One big encounter instead of five little ones?

[HidesHisEyes]

Question for DMs:

5E puts a big emphasis on the "adventuring day", which is meant to contain about four to six encounters, none of which is hard enough to kill the players on its own but each of which wears them down a little and uses up some resources, so that by the time they reach the last one the stakes are pretty high. I think this is a good structure and I'm not interested in discussing its pros and cons right now.

But does anyone ever try to give their players one really hard, potentially deadly encounter instead of a whole day of lesser ones? Does this work? Can you design a battle that can wear down the party from full strength to last legs before they succeed? Or is the adventuring day concept so intrinsic that these fights don't work so well? I can imagine it being quite difficult to pitch it just right so it's neither too easy nor a near-certain TPK. What has people's experience of it been?

I ask because I like the idea of the PCs stumbling on the lair of some solitary giant or something and having to fight for their lives, perhaps as a random encounter while travelling (one possible antidote to the classic problem of random encounters being meaningless on long journeys since it's assumed the PCs will be having a long rest before anything else happens).

[Kryx]

If you prefer bigger encounters one option is to have short rests take a day and long rests take 3 days. That's just a different way to adapt to the adventuring day balance.

If you don't adapt to the adventuring day balance classes like Warlock, Monk, Fighter (Superiority dice and healing surge) are all weaker.


To answer your specific question: Keeping the normal resting limits and doing 1 big encounter is difficult. It'll be near TPK or easy success knife edge balance in my experience. It's not easy to balance as long rest resources like CC spells are really strong.

[Mara]

Question for DMs:

5E puts a big emphasis on the "adventuring day", which is meant to contain about four to six encounters, none of which is hard enough to kill the players on its own but each of which wears them down a little and uses up some resources, so that by the time they reach the last one the stakes are pretty high. I think this is a good structure and I'm not interested in discussing its pros and cons right now.

But does anyone ever try to give their players one really hard, potentially deadly encounter instead of a whole day of lesser ones? Does this work? Can you design a battle that can wear down the party from full strength to last legs before they succeed? Or is the adventuring day concept so intrinsic that these fights don't work so well? I can imagine it being quite difficult to pitch it just right so it's neither too easy nor a near-certain TPK. What has people's experience of it been?

I ask because I like the idea of the PCs stumbling on the lair of some solitary giant or something and having to fight for their lives, perhaps as a random encounter while travelling (one possible antidote to the classic problem of random encounters being meaningless on long journeys since it's assumed the PCs will be having a long rest before anything else happens).

The XP budgets are to give you an idea of what you can throw at the party without killing them. They have no utility outside of that concept. Hitting that budget everyday does not guarantee fun or balance.


I suggest either lots of enemies for a big encounter or a foe with legendary actions. I've seen a party struggle far more against 5 cr 1/4 and a cr 2 than a single cr 8. A cr 5 with legendary actions was also far more dangerous than the cr 8 to a level 4 party of 5.

[weaseldust]

But does anyone ever try to give their players one really hard, potentially deadly encounter instead of a whole day of lesser ones? Does this work? Can you design a battle that can wear down the party from full strength to last legs before they succeed? Or is the adventuring day concept so intrinsic that these fights don't work so well? I can imagine it being quite difficult to pitch it just right so it's neither too easy nor a near-certain TPK. What has people's experience of it been?

I ask because I like the idea of the PCs stumbling on the lair of some solitary giant or something and having to fight for their lives, perhaps as a random encounter while travelling (one possible antidote to the classic problem of random encounters being meaningless on long journeys since it's assumed the PCs will be having a long rest before anything else happens).

The trouble with a giant specifically, and with powerful solitary creatures in general, is that, if the players are of a low enough level for it to count as 'one big encounter', it will probably be able to kill them in one hit.

If you can trust your players to play smart, though, you could have its lair be cluttered with bones, or have them enter through its toolshed or wardrobe, so there are lots of obstacles around. The giant could attack mostly by rummaging through the obstacles, so that they have to make athletics or acrobatics checks to avoid damage, but don't face as much damage as from the giant's own attacks.

Or it could be trying to grab them to put in its stew instead of swinging a club at them. They could just try to escape, or they could be trying to defeat it with nearby dangerous objects, or with a special poison or magic item they were given that takes time and special conditions to activate, or by tricking it into saying its own name three times which will banish it back to the demiplane it just escaped from, or whatever.

You could instead have a less powerful giant that sics its pet ferrets (giant weasels) on them first, so the encounter has two parts. Or, say, a fire giant that lives in a magical lair with great brass cogs whirring away all over the place, swinging blades, hot steam coming out of vents in the wall that have to be blocked with large stones, a river of lava that has to be crossed, and so on. All of those things will potentially deal damage and will require resources (spells, action surges, rages, channel divinities, etc.) to overcome, so they do all the work of a more straightforward combat encounter.


The point is that having them just trade damage via attacks and spells in the traditional way means there's a limit on how powerful their opponent can be, lest the encounter amount to it just squashing a couple of PCs and then dying in the second round, or else finishing off the rest of the party in the third. A simple combat like that will be both unsatisfyingly short and frustratingly deadly.

The first alternative is to have the contest take place via less straightforward means (exploiting the environment, or unusual magical weaknesses) and in the context of motives besides killing the players, which both stretch it out and make failure less deadly. The second alternative is to make the 'encounter' a series of lesser encounters and obstacles, adding environmental effects or waves of minor allies, so it is a satisfying length and you can make the giant at the end less deadly relative to the party while maintaining the challenge. You do have to be careful about maintaining the right short rest:long rest ratio, though.

