Vangarel]

The characters in my campaign are now rapidly increasing in power (currently 11th level) and easily capable of dishing out huge damage to opponents.

So far I've tended to go down the bag of hit points route so enemies last longer and can dish out some punishment of their own however I'm starting to think that maybe another approach is needed.

The Bag of Hit Points increases the hit points of the monsters, quite often well above the averages shown in the Monster Manual. The theory is the monsters can withstand 2-3 rounds of punishment from the party and therefore have a chance to hurt the party back.

The Glass Cannon approach takes almost an opposite view inspired somewhat by the Action Economy of D&D. This actually reduces the hit points of the enemies slightly so they wouldn't last more than a round or two under concentrated fire however their offensive abilities are boosted slightly so they hit better or harder. What also happens is I'd increase the number of enemies based on the theory that the characters only have so many actions per round and additional enemies cannot be attacked by them unless the party splits its resources. This allows some enemies to remain so they have a chance to take some of the characters resources in turn.

What do you think? Has anyone else considered this approach or encountered groups winning initiative and destroying enemies before they have a chance to use their cool abilities?

 

[fuindordm]

Ideally, you have both in the same encounter. The best challenge for any party of PCs is another party of PCs; if you're using monsters then feel free to have a few bags o' hit points supporting a glass cannon or two.

 

[Leatherhead]

Do all of that, at the same time sometimes. Also divide and conquer, if the party can't focus fire, that means the monsters can live longer. You could also add some range to the encounter, which limits attack options for a few rounds at least.

Or, how about Ablative Armor?

Encounter, the kobold pit crew:

A trade agreement for wood has gone sour after cult activity decimated the local sheep population. As a result, the party is fighting a bunch of kobolds who happen to have a bunch of small siege engines. The kobolds are small but numerous, as they are want to be. In addition to their normal abilities and weapons, they have the ability to repair or pilot the siege engines on their turn. Taking out the pilot temporarily disables the siege engine until some other kobold climbs into the seat.

Encounter, the mystic ward:

There is a warlock, she is mad that the party ate the pie that her orc servant was guarding. She has set up a room with three statues, the statues are part of a ritual that lets her instantly regenerate any damage she takes. The party should probably get the barbarian to smash the statues first. They could also try getting the bard to say something nice, but that pie was really delicious and you would be really mad if someone took it from you.

 

[iserith]

This is a common outcome in a game where hit point attrition is generally the best path to victory. Players maximize their ability to reduce the hit points of enemies while they minimize the loss of their own. At some point it becomes less challenging and less fun, so DM increases the hit points or damage of the monsters (just like the PCs are doing) to compensate. And the arms race continues...

I would recommend including at least some challenges that aren't about one side reducing the other side to zero hit points to win. If the PCs or monsters (or both) have goals that they can complete in a scene before the other, they win and the scene is over. Here are some examples:

Monkey Business: The PCs have to rescue an NPC while a giant ape and t-rex are fighting each other. They could do this by attacking the monsters, but it might not be the best path to victory.

I Am the Lizard King! Here the monsters have a goal to drain Princess Lilac's fey life force so they can transform their lizard king into a black dragon. There are many ways to approach this challenge other than hit point attrition.

Temple of Bazim-Gorag: The slaad have one goal - implant the PCs with eggs and let them go. Even if the characters reduce them to goo, the monsters can still "win."

Hopefully this will give you some ideas to build some scenes where blasting hit points away is useful, but not always the best path to victory.

 

[Lord Vangarel]

The more I think on this the more I think simply adding more and more hit points is the wrong way to go. Whilst this fulfills my goal of having the monsters hang around longer, and therefore get the chance to use their abilities, it leads to combat grind.

Having multiple lower hit point monsters means a greater variety of critters, more special abilities, more chance the action economy (which always tends to be in the pcs favour) won't be skewed towards the characters so much. It also means the players can chew through some monsters and feel like they're making greater progress and also get to see their cool abilities kick in, such as a bonus attack for taking a creature down etc. Finally I think it will make the players use more of their characters resources as they perceive a greater threat than a single target or two.

 

[Uller]

My group just hit 7th level (so our highest level game thus far is 6th). In the playtest we got as high as 9th (Ghosts of Dragon's Pear Castle...yes...that's what my players liked to call it). What I've been finding is my players are generally pretty good at stunlocking my hitpoint bags and quickly killing my glass cannons (and the minions go down by the fist full).

I think this is mainly because I tend to let their plans work fairly well without too many hitches (I always try to throw in at least one). I think the key is to have some fights that are more on the enemy's terms. So, I'm thinking an upcoming session is going to be the bad guys go on a "town crawl" and the PCs have to stop them...

 

[Tony Vargas]

The more I think on this the more I think simply adding more and more hit points is the wrong way to go. Whilst this fulfills my goal of having the monsters hang around longer, and therefore get the chance to use their abilities, it leads to combat grind.
Having multiple lower hit point monsters means a greater variety of critters, more special abilities, more chance the action economy (which always tends to be in the pcs favour) won't be skewed towards the characters so much.

Numbers tell very heavily in 5e, so you should find that having more monsters with fewer hps and better attacks is much more threatening to them (so long as the monsters aren't in 'fireball formation' or anything like that). At 11th, though, they should certainly be able to take it.

Hps and damage are already pretty bloated in high-level 5e (since Bounded Accuracy precludes much advancement of other numbers), so it'd feel ridiculous to pump up some Legendary monster to the point that it could do the 'solo' thing and stick around long enough for an interesting combat. Also, attack & damage is high to tune encounters towards the goal of 'fast combat,' so hoping for your monsters to stick around isn't very realistic on that count, either. There'd've had to have been a lot more restraint in the design phase to reign in PC damage potential enough to enable more elaborate combats.

Multiple enemies, of course, de-value single-target-DPR characters, even those with multi-attacks, and make Area attacks and battlefield control more important. So not only should the balance between the party and their enemies shift, the balance within the party should shift, as well, especially as they re-jigger their resources (prepare different spells, for instance), to prepare for the new kinds of threats. That should also freshen things up a bit.

 

[transtemporal]

The Glass Cannon approach takes almost an opposite view inspired somewhat by the Action Economy of D&D. This actually reduces the hit points of the enemies slightly so they wouldn't last more than a round or two under concentrated fire however their offensive abilities are boosted slightly so they hit better or harder.

I like this far more than the alternative (at least for non-named boss monsters). Low damage, high hp minions are boring.

For bosses or "solo" monsters, I'd pump up both damage and hp.

 

[Lord Vangarel]

I like this far more than the alternative (at least for non-named boss monsters). Low damage, high hp minions are boring.

For bosses or "solo" monsters, I'd pump up both damage and hp.

In the current fight the party is facing a half dragon gladiator amongst others. My approach was I wanted it to hang around for a few rounds to threaten the PCs so I boosted its hp by nearly 70 extra giving it well over 150.

My thinking now is it should have have around 50hp but there should have been 3 or 4 of them!

Solo's are a unique problem due to the Action Economy. They'll never compete with the PCs if they are all able to focus on it so do you provide minions to help it or massively boost hp and threats so it's a challenge? One example is dragons, I've found all they can do as written is skirmish a party as a toe to toe solo is a slaughter.

 

[cmad1977]

How about a glass cannon of hit points?