low level monsters giving my party fits ....

[Selkirk]

so i've been playing a 5e campaign for several months now(and really loving it) ...our pace is relatively slow but everyone is enjoying themselves quite a bit and we are now level 3 (almost level 4). but a mild to major issue keeps arising... low level mobs are absolutely ripping us up :smallmad: (8 goblins with bows for instance)...and to add insult to injury these combats are taking a long time (we are using roll20). invariably we hit these mobs after we have had a bigger encounter and are down some spells. we can actually fight pretty well against higher cr monsters but these low level mobs are taking our lunch money.

with good rolls the mobs will in a couple of rounds have nearly taken down 2 characters..we have to use healing potions (valuable commodity which we fought much tougher creatures to get) just to stay alive. beyond that, back of everyone's mind is that this mob is worth essentially zero xp (500xp split 5 ways ^^;...)...and will have no treasure, goblins might have like 30 copper :smalleek:. the combats are super tedious/grid based crawls...and the thing that really sucks is if we start missing-the rounds really get deadly as the goblins with numerous attacks will hit at least once. it's just one of the weaknesses of the system that i have noticed...we should be more powerful at this point-yet after one of these encounters all the party can do is take a long rest/lick our wounds.

[Fwiffo86]

so i've been playing a 5e campaign for several months now(and really loving it) ...our pace is relatively slow but everyone is enjoying themselves quite a bit and we are now level 3 (almost level 4). but a mild to major issue keeps arising... low level mobs are absolutely ripping us up :smallmad: (8 goblins with bows for instance)...and to add insult to injury these combats are taking a long time (we are using roll20). invariably we hit these mobs after we have had a bigger encounter and are down some spells. we can actually fight pretty well against higher cr monsters but these low level mobs are taking our lunch money.

with good rolls the mobs will in a couple of rounds have nearly taken down 2 characters..we have to use healing potions (valuable commodity which we fought much tougher creatures to get) just to stay alive. beyond that, back of everyone's mind is that this mob is worth essentially zero xp (500xp split 5 ways ^^;...)...and will have no treasure, goblins might have like 30 copper :smalleek:. the combats are super tedious/grid based crawls...and the thing that really sucks is if we start missing-the rounds really get deadly as the goblins with numerous attacks will hit at least once. it's just one of the weaknesses of the system that i have noticed...we should be more powerful at this point-yet after one of these encounters all the party can do is take a long rest/lick our wounds.

The system is actually designed so that low level monsters remain a threat even at level 20. This is not a design flaw.

[xroads]

...but these low level mobs are taking our lunch money...

I like what I've seen of 5ed so far (I've only played one session). But I got to admit, those goblins are real challenges for low level heroes. Particulary that "free disengage" ability they have. They down right walked all over my dwarven cleric.

But then again, I think I would of done better had I remembered that 0 level spells are actually pretty gnarly. Particulary Sacred Flame.

[fishyfishyfishy]

This is not a weakness of the system, it is a strength. Just because you are more powerful does not mean you should take large groups of enemies less seriously. Low level enemies are meant to be threatening no matter what your level is. Maybe your party should utilize better combat tactics when facing large groups. Your caster can pick up fireball in a few levels to deal with this kind of problem, but until then you should exercise more caution and not be afraid to run when you are grossly outnumbered.

[xroads]

The system is actually designed so that low level monsters remain a threat even at level 20. This is not a design flaw.

I do like the fact that things scale. For example, no longer is there Cure Light Wounds, Cure Moderate Wounds, Cure Serious Wounds, etc. There is Cure Wounds. That's it. End of story.

[Selkirk]

and i agree i actually like the challenge...but this is all risk and no reward. again the game really slows up if we miss (after 2 rounds we hadn't hit one goblin and had taken pretty serious injuries)...this turns a challenge into a resource/fun drain. we are scrambling for our lives against a mob that in all honesty we would be better off running from. why fight them for an hour and then have to take a long rest? ruins the spirit and fun of the game-we are now 3rd level this should still be a relatively easy encounter but it turns deadly...and we know at some point we will prevail but what's the point?

makes the chars feel gimped...takes a long time in tedious swing and miss for no xp or treasure. we used 2 healing potions just to survive and are getting about 100xp and 10 cp (yep copper :smallfurious:) for our troubles.

[MaxWilson]

For four 3rd level PCs, eight goblins rate as a Deadly encounter. (1000 effective XP because of the x2.5 multiplier for eight creatures.) Six goblins would be medium. I'd say that at minimum, you guys need to adjust your expectations of how difficult eight goblins are going to be--think of it as a boss fight, and you should absolutely blow your action surges/etc. and go nova on these guys.

I don't know why the D&D guidelines don't award you the increased effective XP for killing the goblins. In theory, D&D fighters learn from doing hard things, and killing a mob of eight goblins is absolutely more difficult than killing goblins one at a time until you accumulate eight, so you should learn more. Let's hope the DMG offers this as an official alternate rule, but I think it's a reasonable house rule, and in your group's situation it would at least make it more fun to know that least this mob is worth a full 1000+ XP, so you don't feel like you're wasting healing potions for nothing.

Also, have the wizard Web the goblins on round 1 and then hide behind something so they can't break his Concentration.


we are scrambling for our lives against a mob that in all honesty we would be better off running from.

Wait. So why aren't you running from them at that point?

