Problems on my Out of the Abyss Game

[Silfazaris]

Good evening, everyone. I'm new to the forums and this is my first post here.
I'm DMing an Out of The Abyss game for 11 months and I've been looking for advices and suggestions from experienced DMs and players in Out of the Abyss without any success, so I'm trying this forum :smallbiggrin:
I'm not an unexperienced DM. I DM for 18 years, but, I'm kinda new to the 5th edition and to be honest Out of the Abyss is the FIRST premade adventure I'm DMing because I always liked to design my own adventures. The thing is I love drows and all (really, all) of my homemade games involved Demons and Devils, so I gave this book a try. This is the first 5th edition game I'm DMing and the first 5th edition game my players are playing.

I'd like opinions about what's happening at the moment in my game from players or DMs who finished Out of the Abyss or who are close to finish the book either as a DM or as a player.

I made a huge topic talking about my game but meh, I just decided to shortened it. Nobody would read a topic with 10 pages (I checked on word).

Straight to the point.

My problems are:

1- The group consisted of 33 or 34 characters in total because of the followers. I calculated the group XP Threshold and all encounters from Chapter 2 ended up been trivial according to XP calculation. No combat from there would be a real challenge. So I decided to make a Random Encounters Revamp, I made a new table using demons and creatures from the underground. Even using the Demon Encounter from Chapter 10 Events would kill a lot of NPC followers. And that happened. I had to put more difficult encounters to make decent challenge and started to use Demon Encounters from Chapter 10, thus leading to many many followers deaths.

2- Now the group consists of 6 characters + Zilch + Shield Guardian. And still their XP Threshold is very high. They faced three creatures of Challenge 8 and managed to kill them without even spending 50% of their resourcers.
Of course it could be a challenge if I put a lot of combats in one day, but...common travel until chapter 9 is based on a CHANCE of 2 encounters in a day. Chapter 10 is ONE encounter in 2 days. So they are always at full health, full spell slots, and such.
I can't just remove long rest normal rule and start to use the optional long rest variant now after 11 months of game, they would complain a lot. I need to stick with the normal long rest.
So I need to make Hard/Deadly Encounters to give them decent challenge because a Medium Encounter is likely a 2 rounds encounter for them.

3- Banishment has turned into a easy win tool in my campaign. On my new Random Encounters table there are a lot of demon encounters, representing their arrival to the Underdark. After seeing what Banish can do, both clerics prepared Banishment, even the sorcerer got Banishment spell, as well as the Warlock. With a single or two encounters per day, what do you think that happens with two clerics and one sorcerer having three 4th-level slots and one 5th-level slot plus a warlock with two 5th-level slots and a rod of the pact keeper (+1 slot per long rest)?

4- Foraging became useless since they got to 5th-level. As well as Poisoned Supplies and Spoiled Supplies now on Chapter 10.

5- Madness, that is a great tool and an important part of this campaign is trivial in my game since they learned from experience that a person acting in a unusual way means they are probably affected by madness. They now got lots of lesser restoration and even greater restoration spells to use at the very moment they perceive a weird act. Now after they reached 9th-level, they always use greater restoration if any of the party members if affected by madness.

6- Vanishing NPCs, Poisoned NPCs, Discipline Problems Events became useless since all of their followers died because I had to put stronger monsters to give him a decent challenge (I just can't ignore a monster's Area of Effect ability to save followers, thus leading to an easier encounter).

7- Counterspell is ruining my casters. Zilch is with them and I just can't ignore his counterspells, my players would complain. The sorcerer almost always use counterspell, meaning a useless round from a monster they face.

8- After 3 Encounters from my new Random Encounters table I still feel they are too strong. They defeated 5 Otyughs (Challenge 5, meaning a hard encounter) with ease yesterday. And I don't want this to turn into a bad 3.5 game where the DM has to put a marilith to face a 10th-level overpower party, for me this would mean I'm a bad DM in my opinion. I also don't want to make a combat with one Nalfshnee + 40 dretches leading to dozens of dice rolls even if I use Handling Mobs option from DMG. I'm afraid they rape Demogorgon when they face him. And I'm afraid of what can happen on the post-campaign I'm planning to do in the Abysm. I already made Random Encounter table for Shendilavri (Malcanthet's layer) just for fun last year and I feel they will be able to melt any of the monsters with ease.

