Monster HP Too High?

[Jeebs]

I'm DMing HotDQ right now, and we just finished Castle Naerytar, so the party is leveling up to 6.

I'm excited to get into higher adventuring tiers, but I'm also missing the way the lower levels played. I don't mind the PCs having more HP, but I really dislike how high monster HP is getting. It's been especially bad with monsters who have resistance to nonmagical weapons, so I've been passing out extras.

There's only one Sharpshooter (no Great Weapon Masters), so DPR is hardly optimized, but all of this is making me miss 4e's minions.

Is anyone having similar problems? Is it just HotDQ? Or me?

[Gastronomie]

Though I haven't played HotDQ to the end, I hear that as one of 5e's first campaigns, it's poorly designed in some places, and that it requires some fixing by the DM to make it work as well as it should.

If you feel they're too high, you can always secretly lower them in the middle of battle, unless you always show your PCs how much HP your monsters have left. It may feel like cheating, but it's not like they'd ever realize.

[Jeebs]

I've been doing a good deal of fudging, both to have monsters die sooner and to have bosses survive the Sharpshooter from time to time.

Tough to find that balance though!

I'm hoping people have had different experiences with higher CR monsters and at levels 11 through 17.

[SharkForce]

so long as we're talking about inappropriate encounters in HotDQ, if you haven't been warned yet, the assassins encounter should be toned down. i won't give specifics in case your players read this, but there's a very good chance you'll kill the entire party if you don't change it.

anyways, 5e generally does have HP grow much faster than damage, generally speaking. that's by design; enemies get tougher to kill by increased HP rather than by increasing AC so that you don't have to 100% focus increasing your attack bonus just to stay relevant.

[Jeebs]

I switched out the assassins for a rude knight and his retinue. Thanks though!

I like that AC stays low for a lot of creatures, but I wish their damage would increase more than their HP. Might just have to keep tinkering on my end.

[ad_hoc]

I have found that a lot of people have problems with HotDQ because it emphasizes the exploration and social interaction pillars more than combat. It's probably close to 40/40/20 respectively when most people are used to combat being around 50% of play.

If the party tries to fight everything they come across, they should be having a bad time.

[Quintessence]

A group I am in recently finished HotDQ... Barely.... That Skyreach castle needs to be retuned desperately or a TPK is extremely likely if it isn't played absolutely perfectly.

[ad_hoc]

A group I am in recently finished HotDQ... Barely.... That Skyreach castle needs to be retuned desperately or a TPK is extremely likely if it isn't played absolutely perfectly.

By perfectly do you mean talking to the NPCs instead of trying to kill them all?