[Selkirk]

i like the idea of a 1000xp...it would take some of the sting away from this mob killing our session. low level mob fighting really is a grind tho-has a moba like effect...we know we will win it's just a matter of whittling away at the mob...one swing at a time..in a party of five this can take awhile. and again if we are missing, which we were...and they are hitting, which they were-it's a slog. unfun business all around.

why didn't we run? that's a good question :D. my cleric(down to 4 hp after one round) literally had one foot out the exit door but the party was in the midst of the mob-so we had to keep battling...and battling...and :smallmad:

[Edge of Dreams]

With large groups of enemies like that, how intelligently your DM has them act can make a huge difference. If the enemies cut off your retreat options and focus their attacks on the one or two most dangerous members of your party, you might be screwed. On the other hand, if they spread out their attacks across the whole party, or stay tightly grouped up making a nice AoE target, you'll have a much easier time of it.

[odigity]

For four 3rd level PCs, eight goblins rate as a Deadly encounter. (1000 effective XP because of the x2.5 multiplier for eight creatures.) Six goblins would be medium.

Came here to say this.

Please make sure your DM is familiar with and understand the Encounter Multipliers table on the bottom left of page 56 of this document:

http://media.wizards.com/2014/downloads/dnd/DMBasicRulesv.0.2.pdf


I don't know why the D&D guidelines don't award you the increased effective XP for killing the goblins.

I don't get that, either. Maybe it's because if the DM awarded the adjusted difficulty XP instead of the individual XP, chars could level up in less than six encounters which would break their precious predictability? But then, what's the point of throwing hard/deadly encounters at your chars? Just to see them squirm? Reward isn't scaled proportional to risk.

Speaking of reward, there's still zero data on treasure. It is possible to fight a large variety of MM creatures across many encounters and end up with 0gp if your DM isn't thinking straight and stepping in to improve the situation.

[odigity]

we can actually fight pretty well against higher cr monsters but these low level mobs are taking our lunch money.

As other people have pointed out, in addition to your encounters being too challenging by the encounter construction rules, it's possible your party is weak against mobs. For example, monks and paladins are known to be weak against large amounts of enemies because they lack AoE powers and have to close for melee. Try to shore up this hole in your offensive capabilities next time you level up by prioritizing spells and class features that can target more than one creature at a time, possibly even considering a 1-level dip in another class if necessary.

[Selkirk]

@odigity i think we have a fairly strong party..2 fighters, rogue, wizard and cleric. we aren't optimizers (at least i'm not) but the chars play pretty strong at level. the problem is we are hitting these mobs when we are at our least (fighters out of action surges, cleric down big group heal spells, wizards down to cantrips) ...so the fights are sword and board and cantrip flinging. and the gobs have just enough hp where one hit might (but might not) bring them down. and now we need a long rest.

but...even if we were at full strength-i still would rather run from this mob. by the end of the fight we would have used all of our good spells and actions...and we will still need a long rest. breaks immersion as we are in a dungeon-so the realistic options are we can rest in the room with the dead goblins or just leave castle cragmaw. which the entire campaign has been building too...a big confrontation with black spider.

notes-an earlier confrontation with a mob of goblins(random encounter) hit us outdoors while we were trying to take a long rest...it went nearly identically to the 8 gob encounter. 2 characters down the rest scrambling for their lives-for about 100 xp and 20 cp. and we needed a long rest immediately thereafter anyways ^^;. so 2 sessions out of an 11 session campaign chewed up battling trash mobs...and we are supposed to be gaining at least a bit of power (level 3) and it feels like we get toasted by whatever low level mob takes us on (but we can roll 3 bugbears pretty well..and the bugbears actually have lootz :D).

[MaxWilson]

Yeah, your DM needs to know about the encounter construction rules, and you guys also need to coordinate an evacuation plan. Goblins have only 30' move, same as you, so once you start running they can't really catch you. If they chase you, or some of them chase you, you can then set up a counter ambush where you murder three goblins and then resume running. You could even run away, take a short rest, and come back to that area of the dungeon later. Fighting a Deadly encounter when you're at your weakest is, as you've discovered, a recipe for disaster.

It's fun if you win though.

[Tenmujiin]

You didn't mention you were running LMoP. When I DMed that my party cleric was running light domain and committed genocide on the goblins when the party was ambushed attempting to leave (he literally 1 shot about 12 goblins at once with his channel divinity). Honestly the adventure isn't hard and my group of 3-4 (depending on session attendance, we had 2 for Cragmaw castle although they also had a slightly lower lv shared PC helping out. I think the problem you guys are having is that Cragmaw is designed for lv4s (you guys probably skipped a few of the optional quests and having the full 5 members would lower per-person exp too) and lv4 is probably the biggest jump in power except lv5 (extra attack) and lv17 (wish).

You also seem low on AoE which helps with swarm encounters.

Edit: Its 4:30 in the morning and some sentences decided I didn't type 1/2 the words.

[odigity]

@odigity i think we have a fairly strong party..2 fighters, rogue, wizard and cleric.

Wizard, you say? Level 3, you say?

I think it's time to learn the Rope Trick spell.

[SiuiS]

*ahem*

Run. Away.

[Selkirk]

You didn't mention you were running LMoP. When I DMed that my party cleric was running light domain and committed genocide on the goblins when the party was ambushed attempting to leave (he literally 1 shot about 12 goblins at once with his channel divinity). Honestly the adventure isn't hard and my group of 3-4 (depending on session attendance, we had 2 for Cragmaw castle although they also had a slightly lower lv shared PC helping out. I think the problem you guys are having is that Cragmaw is designed for lv4s (you guys probably skipped a few of the optional quests and having the full 5 members would lower per-person exp too) and lv4 is probably the biggest jump in power except lv5 (extra attack) and lv17 (wish).

You also seem low on AoE which helps with swarm encounters.