[MaxWilson]

Question for DMs:

5E puts a big emphasis on the "adventuring day", which is meant to contain about four to six encounters, none of which is hard enough to kill the players on its own but each of which wears them down a little and uses up some resources, so that by the time they reach the last one the stakes are pretty high. I think this is a good structure and I'm not interested in discussing its pros and cons right now.

But does anyone ever try to give their players one really hard, potentially deadly encounter instead of a whole day of lesser ones? Does this work? Can you design a battle that can wear down the party from full strength to last legs before they succeed? Or is the adventuring day concept so intrinsic that these fights don't work so well? I can imagine it being quite difficult to pitch it just right so it's neither too easy nor a near-certain TPK. What has people's experience of it been?

I ask because I like the idea of the PCs stumbling on the lair of some solitary giant or something and having to fight for their lives, perhaps as a random encounter while travelling (one possible antidote to the classic problem of random encounters being meaningless on long journeys since it's assumed the PCs will be having a long rest before anything else happens).

Yes, you can do this and I do this almost exclusively. Not exactly on purpose, because I don't tailor encounters and my game is fairly light on combat, but every few sessions the players will decide to do something that creates a big fight and I'll check the tables and discover that the fight was 130% of the budget for an entire adventuring day.

My observation from actual play is that the encounter difficulty table is far, far too easy to the point where Hard or easier fights are cake walks (unless you've deliberately built them using trick monsters) and force near-zero resource expenditure, and only at triple- or quadruple-Deadly do the fights actually start feeling deadly in the sense that "the PCs could actually lose this if they don't take this seriously." So the encounter difficulty tables are garbage--but I feel more positively about the daily encounter tables, and any day in which the PCs used up the daily difficulty budget (probably in one or two fights at most) is likely to feel like a full day and the PCs are ready for a recharge. I've never really pushed a test to destruction to see how many days' worth of XP they can handle in a row without dying, because again, I run a sandbox and I don't tailor encounters, but the players do tend to stop somewhere around a full days' worth of XP.

So if you're going for "one big fight" as a random encounter, I'd shoot for something between double- and triple-deadly. Maybe start off conservative and make it double-Deadly the first time until you see how well your players handle it. Also, it goes without saying that of course you want the players to have options other than "fight!" If it's a giant, they can pay it off in cows, or sneak past, or trick it into thinking that a dragon owns this territory and it needs to leave, but if they do decide to fight then it will be a double- or triple-Deadly fight and they will need to take it seriously.


The point is that having them just trade damage via attacks and spells in the traditional way means there's a limit on how powerful their opponent can be, lest the encounter amount to it just squashing a couple of PCs and then dying in the second round, or else finishing off the rest of the party in the third. A simple combat like that will be both unsatisfyingly short and frustratingly deadly.

It's only unsatisfyingly short if the whole encounter consists of "you see a giant. Roll initiative." If those three rounds of combat are part of the resolution to whatever strategy of bluff/evade/etc. the party chose, then the whole encounter will have been much longer than just those three rounds of combat, and it may feel just about right. Likewise, if they are only in combat because they either drew weapons or disastrously failed their reaction check and bluff rolls, then maybe next time they will make PCs who invest a little bit more in diplomatic and non-combat skills/spells like Detect Thoughts instead of focusing purely on DPR.

[Madeiner]

Well, it is possible, even if unbalanced for different classes, and requires quite a deal of homebrewing monsters.
I think i became quite good at it. I've been running this campaign for some 7+ years, and i pretty much run only 1 enconter on a given day, maybe two. That is because i don't really see the point in slowing the game down (i got a story to tell, after all) running 6 encounters a day (except in dungeons) just to drain resources and providing no challenge to the PCs.

In order to do it, there a quite a few things to understand.
The first has been posted already, and i'll quote it:



The point is that having them just trade damage via attacks and spells in the traditional way means there's a limit on how powerful their opponent can be

That's it. If you want one single encounter that is deadly, and you want to have those encounters multiple times, then all your encounters will have enemies with the same amount of HP and damage options, unless you get creative.
So the keyword here is getting creative. Because at these levels of danger, you cannot really alter the values that much. And it becomes boring after the third encounter.


Here's some other important points i usually have to address.

The encounter must look deadly, but it cannot really be.
If you design an encounter that has a real 30% casualty rate for PCs, then you will lose PCs left and right.
In 7 years, i lost maybe 10 PCs. Note that I consider losing PCs a failure:
a success is having victorious PCs and them thinking they BARELY made it this time;
a great success is having victorious PCs having consumed all of their resources, having barely made it, with multiple unconscious PCs, and them feeling like their superior tactics won the encounter.

- You must be able to alter the encounter on the fly.
You cannot get every encounter right. It's impossible.
You need to be able to change the encounter when needed (not IF; when).
How you do it is your prerogative.
One trick is having the monster have non-perfect tactics.
Say, it can attack twice this round or use a demoralizing roar. If the encounter is going too badly for the PC, it will use the demoralizing roar, but not kill the PC at 10 hp. This must be done with caution of course. I usually do it when the dice are too much in the monter's favor.
I also like to have abilities that i can "cheat" on. PCs are doing really good? Look, the breath weapon just recharged. PCs are doing bad? The next save is probably a failure. I like to save these for moments where the dice are too swingy.

- About numbers and modifying enemies.
If you go with a standard monster, this won't work that good.
If PCs are level 10, and you use a single CR 13 as enemy, they are gonna win easily. If you go higher, you risk the encounter becoming quickly impossible, or extremely swingy based on the dice. There is no middle ground usually, unless when the dice decide so.
You don't want this. You want little randomness if you are shooting for high letality.