I put some Fomorians, Cloakers, Cambions, Chuuls and Mind Flayers on the table.
The monsters I "created" consist of some creatures with extra abilities. I took the idea that some of the demon lords servants came to the Underdark with them. They are:

- Barlgura Servant of Demogorgon: 2 heads and 4 arms, meaning doubled attacks and more hp. CR 8 each
- Black Pudding Servant of Juiblex: An intelligent Black Pudding touched by Juiblex with average spellcasting ability. CR 6 each
- Chamberlain of Zuggtmoy: Gave those guys a bit more damage and more hp. CR 5 each
- Minotaur Servant of Baphomet: Made them able to attack with greataxe and horn in a single round and gave them some hp
- Succubus Servant of Grazz't: Gave these babies spellcasting ability as 9th-level sorcerers. CR 8 each.


Some info for you guys so you don't have to ask me about the party and etc.

- The group consists of: 1 male wood elf cleric of Aerdrie Faenya with Tempest domain, 1 male half-elf sorcerer of draconic bloodline, 1 female drow warlock of archfey patron, 1 female tiefling cleric of Ilmater with Life domain, 1 male half-orc fighter of champion archetype, 1 male drow ranger of hunter's path. All of them were made using 27 point build and we are not using Unearthed Arcana stuff, so only the core books. Also all of them take the average hp for each level (5 for d8, 6 for d10, etc).

- They don't have an arsenal of magic items. I'll list their items:

* Elf Cleric of Aerdrie Faenya: Amulet of Health, Dawnbringer (Found in Khaem's Tomb)
* Half-Elf Sorcerer: +2 Wand of the War Mage, Amulet of the Shield Guardian (gave by the Harpist in Chapter 8)
* Half-Orc Fighter: +1 greatsword, winged boots, adamantine armor
* Drow Warlock: +2 Rod of the Pact Keeper, +1 Rapier
* Tiefling Cleric of Ilmater: Warhammer +2, Gauntlets of Ogre Power, Neclace of Prayer Beads (no planar ally bead)
* Drow Ranger: +1 Longbow, Bracers of Archery

They have no potions of healing or scrolls on their disposal. They got 4,000gp though because they don't divide gold or gems, they make it to be "the group's hoard", using it when necessary for costy spell's material components.

- I allow only 2 short rests per day. Although they took only 1 short rest per day at any time they had too.

So, what are your thoughts guys? Should I ignore the book and put 3-4 encounters per day and lessening the rate of encounters?
On Chapter 10, 1 event every 2 days. Should I put 4 encounters in one day and then ignore 3 days of event?
Because it will take around 90 days for them to reach Gravenhollow.

Thanks in advance for your time!

[mgshamster]

I don't have the time to answer everything right now (I will later), but I just want to comment on the number of NPCs.

Use a companion system. You can see in my signature a link to my OotA campaign​ log, and in the first few posts l link to the companion system I used.

My campaign is complete, so you can read the entire thing and use any part for inspiration or discard as you see fit.

[Malifice]

1- The group consisted of 33 or 34 characters in total because of the followers. I calculated the group XP Threshold and all encounters from Chapter 2 ended up been trivial according to XP calculation. No combat from there would be a real challenge. So I decided to make a Random Encounters Revamp, I made a new table using demons and creatures from the underground. Even using the Demon Encounter from Chapter 10 Events would kill a lot of NPC followers. And that happened. I had to put more difficult encounters to make decent challenge and started to use Demon Encounters from Chapter 10, thus leading to many many followers deaths.

34 characters?

In the future, I suggest 1 PC per player. Followers exist (if at all) to do stuff in the background for them; not to adventure with them. They should be Guards, and maybe a Veteran or two, or Cultists and maybe a Cult leader or two. Low HP 'Redshirts' that get in the way rather than really do anything.

This makes the PCs 'unique' (they're the crew of the Enterprise; the followers are the redshirts).

Im aware that this AP has a large number of followers, but you should really just have them in the background doing very little. This isnt their story, its the PCs.


2- Now the group consists of 6 characters + Zilch + Shield Guardian. And still their XP Threshold is very high. They faced three creatures of Challenge 8 and managed to kill them without even spending 50% of their resourcers.

I would expect 6 PCs (plus a caster and golem) to destroy 3 x CR 8s with very little effort.