Edit: Its 4:30 in the morning and some sentences decided I didn't type 1/2 the words.

yeah and i think this is a part of the problem...and is adding to the frustration considerably. we have been at 3rd level now for about 5 sessions...can't bust thru to 4th level. so we haven't the additional power to blast the mobs...but the mobs are also not helping us xp wise ^^;. a cruel circle has developed...we are desperate for xp to give us a level but if we happen upon a mob not only will they devastate us but we don't get much xp for actually winning. it's dragging the campaign down.

to make matters worse...we are actually in the interesting part of cragmaw castle (had an entirely unsatisfying experience when we rescued gundrin...he decided to leave on his own and go back to town-but that's for another thread :smallsmile:). we had just defeated a bugbear and his dire wolf and saw a drow leaving the room...i was pretty engaged at this point-ohh a drow and black spider...and we still had glasstaff to deal with. shaping up to be pretty epic! and then 8 goblin mob soaks our session...

[xroads]

Goblins have only 30' move, same as you, so once you start running they can't really catch you.

No. Probably not everyone in the party will have 30' movement. For instance, in my group, my dwarf cleric and my buddy's halfling rogue both only have 25' movement.

[MaxWilson]

No. Probably not everyone in the party will have 30' movement. For instance, in my group, my dwarf cleric and my buddy's halfling rogue both only have 25' movement.

Is there no one who can cast Longstrider on them?

[Forum Explorer]

It seems the DM doesn't know about the multiple monster XP multiplier rule. You should be getting twice the experience you are for those Mob fights, and I imagine that would make the whole encounter a little more palatable. It would speed up how long til you hit the next level.

[Daishain]

It seems the DM doesn't know about the multiple monster XP multiplier rule. You should be getting twice the experience you are for those Mob fights, and I imagine that would make the whole encounter a little more palatable. It would speed up how long til you hit the next level.
RAW, the xp rule in question is only in place to help the DM judge the difficulty of the encounter, the players (for some reason) don't actually get that amount.

[Tenmujiin]

Either your DM has modified the adventure heavily or you are having rather short sessions. It took my group a total of 5 sessions to finish the adventure and I added extra to the final chapter. If you are at Cragmaw before taking on Glasstaff then either you are taking a very different route though the adventure to my party or he is running a heavily modified version. Given that the book says 3 hobgoblins with a 20% chance on leaving Cragmaw the evidence just keeps piling up that he is using the published adventure for inspiration rather than as-is.

[mephnick]

i like the idea of a 1000xp..

It's almost as if kill XP is an outdated, even possibly harmful, mechanic to a role-playing game.

Hence why so many people play without it these days. It encourages stupid decisions and murder-hobo'ing.

[Krymoar]

*snip*

Did you try using any kind of tactics against them? Did you use 1/2 or 3/4 cover and pulling out ranged weapons to your advantage? Did you try having your fighter go out and grapple them and bring them back one at a time into the safety of some makeshift arrow wall?

Did you try leaving the room and laying a trap rq for one as they came out, pinching them into a hallway, where you could ready healing spells on the tank while you were out of harms way?

Did you try actually running away?

Or did you fight eight goblins in a shoot-out without cover with an exposed cleric and wizard?

[Selkirk]

Did you try using any kind of tactics against them? Did you use 1/2 or 3/4 cover and pulling out ranged weapons to your advantage? Did you try having your fighter go out and grapple them and bring them back one at a time into the safety of some makeshift arrow wall?

Did you try leaving the room and laying a trap rq for one as they came out, pinching them into a hallway, where you could ready healing spells on the tank while you were out of harms way?

Did you try actually running away?

Or did you fight eight goblins in a shoot-out without cover with an exposed cleric and wizard?

fighter is in the hallway...we have no spells to speak of...rest of party in room. but again it really isn't a matter of winning (i mean it wasn't really in doubt...again the moba effect-thru attrition we were going to win...it's just why the attrition?) if the fighters hit, which they should...the fight is shorter...but if they miss-it turns into a real grind. which i suppose is the real problem here-this isn't about 'winning' a hard fought combat-low level mobs pose tactical problems and there isn't any reward for solving them.

it isn't fun beating up on a group of goblins at level 3 (particularly when we are in parts of the campaign where bigger narrative characters, black spider and glasstaff should be in play). and again no xp reward and no sense of accomplishment...fighting for the sake of fighting. we used sleep spell on 4 of them and still couldn't hit them while they were sleeping ^^;... just dice rolling and long turns-totally broke our flow...



Either your DM has modified the adventure heavily or you are having rather short sessions. It took my group a total of 5 sessions to finish the adventure and I added extra to the final chapter. If you are at Cragmaw before taking on Glasstaff then either you are taking a very different route though the adventure to my party or he is running a heavily modified version. Given that the book says 3 hobgoblins with a 20% chance on leaving Cragmaw the evidence just keeps piling up that he is using the published adventure for inspiration rather than as-is.

and that is true...i can't for the life of me figure out why this is taking so long. it's a fun sandbox but our sessions generally tend to bog down (players are contributing to this..but we are playing for a minimum of 4 hours each session) with combat. there is some homebrew material he is using but for the most part i think it is pretty much straight up lmop.

[Slipperychicken]

If low-level mobs remain a challenge, that might mean PCs would have to think a little bit instead of leaping into the meat-grinder every time. I approve of this development.


EDIT: Also, in real life, fighting usually isn't a good idea. The kinds of people wandering around with a spear and a crummy set of armor don't carry bags of gold on them (if they had that kind of money, they probably wouldn't be hanging around a battlefield). And unless you have a good reason for it, fighting on its own doesn't accomplish anything except waste lives and resources. These reasons, among others, are why people generally try to either avoid fights or stack them as much as possible in their own favor.

[xroads]

Is there no one who can cast Longstrider on them?

I'm not familiar with that spell, so I couldn't tell you. But to be fair, I just recently started playing in a 1st level game.

[Selkirk]

If low-level mobs remain a challenge, that might mean PCs would have to think a little bit instead of leaping into the meat-grinder every time. I approve of this development.


