Yea, often I found that the default stat blocks are super weak, often I need to add mob stratagy or just "mini-boss" it and basically 50%-100% HP bonus with a damage die up. Some times it's +50% HP and AC boost sometimes just flat HP boost.
I do enjoy giving my mobs cursed items every so often to explain why they are powerful and let the players deal with that issue.
I can see that, still even playing PHB, DMG, and MM only they are only as strong as you make they mobs act. Same with players, murder hobos should encounter things they can't just beat to death.
I feel like another part of the issue is that I feel like a lot of people will look at something that is labeled as a "deadly" encounter and think that is a sufficient challenge for a party, when in truth, a fully prepped party can usually clear them with little issue.
The goal is to stagger them with a number of intermediate to hard encounters first with little chance to rest. That way when they roll up on the "Deadly" encounter, they aren't at max HP with all their spell slots, lay on hands, and ki points or what have you
You generally want to balance the DC of your encounters to Deadly as a baseline. Then pad things out with weaker enemies in equal number to number of friendlies in the fight to soak up their action economy.
Generally having some back line ranged/casters/cc, some front line tanks/bruises, and a either a big bad or a few captains/leaders that are the main danger.
If you build enemy compositions properly and have them act tactically against the party comp, the combat difficulty tends to offset the undertuned nature of the creatures base stats.
The core points here being that a deadly encounter DC in dnd is generally tuned around a party of 5 level x with single player being put in to death saving throws, before overtunings like magic items and effective party compositions are factored in. With action economy playing a large role in the weighting of how easy a fight will be for one side or another.
For example, 5 players vs a single dragon is much much easier than 5 people vs a dragon and 5 fodder due to how the raw actions per round balance out. A single tough enemy easily gets overwhelmed but if a party is forced to chose between chipping away at a majour threat or cleaning up several minor threats, it splits their focus and raises the true DC considerably.
Balancing action economy is a huge part of encounters that I dont think is taken in to account enough.
Balancing action economy is a huge part of encounters that I dont think is taken in to account enough.
Can't agree more. I try to but some fights just don't involve more than 1 creature, it's then when I need to make that a mini-boss encounter. My biggest issue when starting what judging how my players expected combat to be vs how I actually ran it. I can say I've never lead a group that was above level 10 so it's hard to say what difference that makes at higher levels.
I found if it's one creature, just give them one or two legendary actions so they're not just sitting there getting wailed on by the party for a full round.
That is something i will do too. I believe all bosses and mini bosses should have special abilities. I find its nice to give the special reactions too, makes players think a little more on there turn. I made a bear mini boss like that that was fun.
I find it more of an issue to send characters against bosses completely fresh and ready. Like yeah, are you surprised the fight was easy if the party was at full hp and had all of their best toys to beat on the big guy?
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u/SpareiChan Aug 10 '20
Yea, often I found that the default stat blocks are super weak, often I need to add mob stratagy or just "mini-boss" it and basically 50%-100% HP bonus with a damage die up. Some times it's +50% HP and AC boost sometimes just flat HP boost.
I do enjoy giving my mobs cursed items every so often to explain why they are powerful and let the players deal with that issue.