Are these 1st level encounters too hard?

[Bahamut7]

So I finally get to play my first 5e game. For everyone involved this is our first time dealing with the system. As we are inexperienced with the system I figured this would be the better place to ask.

The first set of enemies the DM has thrown at us are Scouts that have an AC of 13 and HP of 16, they also have the ability to fire 2 shots with their longbow or attack with their sword twice. According to the math, they could possibly one shot each of us in the party. Unless my Thunderwave or other spell from the actual wizard can do max damage, I don't see us able to one-shot these guys. Is this how 1st level encounters go or are these encounters unnecessarily difficult.

Party is composed of:
Gnome Wizard (typically firebolts from afar)
Half-Orc Fighter (specializes in grappling)
Elven Rogue (goes in for the sneak attack)
Human Monk (varient Rping as mage, uses Produce Flame alot while making his way to the enemies)
Tibbit Light Domain Cleric
and a Ranger.

Second session that 3 of us dropped and barely survived the Cleric and Ranger were absent from the game. Not sure if the DM forgot to account for this or not. Not to mention we did have a string of unlucky rolls.

He is using an encounter builder that seems fair at first glance but doesn't seem balanced to me in play.

So are these encounters level appropriate or are they too difficult?

[Reosoul]

they also have the ability to fire 2 shots with their longbow or attack with their sword twice.

This is pretty much why you died right here. Scouts are one of the best units for murdering level 1's, mostly due to double attack making it feel like you're fighting 8 enemies rather than just 4. Depending on how the terrain and how the fight starts, it can be downright deadly for a PC or two.

As for actually dealing with this as a player, the 'dodge' action is actually really good if you can get in the face of a couple of them and soak attacks(or make them eat an OA). Dodge is one of the most underestimated abilities in 5E at low levels. Use it!

If they're just sniping, only thing you can do is use cover and try to get in close to lock them down with Dodge/OA so they have to focus whoever your party tank is or waste their turn disengaging.

I don't think your DM was simply trying to kill you, but you could always discuss encounter balance with them if they're amicable. Generally, you don't want action economy being too far swung in the direction of team monster at low levels. Low level parties don't have fireball or multi-attack smites to clear stuff out at that point and get the fight to a manageable level.

[busterswd]

Few things:

5E at 1st level is swingy. You don't have enough HP to survive unlucky streaks.

As for it being too hard, how many scouts were you fighting? And what were the circumstances? (Did you ambush them? Did they ambush you? Or was it neutral?)

Tactics also make a big difference:

Your Cleric being there would have helped a lot; being downed matters a lot less when you have easy access to ranged healing.

Your Wizard could also have made this a lot easier if he had CC, something like Sleep.

Also grappling is sort of wasted at level 1 (and it doesn't get much better later on). You need to grapple then trip to get any real mileage out of it, but had the Fighter just swung both of those rounds, you probably could've killed the enemies faster.

So hard to tell from the information you've given, but fights do tend to get less random once you hit level 2 or 3.

[Pazerniusz]

4 scouts is worth 800 exp(2*(4*100))
That is deadly chalenge.
Even for 6 player it is still deadly.
Your GM is trying to kill you.
/// Edit
Single Manticore or Troll would be less deadly one.

[Bahamut7]

The wizard did use his Sleep...it only affected 1 of them. Yes the DM, realized that he gave us a deadly encounter. We got the drop on a group and then they had range in another. His choice made sense from a setting perspective (military factions, we are part of a mercenary group).

Yes, if our ranger and Cleric had been there, we would have had better control on them. I will discuss the use of scouts with him. We had to cut the second session short and left off at another encounter that we have the jump on. He can still swap out what they are.

For future reference, is the HP on the scouts ok and just their double attack is too much currently or should they also be a single HD?

I will rexamine the Dodge maneuver, thanks for the advise.

[Contrast]

I think the mistake the DM made was in sending a deadly encounter at level 1 PCs (unless the tone of the game is meant to involve PCs dying).

Level 1 is just too swingy for the challenge rating system to account for properly. Doesn't matter if you outnumber them if a single hit drops you and you then can't contribute.

Was almost part of a TPK the other week in the first combat of a campaign fighting an equal number of goblins vs PCs. Goblins rolled well for initiative and party all whiffed their attacks first turn meaning the goblins got two full turns of attacks in before any of them dropped. If they had charged us instead of shooting (arranging themselves in a nice easy AoE) and we hadn't had a wizard with sleep with us, that would have been the end of the campaign right there. Slightly awkward as the adventure required us to immediately chase off but we had almost no healing and were in a pretty bad way.