So, for example, lv 10 vs single CR 16, i would usually:
- increase the enemy's HP or defenses. I want the encounter to last 4-5 rounds. I prefer lower AC, higher hit points, for constant predictable damage.
- decrease it's damage, and make it less random. I want good hit chances, lower constant damage.
- carefully consider all abilities. If you don't want to cheat, or "hold off" on tactics, you need to rebalance abilities. Starting out, it's easier to just change its tactics. So, even if the dragon has just recharged it's breath weapon for the third time in four rounds, it just won't use it. The PCs don't have to know.

This can usually work for starters. However, after a while, it becomes monotonous, because you don't have much leeway in choosing monsters and their numerical values. If the PCs are level 10 and you want to use a standard monster, even modifying its values slightly, you are looking at maybe 2-3 monsters that are "deadly" enough, but don't cause mass deaths every session.
That's why i almost only use custom monsters, heavily inspired from MMORPGs or games in general. But that's another topic.

[Nifft]

I can imagine it being quite difficult to pitch it just right so it's neither too easy nor a near-certain TPK. What has people's experience of it been? Waves of attackers. This allows you to keep up a huge feeling of pressure without risking instant death on a round-by-round basis.

Maybe they're assaulting a castle, and they manage to surprise the off-duty soldiers sleeping in the barracks. It's a nasty but quick fight, though a few escape. Now the castle's few active guards and soldiers come at the PCs in the most organized way they can, given their desperation and limited information. Five fights without a break -- in succession, or overlapping, but not 5 times the usual number of opponents all at once.

I've done this in multiple different editions and it's always worked well.


I ask because I like the idea of the PCs stumbling on the lair of some solitary giant or something and having to fight for their lives, perhaps as a random encounter while travelling (one possible antidote to the classic problem of random encounters being meaningless on long journeys since it's assumed the PCs will be having a long rest before anything else happens). In the case of traveling, you might want to have them encounter the scouts at first (who sound a horn), then a larger party of warriors, then skirmishers and whatever local beasts the tribesmen can scare up -- who then dog their steps until they're out of the tribe's range.

In the case of a lair, this works best for organized creatures. A solitary giant seems like it would just be one big solo fight.

[TrollCapAmerica]

Ok 4 fights per day is fine if your doing the dungeon crawl thing but many times ti can be hard to cause 4 fights in a single day in a lot of situations. Heck most game ive ever played that werent involved in roaming around a monster filled dungeon having multiple fights pop up just didnt seem feasible/logic/possible

[mephnick]

Rapid thoughts:

I really urge people to use the longer rest variant if the don't want to try justifying 8 fights in a single day, it works quite well. People seem to read the variant and ignore it, then complain about 5 minute adventuring days.

I also think the encounter budgets are too easy, I've only ever dropped a player when I've gone way over deadly and no one died yet in any of them. This is utilizing cover, terrain, gang tactics etc.

Don't ever use a solitary creature unless you can give it legendary actions. There are two things that can happen:

1) Players win initiative, nuke giant to hell, encounter ends.
2) Giant wins initiative, instantly gibs closest PC, players nuke giant to hell, encounter ends.

Even something as simple as making the fight a CR 7 and 3 CR 1's instead of a CR 10 can make for a much better combat.

[Sigreid]

The problem with the one big encounter is usually the amount of damage coming into the party. And if you do it with a bunch of weaker mobs (horde of goblins etc.) then you wind up with the party's damage being wasted on over killing. DMing for our party at level 6 or so, a few lizard men spread out dropped more party members and sucked more health out of the ones still on their feet than a hill giant did.

[MaxWilson]

There's nothing wrong with solitary creatures if you build them as NPCs instead of mere monsters. Give them actual motivations and a reason to do something other than just immediately attack and try to kill PCs. Then in combat, give them options for defense and mobility.

For example, take a young adult blue dragon (CR 9) and give it five levels of dragon sorcerer including Shield, Hold Person, and Darkness spells and the Heightened and Quickened Spell metamagics. (That will push its CR up to 10 or 11.) Give it some kind of a goal and a reason to come into conflict with the PCs. Maybe it sees they have shinies and it wants some: "give me 1000 gp for my hoard or I'll eat you." This could play out in several ways:

1.) PCs pay the dragon to go away.

2.) PCs trick the dragon into thinking it's been paid, using illusions or Sleight of Hand or Deception skill.

3.) PCs intimidate the dragon into leaving them alone.

4.) PCs fight the dragon.
a.) Dragon wins initiative, tosses up a Quickened Darkness spell on itself (which the PCs could Counterspell) and breathes lightning on PCs before beginning melee. PCs have a tough fight on their hands which becomes much easier if they manage to shut down its spellcasting via Dispel Magic, Silence, etc. At the end the dragon either kills them, dies, or retreats to fight another day and/or become a potentially-recurring villain.
b.) PCs win initiative and have a significantly easier fight, especially if you get in a few Stunning Strikes or similar--but the dragon's reaction spells like Shield and Counterspell prevent them from simply nuking it.

5.) Something totally unexpected happens, such as the PCs co-opting the dragon as an ally or tricking it into reaching into a Bag of Devouring or something else crazy like my players always do.

That's a lot more interesting than having only two options, "dragon nukes PCs" and "PCs nuke dragon". Having only two options is what arises from playing rocket tag with one-dimensional glass cannons--so don't use one-dimensional glass cannons for your solitary monsters. A stone giant bestride a 30' by 5' bridge (hidden fact: which he built himself) over an 80' chasm demanding tolls (hidden motivation: so he can pay the bride-price for One True Love) is inherently more interesting than a giant with a club who suddenly attacks you for no reason at 30' range.

[mephnick]

Sure, you can make any monster a decent solo fight if you customize the hell out of it, but at that point you might as well just start adding legendary actions to everything.

Or use Angry DM's Paragon system, which is fun.

This all depends on players not caring that you're working outside the rules.