Now lets see if they can do it 6-8 times between long rests.


Of course it could be a challenge if I put a lot of combats in one day, but...common travel until chapter 9 is based on a CHANCE of 2 encounters in a day. Chapter 10 is ONE encounter in 2 days. So they are always at full health, full spell slots, and such.
I can't just remove long rest normal rule and start to use the optional long rest variant now after 11 months of game, they would complain a lot. I need to stick with the normal long rest.
So I need to make Hard/Deadly Encounters to give them decent challenge because a Medium Encounter is likely a 2 rounds encounter for them.

Stop.

Do not dial up encounter difficulty as a matter of course; either add more encounters and/or use more encounter free days. Dialing up encounter difficulty will simply force the Players to use Nova strike tactics. It will entrench this problem you're having.

If your encounters are not affecting the success or failure of the current quest (via resource depletion) and are just getting creamed why are they there at all?

Dont use 'random' encounters as just a daily % chance. You should use them at your whim to deplete party resources or to push the players in a certain direction, or to hurry the players up. Occasionally throw one in to surprise them and keep them on their toes. Insert a 'random' encounter (or the chance of one) whenever you think it fits the story or is needed to inject some pacing into the game, or if the PCs are having too easy a time of it.

'Random' encoutners are best used within a 'normal' adventuring day of 6ish encounters. Either as one of those encounters, or as an additional encounter triggered by the PCs (tarrying/ slowing down/ doung something foolish/ random chance).

There is nothing wrong with the PCs travelling for a week or two and encountering very little (other than wildlife, commoners, hunters etc). Once they get to the [dungeon/ lair/ adventure locale] feel free to give them a random encounter the day before they get there (its purpose is to deplete HD).

Your best friend is time limiting quests. If the PCs are doing something, there should be a time limit (and consequences for missing this deadline) if they fail. They're being chased by [an angry Demon lord they annoyed/ Drow/ Duergar] if youre stuck for ideas.


3- Banishment has turned into a easy win tool in my campaign. On my new Random Encounters table there are a lot of demon encounters, representing their arrival to the Underdark. After seeing what Banish can do, both clerics prepared Banishment, even the sorcerer got Banishment spell, as well as the Warlock. With a single or two encounters per day, what do you think that happens with two clerics and one sorcerer having three 4th-level slots and one 5th-level slot plus a warlock with two 5th-level slots and a rod of the pact keeper (+1 slot per long rest)?

Exactly my point above. Your players are reacting to your choices as DM (you've decided to only provide them with 0-2 encounters per adventuring day). Accordingly they are preparing (and reaching for) Banishment and Nova stomping your encounters with the spell on round 1, turn 1.

Its your fault here. You've decided to provide 2 encounter adventuring days. Stop.

If you dont want to stop, announce you're using the 'gritty realism' variant from now on. They can complain as much as they want. Its perfect for occasional 0-2 encounter adventuring days broken up the occasional week of nothing.


4- Foraging became useless since they got to 5th-level. As well as Poisoned Supplies and Spoiled Supplies now on Chapter 10.

Sounds like they're at least 7th level, so I highly doubt 7th+ level PCs are going to have an issue with foraging. Not an issue.


5- Madness, that is a great tool and an important part of this campaign is trivial in my game since they learned from experience that a person acting in a unusual way means they are probably affected by madness. They now got lots of lesser restoration and even greater restoration spells to use at the very moment they perceive a weird act. Now after they reached 9th-level, they always use greater restoration if any of the party members if affected by madness.

Greater restoration has a GP cost attached. And its a 5th level spell. Its a precious resouce for 9th level casters (assuming they are assigned to a time limited quest, and may need those slots for other things).

Again; your friend is the longer adventuring day. Hit them with 6 encounters between long rests instead of 0-2.


6- Vanishing NPCs, Poisoned NPCs, Discipline Problems Events became useless since all of their followers died because I had to put stronger monsters to give him a decent challenge (I just can't ignore a monster's Area of Effect ability to save followers, thus leading to an easier encounter).

Because you've dialled up your encoutners, its turned your game into rocket tag. Youve murdered all the followers and now PCs are getting offed.

STOP.

You're creating the problem. Im not being a douche here, but the solution is obvious (you can already see it). Add more encounters between long rests, dont increase the difficulty of the few encounters you're already giving them.