Its worth noting that a few sub-optimal decisions can also rapidly swing a combat. I DMd a game the other day in which the party had a combat in the bag...until the barbarian went off to rescue a hostage without finishing the opponents off leaving them to gang up on the other two party members resulting in both of them almost dying. If he had stayed he would have finished off one while the fighter and rogue finished off the remaining guy between the two of them. In much the same way, your fighter spending turns grappling rather than stabbing or your monk casting produce flame instead of something where they get to add their stat to the damage can all add up. If you weren't acting as a team and focus firing them down it'll go badly. I'm not saying they shouldn't be doing those things (we play RPGs for fun after all :smallbiggrin:) but level 1 is a knife edge and it doesn't take much to push you off.

As level one characters you have very few resources to burn when things turn against you and things turn against you very easily. As a DM if you don't want people to die, always use kid gloves at low levels. Things improve pretty rapidly as you level - by level 3 theres significantly more of a buffer. Of course it might simply be that your DM wants the start of the campaign to be gritty and brutal and is expecting there to be some character attrition to hammer home that this is a war.

[busterswd]

The wizard did use his Sleep...it only affected 1 of them. Yes the DM, realized that he gave us a deadly encounter. We got the drop on a group and then they had range in another. His choice made sense from a setting perspective (military factions, we are part of a mercenary group).

Yes, if our ranger and Cleric had been there, we would have had better control on them. I will discuss the use of scouts with him. We had to cut the second session short and left off at another encounter that we have the jump on. He can still swap out what they are.

For future reference, is the HP on the scouts ok and just their double attack is too much currently or should they also be a single HD?

I will rexamine the Dodge maneuver, thanks for the advise.


For reference, I'd throw 1/4 or 1/8 CR enemies at a new level 1 party. Regular attacks can down a new party, let alone multiattack. I'd have used a scout as the "miniboss" for an encounter, not as a minion.

How many were you fighting? If you were fighting 4, from a pure numbers perspective, that's way too hard. 3 is manageable with sleep, but still runs a high risk of downing party members. 2 would have probably been appropriate (and still in that situation, it wouldn't have been weird for a couple downs).

This is also the sort of encounter that you don't want to run as part of a marathon.

I'll parrot what other people have said and suggest waiting for level 2/3 (300 XP is not that much). 2 gives you enough HP to weather a hit or two, 3 actually gives you some extra utility and a much healthier buffer of HP. If encounter are still destroying your party, it might be time to have a table talk with the DM.

[Bahamut7]

The rogue and Fighter were doing their best to team up and focus fire on the targets. The wizard kept his firebolts going and I the monk was doing my best to stay in character. I tend to approach with the produce flame while preparing to use my bonus action. My character concept is akin to this, but seeing as I do get an extra +6 of damage if I go physical (assuming I hit each time), I may need to do this until the group becomes more cohesive and the DM figures the system better.

Of course it didn't help that when I did go physical I missed on my attacks...:smallfurious:

This particular DM has adifficult time building balanced encounters...they are thematic but tend to become too one sided. I am giving him some leniency as we are all new to his edition, but I did warn him that the numbers need to be small for this system. He threw a 30 DC skill check at us session 1 to show a cameo, I then promptly told him that was not only impossible for his NPCs to dish out (4e characters not converted properly) but also impossible for any party member to pass.

I will sit down with him tonight and help him balance things a bit. I do appreciate everyone's input.

[Dudu]

Lvl 1 is so rubbish that, really, my advice is that you start at least at lvl 3, when everyone got their archetypes already.

Had some poor encounters at lvl 1. No matter how light the DM is, a short streak of unlucky rolls and you can face a TPK. Players barely have any resource at their disposal, their HPs are in a single digit. Everything will be dictaded by luck with very little left for strategy.

I'd rather face a challenge meant for a lvl 7 party as a lvl 5 one than play with a lvl 1 party. It's easier, at least if the party is well built and the players are capable, the first can be an easier encounter than the later. More rewarding too.

[Bahamut7]

Lvl 1 is so rubbish that, really, my advice is that you start at least at lvl 3, when everyone got their archetypes already.

Had some poor encounters at lvl 1. No matter how light the DM is, a short streak of unlucky rolls and you can face a TPK. Players barely have any resource at their disposal, their HPs are in a single digit. Everything will be dictaded by luck with very little left for strategy.

I'd rather face a challenge meant for a lvl 7 party as a lvl 5 one than play with a lvl 1 party. It's easier, at least if the party is well built and the players are capable, the first can be an easier encounter than the later. More rewarding too.

I had suggested that but we figured level 1 wouldn't be too bad...didn't think he would get the n00b hunters out lol.