[Hawkstar]

... I think you need at least 3 encounters for an adventuring "Day" - one between every short rest. Or maybe triple short-rest resources? And remember the multiplicative effect of outnumbering enemies - one encounter of nine monsters isn't the same as three encounters of three monsters.

[MaxWilson]

It's a matter of taste I suppose. Adding Legendary Actions to random monsters feels far more arbitrary to me than adding class levels/abilities, which have a long history in D&D of being applied to anything and everything. (They're not "outside the rules" BTW. The DMG explicitly allows you to add class levels to most monsters, usually without even changing the CR.) What makes you prefer the Legendary Actions?

I suspect we'd both agree on one thing: RAW monsters from the MM tend to be boring.

[JoeJ]

It can work. One thing to watch out for is the dice. A single especially good or bad roll will tend to have a much bigger effect in a fight against one big monster than in a fight against a horde of smaller ones. If you're going to go that route, you should probably be prepared to fudge things a bit for that reason.

However, one big fight doesn't necessarily mean one big monster. You can have one big fight against a small army of enemies. For example, the PCs might be trying to clean out a kobold warren where they never get more than a couple of rounds in between attacks. In that case, if you plan it out right you almost certainly won't need to fudge things since you're rolling enough dice that you'll actually wind up getting something close to the average overall.

[Madeiner]

Or use Angry DM's Paragon system, which is fun.


You mean this post?
http://theangrygm.com/return-of-the-son-of-the-dd-boss-fight-now-in-5e/
I've been doing this since a long time, but i liked the 4e version he proposed better.
Multi-stage boss fight are very very fun, but long to execute.

Do you know if there are any followups to that post?


Rapid thoughts:
I really urge people to use the longer rest variant if the don't want to try justifying 8 fights in a single day, it works quite well. People seem to read the variant and ignore it, then complain about 5 minute adventuring days.


You know, i was considering that for a new campaign i'm thinking about.
However, what is more fun? A battle where you have all your resources and must tactically try to win, or a battle designed to make you spend some resources and win, where the only tactic is to try and save as many resources as you can, probably by trying to use as many fire bolts or simple attacks as you can?

I really, really wish resource economy was encounter-based.

[Nifft]

And remember the multiplicative effect of outnumbering enemies - one encounter of nine monsters isn't the same as three encounters of three monsters.

Totally agree.

This is why I recommend "waves of attackers" -- both for the party's survival, and also the DM's sanity.

[mephnick]

However, what is more fun? A battle where you have all your resources and must tactically try to win, or a battle designed to make you spend some resources and win, where the only tactic is to try and save as many resources as you can, probably by trying to use as many fire bolts or simple attacks as you can?

Oh, I agree generally, but a different game might be better if that's what you want. It's just that as much as people want to believe it can do anything, D&D is 100% balanced and built around dungeon/wilderness crawling. Not grand boss showdowns, not social and political roleplay, not epic war scenes. Dungeons with multiple encounters and resource management. I find the variants and house rules can help, but people really try and warp this system into something it's not. Sure, you can run a political/horror/mystery campaign, but it's never going to be a "good" system for it.

That's my little rant for the day.

[HidesHisEyes]

Oh, I agree generally, but a different game might be better if that's what you want. It's just that as much as people want to believe it can do anything, D&D is 100% balanced and built around dungeon/wilderness crawling. Not grand boss showdowns, not social and political roleplay, not epic war scenes. Dungeons with multiple encounters and resource management. I find the variants and house rules can help, but people really try and warp this system into something it's not. Sure, you can run a political/horror/mystery campaign, but it's never going to be a "good" system for it.

That's my little rant for the day.

I completely agree, and I think a lot of criticisms of D&D come from people who don't realise quite how rigidly geared towards a certain game type it is.

It does seem to me that making those grand boss showdowns - or even making a one-big-tough-encounter work within the standard adventuring day structure - is one of the more feasible changes you could make.

I will investigate the DMG's alternative adventuring day and re-read Angry's Paragon system (which I had read and actually forgotten about). Both sound pretty useful.

Thanks for the thoughts and feedback everyone!

[MrStabby]

Big encounters are very tricky to get right. A few things that can go wrong.

Too easy (with one monster or one theme to an encounter it is easy to have their weaknesses match the strengths of one or more part members)

To strong (vice versa)

A PC gets taken out of the fight quickly and effectively misses out on 3/4 of the adventuring day and don't have fun (depending on healing availability)

One or more players use a short rest class and have a fraction of the resources of the others and don't have fun



My advice is to ensure there are a number of non-lethal effects. Web players to disadvantage the group and make the fight harder but to not take any players out of the action for more than a few rounds.

Link the environment to resistances - if your enemies are immune to cold put them in a wet environment so cold themed spells can freeze water (create ice slicks, freeze creatures in mud, build ice bridges over water etc.). Enable abilities to have a secondary use.

Make the encounter about more than killing things. If the PCs have to protect something, or escape or kill a specific creature it gives the encounter a bit more purpose but the more pats to victory and PC tools that can be used to get there the less likely it is any player will be sidelined and not having fun (of course this is true even for small encounters but when this can be corrected in the next encounter and each encounter is pretty short this is less of an issue).

[PoeticDwarf]

Question for DMs:

5E puts a big emphasis on the "adventuring day", which is meant to contain about four to six encounters, none of which is hard enough to kill the players on its own but each of which wears them down a little and uses up some resources, so that by the time they reach the last one the stakes are pretty high. I think this is a good structure and I'm not interested in discussing its pros and cons right now.