EDIT: Also, in real life, fighting usually isn't a good idea. The kinds of people wandering around with a spear and a crummy set of armor don't carry bags of gold on them (if they had that kind of money, they probably wouldn't be hanging around a battlefield). And unless you have a good reason for it, fighting on its own doesn't accomplish anything except waste lives and resources. These reasons, among others, are why people generally try to either avoid fights or stack them as much as possible in their own favor.

it's not just that they are a challenge...that would actually be ok. it's just the time/resource burn for essentially nothing...now i suppose we could have started our party and optimized each char for aoe/mobs but that takes away some of the fun of char creation, for me anyways (utility spells are then essentially useless, min/max or else...). for me best option in this situation would have been not to have the encounter at all..or streamline it in some way.

fighting one interesting cr5 monster would have been much more rewarding and engaging...these mobs of mooks are just buzzkills.

[MaxWilson]

I'm not familiar with that spell, so I couldn't tell you. But to be fair, I just recently started playing in a 1st level game.

1st level Bard/Wizard/Druid spell. Lasts for one hour (no Concentration needed), adds 10' to your movement speed. Affects one person per spell level you cast it at. It's a fairly amazing spell for anyone who isn't interested in meleeing everything in the whole dungeon... which is pretty much the situation Selkirk describes. They don't care if these goblins die or not, they have other fish to fry and the goblins are just in the way.

I also don't understand why the combat takes an hour to run. There may be OOC things you can do to speed up these combats, e.g. writing down your attack moves in advance (+7, 1d8 + 5 slashing) and making sure the DM has your AC written down in front of him. Once everyone knows how they're going to approach the fight you should be able to easily crank through a round of combat in two minutes, and the whole fight should last less than ten minutes. *whiff* *whiff* *whiff* *smack! 7 damage to the goblin* *whiff* *smack! goblin hits Cranduin for 5 points of damage*

[Krymoar]

fighter is in the hallway...we have no spells to speak of...rest of party in room. but again it really isn't a matter of winning (i mean it wasn't really in doubt...again the moba effect-thru attrition we were going to win...it's just why the attrition?) if the fighters hit, which they should...the fight is shorter...but if they miss-it turns into a real grind. which i suppose is the real problem here-this isn't about 'winning' a hard fought combat-low level mobs pose tactical problems and there isn't any reward for solving them.

it isn't fun beating up on a group of goblins at level 3 (particularly when we are in parts of the campaign where bigger narrative characters, black spider and glasstaff should be in play). and again no xp reward and no sense of accomplishment...fighting for the sake of fighting. we used sleep spell on 4 of them and still couldn't hit them while they were sleeping ^^;... just dice rolling and long turns-totally broke our flow...

If there was no XP reward or item reward, that is a bummer, but you also said this was a fight you could run from, maybe your DM intended it to be that way?

As far as attrition goes, that's basically the definition of "Killing things before they kill us."

While they were sleeping, if you can't hit them with advantage and free crits, that's not really a problem with the encounter, and it sounds like they may have been too hard for you in fact, not too easy.





How much fun you have with the encounter is up to you really, this sounds like the perfect encounter for a character concept I had that I was going to call Helios SunRider, a showman Gladiator Battlemaster Fighter with Tavern Brawler.


Could run up to one, kick him in the junk so hard it put him to the ground using an unarmed strike with the "Trip" from battlemaster, turn and throw an axe at another, knocking him back 15', use the bonus action Grapple to grab the one I kicked, drag him back to my allies for pain train.


It's on you to be creative when doing things during combat.

[Selkirk]

1st level Bard/Wizard/Druid spell. Lasts for one hour (no Concentration needed), adds 10' to your movement speed. Affects one person per spell level you cast it at. It's a fairly amazing spell for anyone who isn't interested in meleeing everything in the whole dungeon... which is pretty much the situation Selkirk describes. They don't care if these goblins die or not, they have other fish to fry and the goblins are just in the way.

I also don't understand why the combat takes an hour to run. There may be OOC things you can do to speed up these combats, e.g. writing down your attack moves in advance (+7, 1d8 + 5 slashing) and making sure the DM has your AC written down in front of him. Once everyone knows how they're going to approach the fight you should be able to easily crank through a round of combat in two minutes, and the whole fight should last less than ten minutes. *whiff* *whiff* *whiff* *smack! 7 damage to the goblin* *whiff* *smack! goblin hits Cranduin for 5 points of damage*

yeah i think that's a good question...we are using roll20 so everything is super tactical and slow. when we run into interesting fights with tough monsters this plays to our advantage but the tough fights are over quicker or maybe we are just more interested and they seem to be shorter :D. i've just found that when you increase the number of enemies combat stalls. there are positioning issues, attacks of opportunity, aoe spells to work out and of course all the monster attacks...

and again if the fighters are missing-it's just, ok i swung my sword...you missed...4 char actions...then goblins attack...ok fighter your up again! i swing at a goblin...you miss...rinse repeat. if we are on our rolls the encounter shortens but if we are missing the encounter extends into the ether...with little to no drama involved.

and i really was up for fleeing..but the party wasn't and the dm was at this point taunting me-you think the goblins will keep rolling 19 or 20 (they did). but also why the hell should we have to run from goblins? do we need to set up a tactical masterpiece to win? and if we do what fun is it? little to none. at the end of said tactical masterpiece...ok the goblins are dead, you find 20 cp.

and i honestly wouldn't be complaining if this was the first time this happened...but this was the second time (random encounter outdoors) :smallmad:

and...:D. what about a solution? could a houserule mechanic like this work:
if cr is 1 level lower than chars it's +1 to hit
if cr is 2 levels lower than chars it's +2 to hit

notes-would also apply to higher level monsters attacking party..i don't know , i'm just trying to think of some mechanical solutions so these easier fights could be ...ummm...easier :smallsmile:

[MaxWilson]

yeah i think that's a good question...we are using roll20 so everything is super tactical and slow. when we run into interesting fights with tough monsters this plays to our advantage but the tough fights are over quicker or maybe we are just more interested and they seem to be shorter :D. i've just found that when you increase the number of enemies combat stalls. there are positioning issues, attacks of opportunity, aoe spells to work out and of course all the monster attacks...

and again if the fighters are missing-it's just, ok i swung my sword...you missed...4 char actions...then goblins attack...ok fighter your up again! i swing at a goblin...you miss...rinse repeat. if we are on our rolls the encounter shortens but if we are missing the encounter extends into the ether...with little to no drama involved.

and i really was up for fleeing..but the party wasn't and the dm was at this point taunting me-you think the goblins will keep rolling 19 or 20 (they did). but also why the hell should we have to run from goblins? do we need to set up a tactical masterpiece to win? and if we do what fun is it? little to none. at the end of said tactical masterpiece...ok the goblins are dead, you find 20 cp.

It's kind of weird that your DM was taunting you over wanting to flee from a Deadly encounter (highest rating, should be used sparingly)--you should definitely make sure he is aware of the rules for encounter building, even if he chooses to ignore them (I often do).

Also, what's roll20? [Quick Google search later...] Oh, I see. It's an online gaming app, and you're saying that roll20 doesn't handle large combats gracefully. Too much pointing and clicking I guess?

In general, combats should only take longer if there is drama involved. If there is no drama and no decisions, it should go about as fast as it takes to roll dice. E.g. if you have an enemy pinned down in a web, and only two characters can fit into the corridor to fight him, those players can just say "I power attack him until the situation changes[1]", other players can just say "I hold my action until I see an opening", and then every round consists of:

1.) Bad guy rolls Dex to stay free of webbing
1a.) If failed, bad guy rolls Strength to break free of restraints
1b.) Otherwise, bad guy attacks normally. (If he were smart enough to do something like Shove PCs away to get out of Web, it would happen here, but that would be interesting so let's assume that he's just a dumb bruiser relying on his superior attack/damage.)
2.) Two PCs roll attacks. The ones who hit roll damage.
3.) Return to step #1.

If roll20 is making this loop take longer than it should, well, I don't know what to tell you except to express sympathies. Maybe you could tell your DM, "roll20 makes large fights tedious. Could you maybe use fewer but tougher monsters, not for balance but just so that roll20 doesn't bog down?"

[1] I'm also okay with declaring multi-round actions. There was a thread recently on teaching new players to play, and the DM mentioned that a player wanted to stab four bad guys in the face, kick another, and throw a dagger, and the player was disappointed when the DM said he couldn't do all that in one action. I would just say, "Sure," and let him roll an attack against the first one. Next round I can say, "you're still in the middle of stabbing four guys to death. Roll an attack." I don't even need to ask him, although if he has changed his mind he can of course change his plans. There's no need to let the mechanical structure of combat rounds interfere with the basic structure of "Player declares action, DM resolves action and reports results."

[Selkirk]

It's kind of weird that your DM was taunting you over wanting to flee from a Deadly encounter (highest rating, should be used sparingly)--you should definitely make sure he is aware of the rules for encounter building, even if he chooses to ignore them (I often do).

If roll20 is making this loop take longer than it should, well, I don't know what to tell you except to express sympathies. Maybe you could tell your DM, "roll20 makes large fights tedious. Could you maybe use fewer but tougher monsters, not for balance but just so that roll20 doesn't bog down?"

[1] I'm also okay with declaring multi-round actions. There was a thread recently on teaching new players to play, and the DM mentioned that a player wanted to stab four bad guys in the face, kick another, and throw a dagger, and the player was disappointed when the DM said he couldn't do all that in one action. I would just say, "Sure," and let him roll an attack against the first one. Next round I can say, "you're still in the middle of stabbing four guys to death. Roll an attack." I don't even need to ask him, although if he has changed his mind he can of course change his plans. There's no need to let the mechanical structure of combat rounds interfere with the basic structure of "Player declares action, DM resolves action and reports results."

yeah dm taunting def left a bad taste in my mouth (for another thread :D). and i really do love roll20...i think if implemented correctly it's great for crawls and really using your abilities and i actually like thinking about positioning/tactics. but it is slowing things down. from what i've read here and elsewhere most people are 'finishing' lmop in like 5 or 6 sessions...so something is amiss. we have bad pacing issues to begin with (information is dribbled out...just finding out basic information about the setting is a chore) and the group likes to ...for lack of a better phrase '**** around' (i'm as guilty of this as anyone :smalleek:...:D).

so we have a slow group moving thru the campaign slowly...fighting in slow fights. and i like the dm i just think maybe we need a fresh start (maybe even with new chars) with new gm to kind of reinvigorate playstyle/combats. and with our group setting up multi attacks would prob take longer than just actually doing them :D...plus i like the fluidity of combat when things are going well-your course of action might change completely round to round.

[Vogonjeltz]

We had a similar experience with a fight against seemingly unlimited (16+) bugbears that almost took out our entire party in the surprise round of their ambush.

[MaxWilson]

We had a similar experience with a fight against seemingly unlimited (16+) bugbears that almost took out our entire party in the surprise round of their ambush.

Yow! That shouldn't have been possible. At least one of those 16+ bugbears should have rolled low on his Stealth check, that's pretty much the only disadvantage of attacking with a large group.

Bugbears scare me more than anything else I can think of at low levels, except maybe orcs because of their free movement.