7- Counterspell is ruining my casters. Zilch is with them and I just can't ignore his counterspells, my players would complain. The sorcerer almost always use counterspell, meaning a useless round from a monster they face.

Counterspell his Counterspell. Also note, Counterspell only works on a spell you can see being cast within 60'. Position your casters in darkness or invisible (they're Demons and Drow remember) or simply place them 60' away or give them counter spells of thier own.


8- After 3 Encounters from my new Random Encounters table I still feel they are too strong. They defeated 5 Otyughs (Challenge 5, meaning a hard encounter) with ease yesterday. And I don't want this to turn into a bad 3.5 game where the DM has to put a marilith to face a 10th-level overpower party, for me this would mean I'm a bad DM in my opinion. I also don't want to make a combat with one Nalfshnee + 40 dretches leading to dozens of dice rolls even if I use Handling Mobs option from DMG. I'm afraid they rape Demogorgon when they face him. And I'm afraid of what can happen on the post-campaign I'm planning to do in the Abysm. I already made Random Encounter table for Shendilavri (Malcanthet's layer) just for fun last year and I feel they will be able to melt any of the monsters with ease.

STOP!

The problem is obvious. You're pushing rocket tag/ Nova strike (1-2 deadly encounter adventuring days) on the players and they are reacting accordingly.

Stay with the 6-8 encounter adventuring day (with 2 short rests) as much as possible (aim for 50+ percent of all your encounters to happen within this 6-8 paradigm). When planning your adventures during the week, frame a bunch of 6-8 encounters within a time limit (of your devising that makes sense with regards to the environment the PCs find themselves).

Do this often enough, and your players will start to marshal resources accordingly.

Your 'increase encounter difficulty' tweaks is causing you most of your problems.


I allow only 2 short rests per day. Although they took only 1 short rest per day at any time they had too.

Unsurprising seeing as they only every seem to get 0-2 encounters most adventuring days. They'll rarely need more than one short rest per long rest


So, what are your thoughts guys? Should I ignore the book and put 3-4 encounters per day and lessening the rate of encounters?

Yes. Example:

Provide them with a quiet week of travel doing little, and then stage a (hard) 'random' encounter featuring a bunch of Snirfneblin being carried away by (monsters). Leave a macguffin on the dead bodies of (the monsters) slain by the PCs that indicates the Gnomes are being taken away to be sacrificed (in 4 hours time). The sacrifice will release a (Demon lord).

When the PCs chase up the captured Gnomes they face a race against time to (defeat the remaining 5-6 encounters) and stop the summoning of the Demon lord.

If they fail... its Demon lord time. Have THAT as one of your 'random' encounters.

Rinse and repeat. For example, have the next 'random' encounter be a Drow war party that bumps the PCs. When the Drow dont return to base, the Drow Wizard boss uses clairvoyance/ magic to locate the PCs and gate in demons to crush them. This is then followed by Drider scouts a few hours later sent out on a clearing patrol. For your fourth encounter later that night... a Mindlayer and his intellect devourer pets (that seek to infiltrate the party and take over one of the PCs) - it was this Illithid that the Drow were actually out to find and destroy!.

Once they get comfortable with the longer adventuring day paradigm, THEN (a week or so later) hit them with a single 'random' encounter that is deadly+ just to keep them on their toes.

[mgshamster]

Since there's so much to talk about and I don't have that time (sorry, I promised earlier and now I can't fulfill), let me bounce off of what Malice said.

First, he's absolutely right. However, OotA is not designed that way. Here's what I did:

1) Customized my own "dungeons" to creat a 6-8 encounter day.

My favorite one was their entry into the library. I andeach the entry a portal, and the entrance was under water. They had to fight through an Aboleth dungeon woth 8 planned encounters in one of the rivers feeding into the Darklake.

2) Added non-attacking monsters for tension.

As the crossed the Darklake, I had 2-3 random encounters per day, but not all of them were combat. Sometimes it was just a tense passing of Duergar slavers. And once, I had a water troll following them, feeding off their kills. May not work at level 7, but it was really tense by the third day back when they were level 4.

3) Sped up travel time for the second half of the book.