But does anyone ever try to give their players one really hard, potentially deadly encounter instead of a whole day of lesser ones? Does this work? Can you design a battle that can wear down the party from full strength to last legs before they succeed? Or is the adventuring day concept so intrinsic that these fights don't work so well? I can imagine it being quite difficult to pitch it just right so it's neither too easy nor a near-certain TPK. What has people's experience of it been?

I ask because I like the idea of the PCs stumbling on the lair of some solitary giant or something and having to fight for their lives, perhaps as a random encounter while travelling (one possible antidote to the classic problem of random encounters being meaningless on long journeys since it's assumed the PCs will be having a long rest before anything else happens).

We often have two or three encounters per day, because we often arent in a dungeon but play sandbox. In dungeons we also don't have six because the whole group thinks 2-3 hard or deadly encounters are way funnier than 6 normal ones.

[PoeticDwarf]

Big encounters are very tricky to get right. A few things that can go wrong.

Too easy (with one monster or one theme to an encounter it is easy to have their weaknesses match the strengths of one or more part members)

To strong (vice versa)

A PC gets taken out of the fight quickly and effectively misses out on 3/4 of the adventuring day and don't have fun (depending on healing availability)

One or more players use a short rest class and have a fraction of the resources of the others and don't have fun



My advice is to ensure there are a number of non-lethal effects. Web players to disadvantage the group and make the fight harder but to not take any players out of the action for more than a few rounds.

Link the environment to resistances - if your enemies are immune to cold put them in a wet environment so cold themed spells can freeze water (create ice slicks, freeze creatures in mud, build ice bridges over water etc.). Enable abilities to have a secondary use.

Make the encounter about more than killing things. If the PCs have to protect something, or escape or kill a specific creature it gives the encounter a bit more purpose but the more pats to victory and PC tools that can be used to get there the less likely it is any player will be sidelined and not having fun (of course this is true even for small encounters but when this can be corrected in the next encounter and each encounter is pretty short this is less of an issue).

Monks and fighters are short rest classes, but fighters aren't weak with mostly long rests anyways and the ki of monk isn't going to all be spend in one encounter anyways.

[Kryx]

Monks and fighters are short rest classes, but fighters aren't weak with mostly long rests anyways and the ki of monk isn't going to all be spend in one encounter anyways.
A Battlemaster fighter would have 6 dice instead of 18. It would have 1 healing surge instead of 3.
A Monk would have 20 Ki instead of 60.

These are not insignificant.

[Vogonjeltz]

Question for DMs:

5E puts a big emphasis on the "adventuring day", which is meant to contain about four to six encounters, none of which is hard enough to kill the players on its own but each of which wears them down a little and uses up some resources, so that by the time they reach the last one the stakes are pretty high. I think this is a good structure and I'm not interested in discussing its pros and cons right now.

But does anyone ever try to give their players one really hard, potentially deadly encounter instead of a whole day of lesser ones? Does this work? Can you design a battle that can wear down the party from full strength to last legs before they succeed? Or is the adventuring day concept so intrinsic that these fights don't work so well? I can imagine it being quite difficult to pitch it just right so it's neither too easy nor a near-certain TPK. What has people's experience of it been?

I ask because I like the idea of the PCs stumbling on the lair of some solitary giant or something and having to fight for their lives, perhaps as a random encounter while travelling (one possible antidote to the classic problem of random encounters being meaningless on long journeys since it's assumed the PCs will be having a long rest before anything else happens).

Multipart encounters is found on page 83 of the DMG. The waves of a single large encounter would be treated discretely for purposes of determining difficulty.

So, you could have 8 Easy-Medium encounter waves that would be considered well past deadly if all the monsters were in the fight at once. However, it should be noted that if the XP value in total is > 1/3 of the level expected xp for the day, it's tougher than the sum of its parts.

[Lost in Hyrule]

My observation from actual play is that the encounter difficulty table is far, far too easy to the point where Hard or easier fights are cake walks (unless you've deliberately built them using trick monsters) and force near-zero resource expenditure, and only at triple- or quadruple-Deadly do the fights actually start feeling deadly in the sense that "the PCs could actually lose this if they don't take this seriously."

This is difficult for me to believe. Are you adding together the XP thresholds for each party member to get the overall Party Threshold?

[Kryx]

This is difficult for me to believe.
It's because he plays with very few encounters.

Deadly is deadly if you play by the adventuring day. Playing with 1 or two encounters a day creates problems as outlined in this thread.

[Shaofoo]

An encounter need not be a battle.

An encounter could be a room full of traps in lieu of enemies.

An encounter could be a diplomatic parlay with an ancient spirit.

An encounter could be a chase through the woods.

Just because attacks aren't traded back and forth doesn't mean that it can't be an encounter.

Look at the Kobolds, you will rarely see them standing in a room and face you, they will rather hide and let their traps wear you down. If you wanted to have a big battle with Kobolds they will have to face through several rooms filled with traps before facing the big bad Kobold.

[HidesHisEyes]

An encounter need not be a battle.

An encounter could be a room full of traps in lieu of enemies.

An encounter could be a diplomatic parlay with an ancient spirit.

An encounter could be a chase through the woods.

Just because attacks aren't traded back and forth doesn't mean that it can't be an encounter.

Look at the Kobolds, you will rarely see them standing in a room and face you, they will rather hide and let their traps wear you down. If you wanted to have a big battle with Kobolds they will have to face through several rooms filled with traps before facing the big bad Kobold.

Yeah, I like running non-combat encounters too. But in this thread I was asking about advice for running a single big, tough combat (or potentially combat) encounter against a solo monster.

Like, imagine the party hears of some really tough, mean old ogre who lives in a cave near the farms and demands to be kept fed with livestock. Or even just stumble on him by accident. I want to be able to put that in my adventure without having to contrive a reason for the PCs to have to deal with four gangs of goblins and orcs (or traps or bad weather or whatever) first and all in the same day.

