Warmaster Horus
Explorer
There are always bigger fish in the sea and as DM, you have access to them whenever you want.
D&D 5E (2014) Why Should I Allow Feats
- Thread starter Zardnaar
- Start date
SilverfireSage
Explorer
I was having this same problem until recently, and it all came down to finding a monster that was able to stack up against the PCs well. All my PCs are level 11, and there are 6 of them, so finding something that could be difficult to them at all was rather hard to do. I had thrown all manner of devils and demons, and even a beholder at them, and they slaughtered it all. Recently however, I found that by upping the tactics on the monsters I was using, I was able to separate the PCs and deal a lot more damage to them, nearly ending in a TPK with just a couple changes!
The biggest thing I found was to just keep hammering them. For instance, the last adventure they had was in a Frost Giant fortress. Frost Giants are only CR 8, so I thought they could handle a few of them. After they fought 2 in a watchtower, 2 in the guardroom, and another 4 in the main hall, I realized that they were blowing all of their abilities (spells, dailies, second winds, etc.) on these monsters just to keep them away. The last battle, one I thought they would be able to handle easily, turned out to be very frightening when an Ice Devil used its Wall of Ice to cut off the barbarian and the Paladin from the rest of the group, setting up an ambush from behind. It was the first time in YEARS my party actually felt afraid for their lives, and it's all because I never relented, never slowed down with the attacks.
Tl;dr
If you want to challenge your PCs, don't let them rest.
The biggest thing I found was to just keep hammering them. For instance, the last adventure they had was in a Frost Giant fortress. Frost Giants are only CR 8, so I thought they could handle a few of them. After they fought 2 in a watchtower, 2 in the guardroom, and another 4 in the main hall, I realized that they were blowing all of their abilities (spells, dailies, second winds, etc.) on these monsters just to keep them away. The last battle, one I thought they would be able to handle easily, turned out to be very frightening when an Ice Devil used its Wall of Ice to cut off the barbarian and the Paladin from the rest of the group, setting up an ambush from behind. It was the first time in YEARS my party actually felt afraid for their lives, and it's all because I never relented, never slowed down with the attacks.
Tl;dr
If you want to challenge your PCs, don't let them rest.
Quartz
Hero
Your PCs have max stats and have taken feats. Uber PCs do uber damage. This is not rocket science. Plus Bless is a Concentration spell, so you're using a second PC's actions too. Do any of your monsters use ranged attacks?
Consider the CR 9 fire giant. He's AC 18. Your PCs are attacking at +7 or +8 + Bless, so round about +10 after the Sharpshooter or GWM feat is included, so hitting on 8+ or 2/3 of attacks. That feels about right. But that fire giant has 162 HP so even taking 50 HP per round he is going to take several rounds to drop. Meanwhile, he's attacking at range at +11 while his hell hound minions attack at close quarters. Your PCs are perhaps AC 18 too so he's hitting 2/3 the time too. Your cleric will pass the DC 15 Concentration check for getting hit by the rock about 2/3 too, which seems about right
And remember that this guy is only CR 9 - he should be easy meat for your party - so maybe there's a band of them?
This is not as easy as simply not letting them rest. Clever groups, particularly groups with spell casters like mine (Wizard, Cleric, Bard) can dictate the pace of the resting, and it gets easier as they get more powerful.
Not every adventure can be a race against time, or railroad the players into not resting, such as the opening of HoTDQ. As a player I hated that opening, it was so contrived.
Rhenny
Adventurer
Zard, I suggest that the next time you start a new campaign for these guys, make sure you use OD&D/1e character gen method. Roll 3d6 for attributes. Then force them to play their characters rather than min/max. Give them lots of inspiration bonuses and even hero points if they can make fun, sub-optimal choices while building their characters and while playing the game.
If 3d6 is too limiting...try 4d6 drop one, but they have to roll their attributes in order and "give birth" to a real PC.
If 3d6 is too limiting...try 4d6 drop one, but they have to roll their attributes in order and "give birth" to a real PC.
Zardnaar
Legend
We tried HoTDQ out and got told to politely stick it wherre the sun doesn't shine after 3/5 of them died. We have played brutal adventures before including the Tomb of Horrors but they hated the railroading and after losing 3/5 they got the solo challenge from the half Dragon.
Death is fine railroading to that extent and being a crap adventure killed it though. We finished up our other campaign and I managed to roll up theses stats.
16
16
16
14
12
11
and I need some sort of front line hgealer like a war cleric or something. One PC managed to get 2 18s and a 4 but he was one of the fatalities.
trentonjoe
Explorer
Really? I thought Act 1 of HoTDQ was awesome. The race against time was something my group doesn't do nearly enough.
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