[Demonic Spoon]

Yow! That shouldn't have been possible. At least one of those 16+ bugbears should have rolled low on his Stealth check, that's pretty much the only disadvantage of attacking with a large group.


Group rolls.

[MaxWilson]

Group rolls.

Group rolls result in success/failure, not a numerical result, and therefore are incompatible with Stealth. (Since you need a numerical result to compare vs. Passive Perception.)

Also, and this is just my opinion, group rolls are inappropriate for Stealth checks because you can't make somebody else move quieter--all you can do is leave the noisiest ones behind. Edit: I may have misunderstood the situation. I would allow some kind of group roll for a static ambush, where the stealthy guys go around and put some extra mud on whoever's face is showing through the mud, reposition some guys in different shadows, etc. I wouldn't allow them for a mobile ambush though, where you're sneaking up on somebody.

[Demonic Spoon]

Group rolls result in success/failure, not a numerical result, and therefore are incompatible with Stealth. (Since you need a numerical result to compare vs. Passive Perception.)

Also, and this is just my opinion, group rolls are inappropriate for Stealth checks because you can't make somebody else move quieter--all you can do is leave the noisiest ones behind. Edit: I may have misunderstood the situation. I would allow some kind of group roll for a static ambush, where the stealthy guys go around and put some extra mud on whoever's face is showing through the mud, reposition some guys in different shadows, etc. I wouldn't allow them for a mobile ambush though, where you're sneaking up on somebody.


Success = the majority of hobgoblins beat the party's passive perception and remain undetected.

Failure = The majority of hobgoblins fail to beat the party's passive perception.

Also, while I agree that you can't make someone else move quieter, that's not the point of a group roll. It's a d20 system, which means that rolls can vary by up to 19. The randomness provides tension and unpredictability to the game, but if you roll a bunch of d20s for anything where one failure nukes the group, the group will virtually never succeed, ever. And I think it would probably be appropriate for the DM to impose a penalty to the rolls simply because hiding one creature is easier than hiding multiple, but not using group rolls for stealth just makes group stealth impossible.

[Krymoar]

Success = the majority of hobgoblins beat the party's passive perception and remain undetected.

Failure = The majority of hobgoblins fail to beat the party's passive perception.

Also, while I agree that you can't make someone else move quieter, that's not the point of a group roll. It's a d20 system, which means that rolls can vary by up to 19. The randomness provides tension and unpredictability to the game, but if you roll a bunch of d20s for anything where one failure nukes the group, the group will virtually never succeed, ever. And I think it would probably be appropriate for the DM to impose a penalty to the rolls simply because hiding one creature is easier than hiding multiple, but not using group rolls for stealth just makes group stealth impossible.




I agree with this.. mostly..

On passive checks, where they are traveling a distance stealthed, the stealthy character could point out what is not being stealthy and quiet the group, though I would take into consideration armor and other things that provide disadvantage (not saying I would give everyone disadvantage, just saying maybe if more than half the people had it)..

Mostly because it's a passive contested check (If it wasn't a contested, I wouldn't apply the disadvantage to every)


Now if it's not passive and someone is trying to find them, I would use individual checks, possibly handing out the highest rollers "overage" to the lower rollers.

I know a lot of that isn't RAW, but what you would actually use group rolls for kind of seems ambiguous

[MaxWilson]

Success = the majority of hobgoblins beat the party's passive perception and remain undetected.

Failure = The majority of hobgoblins fail to beat the party's passive perception.

Passive perception is an individual thing, not a party thing. So I guess you're basically saying you'd take the median of the hobgoblin's results and compare it to each character's perception? (I.e. anyone whose perception exceeds the median beats more than half the hobgoblins.) Yeah, you could do that I guess. Doesn't really make thematic sense to me that large groups aren't worse at sneaking (if you see at least one hobgoblin, you're not surprised--no need to see 15 of 30 before you react) but YMMV. I would expect you to do the same for the party when they sneak.

[Durazno]

I suppose you might see one but still be surprised by the others who you didn't see.

[Safety Sword]

I suppose you might see one but still be surprised by the others who you didn't see.

You might see the 4 badly "hidden" decoys and assume you have found your guys and be surprised by the 12 well hidden enemies who are already firing at you.

Devious DMs. We're a thing.

[Vogonjeltz]

Yow! That shouldn't have been possible. At least one of those 16+ bugbears should have rolled low on his Stealth check, that's pretty much the only disadvantage of attacking with a large group.

Bugbears scare me more than anything else I can think of at low levels, except maybe orcs because of their free movement.

Well only I think 7 were present for the surprise round, the rest showed up between 1-3 rounds later.

So 6 throwing javelins from windows above and 1 leaping over a road blockade for melee attacks. Then another 6 showed up from behind the caravan (apparently drawn in by the noise). We rallied the other caravan members to get inside one of the buildings, cleared it of Bugbears and killed a few of the new shows, which is about the same time the extra 3 showed up, along with their leader.

I think we ended up killing 9 or so before our Bardbarian defeated their leader in single combat, forcing the others to withdraw.

[Scirocco]

Probably should've had disadvantage on their stealth roll considering the circumstances...

[Shadow]

That's one of the problems with roll20. You have to wait while people move. You have to wait while people type in dice rolls. You have to wait for the system lag to catch up and show the roll. You have to wait while the DM changes icons, etc etc etc.
It's great if you can't play at a table. It's an option. But it's not fast by any means.
One of 5e's strengths is that combat is fast. Roll20 removes that strength by its design.

[Lokiare]

Welcome to 5E.

5E is extremely swingy and no, the combats take just as long as 3E and 4E. I agree that you shouldn't have to plan out a tactical masterpiece for 10xp and 5cp each. Unfortunately that's what 5E is about, going back to the play style of previous editions where you alternatively ran from combat, curbstomped things, abused a spell or two to outright win, or got your hat handed to you. I personally don't like this play style.