I don't have a problem with the general restrictiveness of D&D and its structure, and 5E is my favourite edition of the game so far, but the fact that it's so hard to do this "hunt the lonely monster" thing is a real thorn in my creative side.

Angry's paragon monsters or the encounter waves thing from the DMG (with each wave being just another "phase" of the same monster) seem like the best answers at the moment.

[MaxWilson]

This is difficult for me to believe. Are you adding together the XP thresholds for each party member to get the overall Party Threshold?

Yes.

Kryx's diagnosis is backwards. Even on days when there are lots of smaller encounters (e.g. two or three vampire spawn) and no rests, PCs still burn relatively few resources, maybe a Heat Metal or a Hex or Web, and are able to handle a triple Deadly encounter with aplomb (three hobgoblin vampire spawns behind partial cover, with a total of twenty zombies as backup).

There's no mystery about the "how." 5E PCs are really tough, with lots of special abilities and tactical options. Add in one or two magic items and a couple environmental effects for PCs to play with (sunlight outside, since it's daytime, if the vampires can somehow be dragged from the manor out into the open) and eschew metagaming on the DM's part (RP monsters) and there you have it: PCs can triumph relatively easily even if they've had a full day of Hard encounters already. But it FEELS hard for them and therefore they appreciate the buckets of XP they receive in return.

[Demonic Spoon]

Kryx's diagnosis is backwards. Even on days when there are lots of smaller encounters (e.g. two or three vampire spawn) and no rests, PCs still burn relatively few resources, maybe a Heat Metal or a Hex or Web, and are able to handle a triple Deadly encounter with aplomb (three hobgoblin vampire spawns behind partial cover, with a total of twenty zombies as backup).

You're sort of misusing the guidelines. The guidelines tell you to ignore creatures of substantially lower CR than the average for the encounter for the purposes of XP multipliers.

In this case, you are inappropriately multiplying the XP value for killing the vampires by 4 because they happen to have a lot of chaff with them. The zombies aren't quite a trivial part of the encounter, but the fact that there are 20 zombies does not justify multiplying the vampire spawns' XP value by 4.


But does anyone ever try to give their players one really hard, potentially deadly encounter instead of a whole day of lesser ones? Does this work? Can you design a battle that can wear down the party from full strength to last legs before they succeed? Or is the adventuring day concept so intrinsic that these fights don't work so well? I can imagine it being quite difficult to pitch it just right so it's neither too easy nor a near-certain TPK. What has people's experience of it been?

Yup, you just need to balance it carefully and work under the assumption that the players will be able to dump all their resources into the fight. My players' last BBEG fight was like this - I calibrated the fight at ~40% past the deadly threshold and achieved more or less exactly this. Just remember that dice rolls and player tactics can make a huge difference, so if you're going for as exact an outcome as "players are on their last legs before they succeed", you might need to pull some strings.

Also, if your plan is for them to fight a solitary creature, you almost certainly will want to add some legendary actions.

[MaxWilson]

You're sort of misusing the guidelines. The guidelines tell you to ignore creatures of substantially lower CR than the average for the encounter for the purposes of XP multipliers.

In this case, you are inappropriately multiplying the XP value for killing the vampires by 4 because they happen to have a lot of chaff with them. The zombies aren't quite a trivial part of the encounter, but the fact that there are 20 zombies does not justify multiplying the vampire spawns' XP value by 4.

By two, not four, since three vampire spawn already earn a x2 modifier by themselves. Zombies double it yet again, and they more than earned their keep by giving the vampires several rounds of free ranged attacks with Martial Advantage and using up all the cleric's Turning. Using the full multiplier was appropriate.

DMG guidance says you only ignore it in scenarios where some monsters don't really contribute, e.g. a dragon and two kobolds is not twice as tough as a dragon because although kobolds can Help and use nets, they are still fragile. This wasn't one of those scenarios.

[Shaofoo]

Yeah, I like running non-combat encounters too. But in this thread I was asking about advice for running a single big, tough combat (or potentially combat) encounter against a solo monster.

Like, imagine the party hears of some really tough, mean old ogre who lives in a cave near the farms and demands to be kept fed with livestock. Or even just stumble on him by accident. I want to be able to put that in my adventure without having to contrive a reason for the PCs to have to deal with four gangs of goblins and orcs (or traps or bad weather or whatever) first and all in the same day.


I can't think of a way to make an enemy engaging that you just stumble on, if you did that to me I would think that you just picked a random monster from a random encounter table and went from there. Is the ogre supposed to be actually important or just a speed bump that the party shouldn't think after they killed him?

I mean why can't the ogre be a pet of the orcs? You can have a sorta easy time killing the ogre but then you must face retribution from the orc camp, that isn't that much of a stretch. Make the ogre an easy challenge and then let the orcs be harder.


I don't have a problem with the general restrictiveness of D&D and its structure, and 5E is my favourite edition of the game so far, but the fact that it's so hard to do this "hunt the lonely monster" thing is a real thorn in my creative side.

It is hard basically because the PCs are many and the monster is one and the PCs have many abilities that could potentially shut down the one guy so if the guy is out then there is nothing for the other side to threaten with.

Honestly I can't think of a version where multiple vs one ever worked well, not even in 4e and that one tried its hardest to make it a thing but it didn't work out at all, even solos had to have some lackeys around, and in 4e the powers were much more regulated.


Angry's paragon monsters or the encounter waves thing from the DMG (with each wave being just another "phase" of the same monster) seem like the best answers at the moment.

I still don't like forms, because you still have to deal with status effects and neither addresses the problem about them, that is the biggest problem. HP damage isn't so big when the wizard can charm or fear the enemy.

