Imp nigh invulnerable - possible frustration?

[DonLouigi]

Ahoi,

I am about to delve into the fascinating world of D&D5 at the beginning of the year by Dungeon-Mastering for the first time, which means I neither have experience with the system (played one one-shot) nor with the Dungeon Master's seat. It is going to be a fan-written free adventure by the name "Mad Manor of Astabar", and my post will contain a small spoiler.

Anyway, in the course of the adventure the characters are expected to face an imp, which will probably lead to combat. Now the imp is CR1, so it should be an appropriate "Boss-like" encounter for a party of L1-PCs, right?

But looking at the stats of an Imp in the Monster Manual, it seems to be resistant or outright immune to everything. It has resistance against cold damage and physical damage from non-magical, non-silvered weapons (which will probably be the default for freshly minted characters), it is immune vs fire and poison damage and it hast advantage on all saving throws vs spells.

Now, possibly all of that is not all that unbalanced, but I imagine it being pretty frustrating if the enemy can resist everything the characters can throw at it. Does anyone have any experience with this sort of thing (preferably at low levels)? Should I look for another encounter?

Thanks in advance for advice.

[Smorgonoffz]

Ehm the imp has only 10 hp in the standard array 15 maximum, it shouldn't be too difficult. I think you're just worrying too much.

[Razuchee]

One possible solution: magic missle the crap out of the imp, as he only has advantage on saves. Also note that devils, contrary to demons, can be reasoned with. It might st first seem like a tough encounter, but an Imp has only few hit points and not really great AC. If your adventurers do not totally whiff with their attacks, it should not be that hard. A Fighter that hits and rolls average with a greatsword, will still take away half of the imps hp (assuming that you use point buy). Just don't let it sting your casters, because they will fall if hit.


EDIT: Ninja'd

[Errow]

Resistance = take half damage (rounded down) so 10 HP with resistance is basically 20 HP.

Also, I could be wrong but I think an encounter of CR equal to the players' level is Medium difficulty. If anything, I'd have a couple helpers for the imp ready to jump in, just in case the imp is going down too fast. Depends on how many spell slots / class resources the players have left at that point.

Good luck!

[ShikomeKidoMi]

Don't tell your players the damage is being halved for resistance and you'll cut out most of the frustration right there. If you tell them anything about how effective their attacks are, just relay approximately how relatively damage the imp looks (that was a minor wound, you really hurt him, he looks like he's on last legs, etc). And frankly, with 10 hp, he should look relatively damaged after pretty much any attack, even with resistance. Unless it's entirely fire-based, I suppose.

Say you hit him with a non-magic non-silvered weapon for six damage (easily in reach of level 1 characters). And the imp takes half, so he takes 3 damage. He's still lost almost a third of his hit point total.

[Parra]

I would find a single CR1 imp to be quite a weak boss fight tbh. 10hp (20 when factoring damage resistance) would last all of 2 maybe 3 hits depending on your group. Maybe even only 1 hit if its a well optimised group (or just a single Magic Missile Spell). And its AC is poor enough to guarantee everyone will hit it fairly easy.

Granted its poison sting can be nasty if it hits and if you fail the poison save and its invisibility would give it the opening attack. Even so it seems quite weak.

If anything I would be looking to augment the imp somehow. Maybe bolstering its hit points, or creative use of terrain making it difficult to reach (or giving it plenty of cover/hiding places to re-apply invisibility), or some weedy minions to occupy the PC's for a turn or 2

[. Shadowblade .]

LOL, imp cant be serious boss - even some PCs can have him as their familiar :smallbiggrin:

[DonLouigi]

Oh well, guess I worried without reason. If it is underwhelming, I have a few ideas how to play up a few other encounters (the imp is not necessarily the last one, so there could be another climactic battle). So the only thing I was worried about was frustrating my players. But yeah, with 10 HP (or even 15 for max HD) it will not drag on and therefore probably not frustrate.

Thanks guys, I'll see what happens.

[Grey Watcher]

I ran that adventure, in a low magic campaign, no less. I was kind of disappointed how quickly the little guy went down. I think he's just meant to tax the players a little before they get to the last room, not be a major battle in his own right.

It didn't help that they didn't trigger him stalking them until basically as late as possible.

An imp can make can great harrier in larger fights. As a solo, he's little more than a speed bump before the players enter the final room.

[Dalebert]

Yeah, just want to repeat that CR1 for lvl 1 players means he's an average encounter. Players are meant to battle several of those a day without much difficulty. At most it's intended to use a little resources to butter them up for a tougher fight.

[JakOfAllTirades]

Actually, I had an Imp in my campaign who gave the PCs a really bad time at 1st level, and they were all experienced players. Granted, I'm also an experienced GM, so the Imp had all my tricks up his sleeve, too. He was "rat form" when they first spotted him, so they completely underestimated him. Much mayhem ensued, and they're like "Why is one little rat kicking our butts?!" He was almost dead when he turned invisible and escaped so he could tell his master all about the PCs' abilities. LOL Don't mess with Imps.