My house rule solution:

1. take the 5E books/PDFs and put them in the round receptacle.
2. Go over to your book shelf and grab 3 or more books that have large 4's (or 3's or 2's or 1's) on them.
3. Use those books to play D&D.


That's one of the problems with roll20. You have to wait while people move. You have to wait while people type in dice rolls. You have to wait for the system lag to catch up and show the roll. You have to wait while the DM changes icons, etc etc etc.
It's great if you can't play at a table. It's an option. But it's not fast by any means.
One of 5e's strengths is that combat is fast. Roll20 removes that strength by its design.

Its not any faster than any other edition, especially if you are role playing rather than 'hit, 10 damage. Miss, miss, hit 7 damage, fireball 23 damage to all".

My combats go like this:
"Elohiir calls on Sehanine and shouts loudly at the goblins, some of them tremble in fear from his divine presence."
"Several of the goblins appear to have had heart attacks. You know this because they are grabbing their chests and bugging their eyes out. The others appear frightened out of their wits."
"Rolen rolls out from cover throwing his bow up in the air and catching it as he comes out of the roll, he quickly draws and fires an arrow which slams into the skull of the goblin."
"The goblins head snaps back and its lifeless body crumples to the ground. The remaining goblins look uneasy."
"Rolen crouch runs back behind the rock through the tall dead grass and tombstones."

instead of like:
"Elohiir uses Divine Shout, and kills 3 goblins and damages 2 more."
"Rolen uses Deft Strike to move out attack and then uses his move to go behind cover again and makes a stealth check."

YMMV

[emeraldstreak]

Parties not build for tanking 5e have a hard time surviving it. Say, in a level 3 party of four, you'll need at least one, preferably two of

- Barbarian
- Heavy Armor Master Variant Human
- Moon Druid

to take on a bunch of kobolds/goblins without a hitch.

[Occasional Sage]

Bugbears scare me more than anything else I can think of at low levels, except maybe orcs because of their free movement.


Hobgoblins. Hobgoblins are FREAKING MURDERMACHINES if played halfway smartly.

[Suichimo]

As other people have pointed out, in addition to your encounters being too challenging by the encounter construction rules, it's possible your party is weak against mobs. For example, monks and paladins are known to be weak against large amounts of enemies because they lack AoE powers and have to close for melee. Try to shore up this hole in your offensive capabilities next time you level up by prioritizing spells and class features that can target more than one creature at a time, possibly even considering a 1-level dip in another class if necessary.

It's not even necessarily that his party is weak against mobs. A group of smaller enemies will nearly always be stronger than one or two powerful creatures thanks to the action economy and their ability to split the incoming damage.

[MaxWilson]

Hobgoblins. Hobgoblins are FREAKING MURDERMACHINES if played halfway smartly.

Hobgoblins don't scare me quite as badly because they have no stealth, but yes, hobgoblins are one of my favorite low-CR monsters and they make combats very interesting. Narrow corridors are your friend when fighting them indoors.

Edit: I just realized that the hobgoblin base in a raid I ran a few weeks ago should never have been built with narrow corridors. Hobgoblins should always build corridors at least double-wide. I guess they must have stolen the base from someone else.

[Shining Wrath]

So if you've ever sparred as one guy against several - yes, it should be freakin' difficult.

And mobs of mooks are why the gods in their wisdom have created AoE attacks.

Tactical retreat to a place where the goblins had to attack one or two abreast might have been in order, if possible.

Intelligent humanoids ought to be scary at low level.

[MaxWilson]

So if you've ever sparred as one guy against several - yes, it should be freakin' difficult.

And mobs of mooks are why the gods in their wisdom have created AoE attacks.

AoE attacks aren't your only option against Hobgoblins. One thing that makes hobgoblins interesting is that they have both a mean melee attack (18 AC and martial advantage) and a ranged attack (16 AC and possibility for martial advantage if someone else is doing melee) and it takes them at least a round to switch between the two configurations. So, an interesting scenario is to have hobgoblins set up behind half or three-quarters cover. If you just try to missile duel them to death, you're looking at +5 AC for the hobgoblins (21 total), which is rough to get through for most PCs. If you instead menace them with a high-AC character threatening to engage them in melee, the hobs have to choose between pouring out missile attacks at him (he's probably Dodging to impose disadvantage) and being unprepared when he gets into range, or dropping their bows now and putting on sword + shield, which costs them a round. And then if he stops short of engaging them in melee and starts blasting them with cantrips, they now have to choose between losing another round doffing their shield and resuming missile fire, or running out of cover to engage him in melee while the other PCs start pelting them with arrows. Or maybe sending one guy out to engage in melee, while the other hobgoblins stay under cover and fire with Martial Advantage.

Most monsters don't have such a rich set of tactical options for the PCs to play with/against. Or maybe I mean "for me, as a DM, to play with." Iron Golems pretty much just lumber up and start hitting things and breathing poison, they are quite boring and one-dimensional.

[Shining Wrath]

AoE attacks aren't your only option against Hobgoblins. One thing that makes hobgoblins interesting is that they have both a mean melee attack (18 AC and martial advantage) and a ranged attack (16 AC and possibility for martial advantage if someone else is doing melee) and it takes them at least a round to switch between the two configurations. So, an interesting scenario is to have hobgoblins set up behind half or three-quarters cover. If you just try to missile duel them to death, you're looking at +5 AC for the hobgoblins (21 total), which is rough to get through for most PCs. If you instead menace them with a high-AC character threatening to engage them in melee, the hobs have to choose between pouring out missile attacks at him (he's probably Dodging to impose disadvantage) and being unprepared when he gets into range, or dropping their bows now and putting on sword + shield, which costs them a round. And then if he stops short of engaging them in melee and starts blasting them with cantrips, they now have to choose between losing another round doffing their shield and resuming missile fire, or running out of cover to engage him in melee while the other PCs start pelting them with arrows. Or maybe sending one guy out to engage in melee, while the other hobgoblins stay under cover and fire with Martial Advantage.