A boss under the influence of a wizard could still have his lackeys beat up on the wizard to remove the effect while a super boss is all alone and has no recourse other than to make those saving throws, this is a reason why lackeys are a big thing.

I know it isn't the answer you were looking for but basically outside adding legendary and lair actions and adding extra traps then I can't think of a way to buff up a solo monster that is a fair fight between a group of PCs, I can only see it as a steam roll for the PCs or the monster if you buff it too much.

[Doug Lampert]

By two, not four, since three vampire spawn already earn a x2 modifier by themselves. Zombies double it yet again, and they more than earned their keep by giving the vampires several rounds of free ranged attacks with Martial Advantage and using up all the cleric's Turning. Using the full multiplier was appropriate.

DMG guidance says you only ignore it in scenarios where some monsters don't really contribute, e.g. a dragon and two kobolds is not twice as tough as a dragon because although kobolds can Help and use nets, they are still fragile. This wasn't one of those scenarios.

IIRC DMG says deadly may well kill or drop one party member. That's presumably in the context of a full adventuring day.

None of the listed encounter difficulties are supposed to be a serious threat of a TPK or of the party losing. Party tactics a bit better than expected, foes played a bit worse, magic items not included in intended balance, ...

I don't see why needing 3x deadly to have a real threat of the PCs losing is considered surprising.

[MaxWilson]

IIRC DMG says deadly may well kill or drop one party member. That's presumably in the context of a full adventuring day.

None of the listed encounter difficulties are supposed to be a serious threat of a TPK or of the party losing. Party tactics a bit better than expected, foes played a bit worse, magic items not included in intended balance, ...

I don't see why needing 3x deadly to have a real threat of the PCs losing is considered surprising.

Yes, precisely. The DMG encounter difficulties are easy by design, and "Deadly" doesn't mean "high chance of TPK." You're one of the few people I've met on this forum who seems to be able to see past the descriptor ("Deadly") to the reality of the math underneath.

So yeah, it's not surprising, it's exactly what you'd expect.

[djreynolds]

Variety is the spice of life. See what happens. Heck throw all of the 5 encounters at them in rapid fire succession. Make sure players are loaded and fitted out with healing potions. Provide some tactical terrain but do not tell them, let them discover it.

[HidesHisEyes]

I can't think of a way to make an enemy engaging that you just stumble on, if you did that to me I would think that you just picked a random monster from a random encounter table and went from there. Is the ogre supposed to be actually important or just a speed bump that the party shouldn't think after they killed him?

I mean why can't the ogre be a pet of the orcs? You can have a sorta easy time killing the ogre but then you must face retribution from the orc camp, that isn't that much of a stretch. Make the ogre an easy challenge and then let the orcs be harder.



It is hard basically because the PCs are many and the monster is one and the PCs have many abilities that could potentially shut down the one guy so if the guy is out then there is nothing for the other side to threaten with.

Honestly I can't think of a version where multiple vs one ever worked well, not even in 4e and that one tried its hardest to make it a thing but it didn't work out at all, even solos had to have some lackeys around, and in 4e the powers were much more regulated.



I still don't like forms, because you still have to deal with status effects and neither addresses the problem about them, that is the biggest problem. HP damage isn't so big when the wizard can charm or fear the enemy.

A boss under the influence of a wizard could still have his lackeys beat up on the wizard to remove the effect while a super boss is all alone and has no recourse other than to make those saving throws, this is a reason why lackeys are a big thing.

I know it isn't the answer you were looking for but basically outside adding legendary and lair actions and adding extra traps then I can't think of a way to buff up a solo monster that is a fair fight between a group of PCs, I can only see it as a steam roll for the PCs or the monster if you buff it too much.

The ogre would be a self-contained story in its own right. Even if you stumble on it by accident, it's a short story about stumbling on an ogre and fighting for your life. Done well, that's my idea of engaging. Not that longer, more complex stories aren't. The ogre being the pet of some orcs is cool too, just not what I'm talking about at the moment.

I'm well aware of all the problems and the fact that the system's not set up for it, which is why I was asking if anyone had any advice on how to make it work. Anyway I'll give it a shot with Angry's paragon system probably, and maybe I'll report back on here.

[Kryx]

Yes, precisely. The DMG encounter difficulties are easy by design, and "Deadly" doesn't mean "high chance of TPK."
Please read the DMG's definition of Deadly:

Deadly. A deadly encounter could be lethal for one or more player characters. Survival often requires good tactics and quick thinking, and the party risks defeat.
It is not "high chance of TPK". No where was that ever advertised.

Beyond that it is only Deadly in the context of an adventuring day which you have said you do not use. You don't use the system as intended so the system doesn't work as expected. This is a consequence of playing the way you do. It doesn't mean the game or system is broken.

[Madeiner]

I still don't like forms, because you still have to deal with status effects and neither addresses the problem about them, that is the biggest problem. HP damage isn't so big when the wizard can charm or fear the enemy.


Well, angry dm's system actually says all status effects are removed on form change (or at least it was in multi-phase), as if it was a new creature. You'd even have to move you hex/hunter's mark.
Might seem strange at first, but it works, i tried it myself.



I know it isn't the answer you were looking for but basically outside adding legendary and lair actions and adding extra traps then I can't think of a way to buff up a solo monster that is a fair fight between a group of PCs, I can only see it as a steam roll for the PCs or the monster if you buff it too much.

