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<blockquote data-quote="Lancelot" data-source="post: 6721945" data-attributes="member: 30022"><p>Did the players enjoy the game?</p><p></p><p>In Red Hand of Doom (3e), I charged down the party with a half-fiend behir. I'd built up the creature with foreshadowing, and it was intended to be the climax of a particular session. I spent several minutes describing the beast and it's building rage. Then it charged! It lost initiative to the party sorcerer and wizard, and they promptly punched it out in a 1-2 save-or-die combo before it even acted. The players still talk about it to this day, more than a decade later.</p><p></p><p>In a 4e campaign set in the Shadowfell, I had a villain monologue atop a high tower. He was a solo boss monster (controller / wizard) who was intended to enjoy the benefits of superior cover (+5 all defenses) and shower the party with magical attacks as they made a series of skill checks to slowly ascend the tower until they could engage him without the cover penalties. The party won initiative and dropped a long-range Pull effect on him. It yanked him off the tower (failed save vs forced movement, even with his +5 solo save bonus) and he took an immediate 12d10 damage from the fall. With the villain now prone, the rest of the party moved in and dropped the hammer. One of the attacks promptly stunned him and, in the subsequent round, they finished off the last of his 200 hit points. Again, without the villain even getting an action off. The players still talk about it to this day, more than five years later.</p><p></p><p>In both cases, as the DM, I nearly threw my rulebooks out the window. My carefully laid plan for the story was pretty much ruined. Both sessions had finished early, and the end was anti-climactic. It took me some time to think more rationally about it...</p><p></p><p>1) Those sorts of unexpected events are <em>memorable</em>. I promise you that the warlock player will remember the time he one-shotted a solar. I can almost guarantee you he doesn't remember the first three creatures he killed when his warlock was 5th level. It's a good outcome if roleplaying produces memorable anecdotes.</p><p></p><p>2) For me (and your mileage may vary), one of the benefits of D&D is the ability to create uncertainty. In 5e, I've seen low-level characters back-doored by lucky criticals. I've seen victories snatched from the jaws of defeat, and vice versa, through unexpected results. I've seen characters one-shotted by a failed save. If the party knows that every boss is going to require a long drawn-out fight, it takes away some uncertainty. The fact that a solar went down to a single round is kind of awesome, because it creates the possibility that they'll try the same thing on the next boss. As a DM, that's good news - because the odds of that succeeding are really kind of low. You admit yourself that you rolled poorly against the <em>feeblemind</em>. Tactically, a save-or-die vs a solar is inferior to a fighter or raging barbarian just going hog-wild on its hit points for a couple of rounds. The latter is guaranteed to take it; the former is a crap-shoot. So, the solar got unlucky. The next boss probably won't... and the PC's lucky success will prompt them to try that risky gambit again.</p><p></p><p>3) If you wanted the fight to last longer, you can always do so. This solar had legendary resistance. Even if you roll the dice in front of the players (and I always do), you simply shrug when you roll that natural 1, and say: "Well done. It uses one of its legendary resistance uses. You feel it is weakening..." Give the PC the sense that they achieved something, and move on. But isn't that cheating? No. Your job as the DM isn't to compete against the players. Your job is to create a memorable story. If you feel the players <strong>aren't</strong> going to be happy that the solar went down so early, then change the rules. That's the DM's mandate. You don't even have to prep ahead of time. You just flex it on the fly.</p><p></p><p>I do this <em>all the time</em>. The nalfeshnee demon is getting beaten up? Then it attempts to summon a couple of vrock demons. The MM says it has a 50% chance of succeeding, and I tell the players this. I roll a d6 in front of them and get a "4". I look them in the eye and say: "It succeeds!". I would have said exactly the same thing if I rolled a "2". I create the illusion of following the rules, I set the challenge, they react.</p><p></p><p>4) Finally, I get a sense from the email that it's somehow WotC's fault that "their monsters" aren't providing an adequate challenge. To echo others, creating high level monsters is tough. That's the nature of the game. But there are so many solutions. The solar casts <em>counterspell</em>... it's immune to mind-affecting spells... its patron deity removes the <em>feeblemind</em> condition after one round... it has legendary resistance... it has a lair effect that removes the condition on Initiative count 20... they kill the solar (which was once a good cleric) and it returns one last time as an undead solar (lich stats)!!!</p><p></p><p>However, before making any of the changes above to "fix" the "problem" of the solar dying too quickly, I'd return to the original question: did the players enjoy the game?</p><p></p><p>If they did, you don't have a problem.</p><p></p><p>...although, from experience, you're still going to be hearing about the time they wasted a half-fiend behir or a Shadowfell wizard in a single round, years later...