Most monsters don't have such a rich set of tactical options for the PCs to play with/against. Or maybe I mean "for me, as a DM, to play with." Iron Golems pretty much just lumber up and start hitting things and breathing poison, they are quite boring and one-dimensional.

Mixed groups of monsters (some bruisers, some ranged) are classic.

So is the "spell caster behind wall of minions" look.

Both give the PCs a chance to do something other than "I charge the nearest one and hit it with my axe".

[MaxWilson]

Mixed groups of monsters (some bruisers, some ranged) are classic.

So is the "spell caster behind wall of minions" look.

Both give the PCs a chance to do something other than "I charge the nearest one and hit it with my axe".

True. I haven't found very many ranged monsters in the MM so far, and the ones who are ranged are quite short-ranged. Still looking for interesting combinations, though, if you have any recommendations. What (besides traps) goes well with Iron Golems against a ranged party? Assume Mobility feat on most characters and a range of 600' on at least two of four (Sharpshooter/Spell Sniper). Or would you just make Iron Golems always lurk deep underground?

[Shining Wrath]

True. I haven't found very many ranged monsters in the MM so far, and the ones who are ranged are quite short-ranged. Still looking for interesting combinations, though, if you have any recommendations. What (besides traps) goes well with Iron Golems against a ranged party? Assume Mobility feat on most characters and a range of 600' on at least two of four (Sharpshooter/Spell Sniper). Or would you just make Iron Golems always lurk deep underground?

Iron Golems are created by intelligent spell casting NPCs. Are you going to turn your expensive toys free to rampage through farmland? Probably not.

Iron Golems are used to defend critical choke points where the enemy has to force their way past the golems and the golems can use their poisonous breath effectively. Something that attacks from behind to prevent kiting - even a few hobgoblins - could be effective.

For rampaging through farmland, summon some hell hounds. Burn the humans out!

Edit: almost all the humanoid races are capable of using weapons, including ranged ones. If your party is kiting, centaurs will teach them not to rely on that.

[MaxWilson]

Iron Golems are created by intelligent spell casting NPCs. Are you going to turn your expensive toys free to rampage through farmland? Probably not.

Iron Golems are used to defend critical choke points where the enemy has to force their way past the golems and the golems can use their poisonous breath effectively. Something that attacks from behind to prevent kiting - even a few hobgoblins - could be effective.

For rampaging through farmland, summon some hell hounds. Burn the humans out!

Edit: almost all the humanoid races are capable of using weapons, including ranged ones. If your party is kiting, centaurs will teach them not to rely on that.

Hmmmm. I'm dubious this would work. They'll just turn around and kill the hobgoblins before dealing with the Iron Golem. The Iron Golem becomes essentially irrelevant to the fight. I do like your idea of having the mage that created the golem still be alive and kicking, though.

I don't know that the Centaurs thing would work either, since a good kiting party is designed not just to engage in ranged combat but to dominate at range while staying out of melee range. E.g. the Sharpshooter feat better than squares your effectiveness: 1 guy with Sharpshooter and AC 18, hiding behind an arrow slit, is a match for over a dozen hobgoblins firing back at him from behind their own arrow slits. Especially if he's got a Paladin casting Bless on him and healing him when he does get hit. I can give the Centaurs thing a try though, in a mock-combat.

[Selkirk]

It's not even necessarily that his party is weak against mobs. A group of smaller enemies will nearly always be stronger than one or two powerful creatures thanks to the action economy and their ability to split the incoming damage.

yeah i really have found (even at first level) that one or two higher cr monsters is an easier fight than the mob. from a narrative standpoint the mobs of mooks make sense (i mean the castle can't be all important bad guys etc...). but from a game standpoint the mobs really blow :D. it isn't the resource drain as much as again the time/fun drain. and of course the fact that the chars feel like junk after the fight...how are we supposed to tangle with black spider and glasstaff after these gobs nearly cleaned our clocks?

and then we have the rest conundrum...talking about breaking a narrative(literally?). we are in cragmaw hot on the tails of black spider and a mysterious drow (that could be black spider)...and now the party is out of gas. so it's either a long rest or just run from anything powerful (problem is the things that are powerful are the reason we are there to begin with...). but the long rest doesn't make sense within the castle and if we were to leave it doesn't make sense that black spider and co. would just be chilling until we got back..the mobs are just killing our session.

and roll20 is a considerable culprit here i will admit. the thing is i really like roll20 for the interesting fights. let's everyone showoff and put together the tactical masterpiece..but if every fight has to be a tactical masterpiece it's an incredible timesink. i'm actually pretty intrigued by the way 13th age has escalation die (+1 to hit every round after the first...and it stacks...only for pc's) but maybe as just something to use against low cr creatures(if creatures are lower than you cr then you get escalation die or something).

but then again all of this could be fixed if we could all get to 4th level too :D. more power then the gobs are just walk in the park stuff...

and i think this is interesting by sean k. reynolds (its on apl and cr)...not totally applicable obviously but some good thought imo. particularly the stuff about designing fights so the pc's feel powerful (the reverse of what i'm feeling against these low level mobs :D).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsYINdduqzY&list=UUIGsZRlE_KBAB-EvynQ2H0g

[emeraldstreak]

Hobgoblins. Hobgoblins are FREAKING MURDERMACHINES if played halfway smartly.

Hobgobs are deadly. But even Kobolds are when played to their Advantage.