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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Helldritch" data-source="post: 7836100" data-attributes="member: 6855114">You want to make 5ed harder? Easy. All the rules are in the PhB and in the DMG.My groups are usually 6 players strong.  Here are my pieces of advice.1) Vary your encounter types. 10 orcs are great, 5 orcs with a shaman who blesses them is way better. What the players use, so do their foes.2) Use the help action. With this, one foe uses the help action to give advantage to an other on his attack roll. Suddenly the High AC PC is not that untouchable. Especially if a bless spell has been cast on the attacking foe.3) Use the flanking rule (if you're not playing the ToTM way). Players will be happy to have advantage on monsters but so will the monsters. In my experience, I have stopped using that rule because the PCs were dying too much because of it. Monsters are usually in bigger numbers than the PCs. 4) Use the grappling action to break PCs' formation. Do not forget that a grappled PC is an easy target for their foe's allies.5) Make enemy spell caster use the Silence spell. With the prominence of magic in PCs' classes, it can be devastating. Especially if the formation was broken and a foe has an access to the low AC spell casters. 6) Change the spell selection of your monsters if they could do it. Especially if the players are becoming famous (or infamous). If your players tends to use one tactic over any other, then the bosses (and the main villains) will adjust accordingly. 7) Add shields and better armor to your monsters if it is logical to do so. A veteran facing a ninth level group will use a shield and a plate mail. The same logic applies to medium armor. Why use a chain shirt if you can use breast plate and shield?8) Most magic items the players will find should be in use by their foes. That +1 shield should be in the hands of the warlord, not in his treasury. These healing potions and especially that haste potion should be in his hands too.9) Dispel magic can and should be used by their foes and so should the spell "counter spell" be used. 10) Make your monsters proactive. Make seek and destroy parties search for retreating PCs. Even short rests should be a challenge to get. 11) Make potions and scrolls a bit more common than the rule book seems to indicate. Especially if your players can make and buy them. If your players can, so can their foes. This will tend to be in their foes' favor. A high level cleric might have a scroll of find the path to find where the PCs are hiding. Divination can be use to find troublesome adventurers and could even be use as a forward warning. How did they know we were coming?12) Be reckless against your PCs but do it within some logic. Not all monsters are smarts. Not all evil master has a contingency plan for everything. Sometimes the PCs get it easy, sometimes their lives hang by the skin of their teeth.You don't need to change a lot. Most of the changes you make should be from an equipment optimization stand. Just having a few changes in AC and spell selection can make you players wonder what you have in store for them.</blockquote>

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