</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lancelot, post: 6721945, member: 30022"] Did the players enjoy the game? In Red Hand of Doom (3e), I charged down the party with a half-fiend behir. I'd built up the creature with foreshadowing, and it was intended to be the climax of a particular session. I spent several minutes describing the beast and it's building rage. Then it charged! It lost initiative to the party sorcerer and wizard, and they promptly punched it out in a 1-2 save-or-die combo before it even acted. The players still talk about it to this day, more than a decade later. In a 4e campaign set in the Shadowfell, I had a villain monologue atop a high tower. He was a solo boss monster (controller / wizard) who was intended to enjoy the benefits of superior cover (+5 all defenses) and shower the party with magical attacks as they made a series of skill checks to slowly ascend the tower until they could engage him without the cover penalties. The party won initiative and dropped a long-range Pull effect on him. It yanked him off the tower (failed save vs forced movement, even with his +5 solo save bonus) and he took an immediate 12d10 damage from the fall. With the villain now prone, the rest of the party moved in and dropped the hammer. One of the attacks promptly stunned him and, in the subsequent round, they finished off the last of his 200 hit points. Again, without the villain even getting an action off. The players still talk about it to this day, more than five years later. In both cases, as the DM, I nearly threw my rulebooks out the window. My carefully laid plan for the story was pretty much ruined. Both sessions had finished early, and the end was anti-climactic. It took me some time to think more rationally about it... 1) Those sorts of unexpected events are [I]memorable[/I]. I promise you that the warlock player will remember the time he one-shotted a solar. I can almost guarantee you he doesn't remember the first three creatures he killed when his warlock was 5th level. It's a good outcome if roleplaying produces memorable anecdotes. 2) For me (and your mileage may vary), one of the benefits of D&D is the ability to create uncertainty. In 5e, I've seen low-level characters back-doored by lucky criticals. I've seen victories snatched from the jaws of defeat, and vice versa, through unexpected results. I've seen characters one-shotted by a failed save. If the party knows that every boss is going to require a long drawn-out fight, it takes away some uncertainty. The fact that a solar went down to a single round is kind of awesome, because it creates the possibility that they'll try the same thing on the next boss. As a DM, that's good news - because the odds of that succeeding are really kind of low. You admit yourself that you rolled poorly against the [I]feeblemind[/I]. Tactically, a save-or-die vs a solar is inferior to a fighter or raging barbarian just going hog-wild on its hit points for a couple of rounds. The latter is guaranteed to take it; the former is a crap-shoot. So, the solar got unlucky. The next boss probably won't... and the PC's lucky success will prompt them to try that risky gambit again. 3) If you wanted the fight to last longer, you can always do so. This solar had legendary resistance. Even if you roll the dice in front of the players (and I always do), you simply shrug when you roll that natural 1, and say: "Well done. It uses one of its legendary resistance uses. You feel it is weakening..." Give the PC the sense that they achieved something, and move on. But isn't that cheating? No. Your job as the DM isn't to compete against the players. Your job is to create a memorable story. If you feel the players [B]aren't[/B] going to be happy that the solar went down so early, then change the rules. That's the DM's mandate. You don't even have to prep ahead of time. You just flex it on the fly. I do this [I]all the time[/I]. The nalfeshnee demon is getting beaten up? Then it attempts to summon a couple of vrock demons. The MM says it has a 50% chance of succeeding, and I tell the players this. I roll a d6 in front of them and get a "4". I look them in the eye and say: "It succeeds!". I would have said exactly the same thing if I rolled a "2". I create the illusion of following the rules, I set the challenge, they react. 4) Finally, I get a sense from the email that it's somehow WotC's fault that "their monsters" aren't providing an adequate challenge. To echo others, creating high level monsters is tough. That's the nature of the game. But there are so many solutions. The solar casts [I]counterspell[/I]... it's immune to mind-affecting spells... its patron deity removes the [I]feeblemind[/I] condition after one round... it has legendary resistance... it has a lair effect that removes the condition on Initiative count 20... they kill the solar (which was once a good cleric) and it returns one last time as an undead solar (lich stats)!!! However, before making any of the changes above to "fix" the "problem" of the solar dying too quickly, I'd return to the original question: did the players enjoy the game? If they did, you don't have a problem. ...although, from experience, you're still going to be hearing about the time they wasted a half-fiend behir or a Shadowfell wizard in a single round, years later... [/QUOTE]
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