It's just a matter of customizing the monster, making it funnier and adding some abilities.
Say, you use your standard ogre/big monster/whatever, double its hp, lower its damage, and add:

Enraged patience: After you recover from hard crowd control (stun, charm, etc), you become enraged for a round. You have advantage to all attack checks for 1 round.
Defensive skin: If you suffer from hard crowd control, all incoming damage is halved while the effect last. If you are still alive after you recover, you regenerate 10 hp per round, up to the amount of damage that was inflicted during the crowd control.
Pummel: As a bonus action, you ready your mace and start pummeling the ground around you, dealing (quite a bit) of damage in a 10 ft burst around you, and knocking all enemies away (no save). You continue pummeling the ground automatically for 2 rounds; anyone coming within your area of effect afterwards takes (quite a lot more damage)
Javeling Throw: As a bonus action, you can throw a special javelin with a rope attached. If you can hit an enemy and they don't pass a (very difficult) dex CD, they are impaled by it, and are restrained. As another bonus action in a subsequent round, you can pull back the rope and javelin, pulling back the impaled enemy to you, and get a free attack against him, also knocking him prone.

There you go. 5 minutes later, you have an interesting, balanced, tactical encounter that can easily take all the resources of a party, and possibly killing someone.

You cannot crowd control him easily. If you do, you have the choice of trying to kill him fast, or use the rounds you get to recover and reposition.
Every once in a while, melees have to decide whether to resort to ranged attacks, do something else, or keep being pummeled by the heavy aoe damage around the enemy.
Ranged attackers are targeted by javelin throws. Then, their companions will have to decide if they want to try and free restrained targets (using actions) or just let them take the damage but kill the enemy faster.

This is of course a little harder at higher level, where you can forcecage, banish, and do things like that.
I personally fix that "problem" by adding an houserule:
Legendary creatures lose their standard Legendary resistance.
Instead, anytime they are hit by an effect that neutralizes them completely based on their available tactics, they are immune to that effect, or they suffer a reduced effect that usually lasts one round or imposes disadvantage for 1 round.
But this is another can of worms, really.

[Shaofoo]

Well, angry dm's system actually says all status effects are removed on form change (or at least it was in multi-phase), as if it was a new creature. You'd even have to move you hex/hunter's mark.
Might seem strange at first, but it works, i tried it myself.

I can't see how this could work at all. I mean a monk could stun the big bad and then the fighter could slam his sword into the big bad but because the first HP pool is depleted from the attack the big bad is cured of his stun, basically getting your face gutted by a sword is a cure for stunned.

Maybe from a mechanical point it could make sense but from a thematic standpoint it makes little sense, why would you lose your quarry just because some guy got hit enough times? In trying to focus on the numbers we lose what the numbers actually mean.



It's just a matter of customizing the monster, making it funnier and adding some abilities.
Say, you use your standard ogre/big monster/whatever, double its hp, lower its damage, and add:

Enraged patience: After you recover from hard crowd control (stun, charm, etc), you become enraged for a round. You have advantage to all attack checks for 1 round.
Defensive skin: If you suffer from hard crowd control, all incoming damage is halved while the effect last. If you are still alive after you recover, you regenerate 10 hp per round, up to the amount of damage that was inflicted during the crowd control.
Pummel: As a bonus action, you ready your mace and start pummeling the ground around you, dealing (quite a bit) of damage in a 10 ft burst around you, and knocking all enemies away (no save). You continue pummeling the ground automatically for 2 rounds; anyone coming within your area of effect afterwards takes (quite a lot more damage)
Javeling Throw: As a bonus action, you can throw a special javelin with a rope attached. If you can hit an enemy and they don't pass a (very difficult) dex CD, they are impaled by it, and are restrained. As another bonus action in a subsequent round, you can pull back the rope and javelin, pulling back the impaled enemy to you, and get a free attack against him, also knocking him prone.

There you go. 5 minutes later, you have an interesting, balanced, tactical encounter that can easily take all the resources of a party, and possibly killing someone.


I never said that a solo monster can't take out a party, give enough powers, actions and immunities and any solo monster can wipe the party. My point is to make an actual balanced encounter between both monster and players, not make the monster able to stand up against the party at all costs.

And also I think there is a difference of play styles, I would never make an encounter where in one fight the party has to expend all the resources and even want at least one guy dead. I know of some DMs that basically require the blood of a party member for killing their BBEG, they will try their hardest until one is down and out. Using all the resources of the party and potential party member death isn't the same as balanced. If the party has to be at 100% and use up the 100% to stand a chance against the BBEG then it isn't balanced at all.

Of course maybe because to me the BBEG isn't the same as the end all be all, I would rather have a bunch of things with the BBEG instead of having the BBEG encompass everything into one being.


You cannot crowd control him easily. If you do, you have the choice of trying to kill him fast, or use the rounds you get to recover and reposition.
Every once in a while, melees have to decide whether to resort to ranged attacks, do something else, or keep being pummeled by the heavy aoe damage around the enemy.
Ranged attackers are targeted by javelin throws. Then, their companions will have to decide if they want to try and free restrained targets (using actions) or just let them take the damage but kill the enemy faster.

This is of course a little harder at higher level, where you can forcecage, banish, and do things like that.
I personally fix that "problem" by adding an houserule:
Legendary creatures lose their standard Legendary resistance.
Instead, anytime they are hit by an effect that neutralizes them completely based on their available tactics, they are immune to that effect, or they suffer a reduced effect that usually lasts one round or imposes disadvantage for 1 round.
But this is another can of worms, really.

That last part just seems like DM fiat to me, you just negate the effect to some much lesser effect and could lead to resentment from the players.

[rollingForInit]

I like these kinds of encounters as large boss fights, but I wouldn't want to DM them or play them as a PC all the time. Every once in a while is fun. More than that would get tedious, imo.

You'd also have to plan the encounter with changes in mind. Have events planned that will go off if the encounters turns out to be much easier than expected (for instance, backup for the BBEG), or have monster abilities that you won't use if the encouter turns out to be much more difficult than expected.