Last night we had a rather anti-climactic end for a big bad. Even though the fight would be memorable and humorous (trapping her under a folding boat and wailing on her), it wasn't much of a challenge.
Essentially the dragon lost Initiative, got pulled down by two summoned dire wolves, pinned to the ground, and was killed in less than two rounds. A monster that had a 70% chance of outright killing the entire party with a breath weapon, died before making a second attack and couldn't even move to reach a party member with an attack. It was a joke. The players (teenagers) were laughing around the table until they were snorting and falling out of their chairs.
The party is large but definitely not optimized (for example, the melee paladin has like a 12 Strength).
Here's the problem. I can't whittle down the group to fewer than 7 players. Doubling the number of monsters will slow down the game, not fit in the dungeon, and will also make boss fights too dangerous (in the case of the CR 10 dragon above, having 2 of them would have been too much).
What do I do? Would giving solo boss monsters two turns of Initiative take care of it?
Essentially the dragon lost Initiative, got pulled down by two summoned dire wolves, pinned to the ground, and was killed in less than two rounds. A monster that had a 70% chance of outright killing the entire party with a breath weapon, died before making a second attack and couldn't even move to reach a party member with an attack. It was a joke. The players (teenagers) were laughing around the table until they were snorting and falling out of their chairs.
The party is large but definitely not optimized (for example, the melee paladin has like a 12 Strength).
Here's the problem. I can't whittle down the group to fewer than 7 players. Doubling the number of monsters will slow down the game, not fit in the dungeon, and will also make boss fights too dangerous (in the case of the CR 10 dragon above, having 2 of them would have been too much).
What do I do? Would giving solo boss monsters two turns of Initiative take care of it?