One we passed Vizerans Tower, I stopped focusing on travel. Travel through the underdark by that level isn't threatening - it just slows down game play. So all random encounters were gone and it was all just narrated if they encountered something that they could easily kill. Don't waste game time on it.

Instead, I focused on the meat of the chapters, and used that to create the 6-8 encounters per day.

This would be in the purple worm tunnels, the maze, the Putrid wedding giant fungus area and leading into the astral plane battle menzoberanzan, and then the final battle.

All in all, this adventure poorly follows the recommended encounter design for this edition, but that's really only during the travel. You can make up for it if you think of the chapters that detail single locations as a "dungeon" and then design encounters for that entire dungeon.

[Malifice]

All in all, this adventure poorly follows the recommended encounter design for this edition, but that's really only during the travel. You can make up for it if you think of the chapters that detail single locations as a "dungeon" and then design encounters for that entire dungeon.

Youll find most 5E AP's consist of weeks of travel or downtime (with maybe random encounters at the DMs discretion) and several 'zoomed in' adventure locales that conform to the 6-8 encounter paradigm.

What (or how) the DM chooses to do to police the AD, tweak rests within that meta, impose time limits etc is up to him (or her).

I've never seen the point of a truly 'random' encounter just for the sake of having one. They are best used as one of the encounters in an adventuring day; either as a preordained 'random' encounter within the 6-8 encounters, or as an additional one over and above this number thrown at the PCs when they're tarrying, having too easy a time of it, over resting, their actions call for it, or just messing about and the game needs a bit of an octane boost.

Throwing 1-2 [deadly/ hard] encounters at them the day before the adventure also works. The point of these encounters is to deplete the party of Hit Dice for the adventuring day to come.

I'll intentionally design random encounters when planning during the week. Sometimes what the PCs think is a random encoutner, is really just the 1st encounter of that adventures adventuring day. I like to tie in my 'random' encounters (from time to time) to prior adventures. That BBEG mage you killed at level 3? Well... he's been raised by his cultist friends and is back (with a wicked scar and fair few more levels) lying in ambush with a bunch of monsters to wreak revenge. And so forth.

My random encounters are not generally random. They're almost always planned. I might roll to determine if one occurs, but its more used as a theatrical tool (Basically, I'm just rolling dice, pretending to look something up, sighing and shaking my head and declaring a 'random encounter' has occured) or I might impose a chance of a random encounter and then declare Im checking for one (the roll itself is often more than enough to speed the players up, or make them think twice about resting).

Random encounters are a valuable DM tool when used in context. If the party are getting hammered, put them away. If the party are having an easy time of the adventure, throw one at them. Some of the best random encounters take the adventure on a whole different tangent altogether, or insert recurring NPC villans or memorable encounters in their own right.

They're there to keep your players on their toes, and for a DM to insert stuff into the campaign or adventure as the story (and the game mechanics) demands.

If (as is the case with the OP) your 'random' encounters are just pushing the PCs into Nova strikes, generating problems, and creating a style of gameplay that is contrary to how you want your campaign to run, then take a step back and rethink how you're running them.

[busterswd]

Let me give you some more general advice, although Out of the Abyss is a prime example of why:

Don't be afraid to simplify. Don't be afraid to cut out mechanics that seem cumbersome, and don't worry about getting things 100% by the book if the book isn't that great in certain areas.

What I did with my campaign was change up the rules for travel during the second half. As I told the party: "Before, you were naked, scared, and fighting to survive for just one more day. Now? You are heroes leading a small army. The foraging, the killing little minions? You've got people for that, now."

I rolled for summary combat and summary casualties (if a fight seemed like it might be a lot for them to handle), and didn't worry about splitting the XP for easy things; the game is a little too stingy with XP, anyway.

Banishment is annoying, but that's what legendary resistances are for; if it's a big, important, fight, don't be afraid to give a mob one or two uses, even if it's not in the book. You should be rolling your dice behind a screen. Whether or not the monster saved, or had to burn a resistance, just mention that it "seemed to shrug off the spell." Nothing discourages players more than operating in the dark with one or two failures in a row.

As for challenge: don't be afraid to amp up the dial on some of the encounters. I had a 7 person party that took down a fully powered Demogorgon without casualities, and that was with a couple of lesser fights before hand. Considering introducing creatures that WILL go for downed party members, either from intelligence of bloodlust; it makes fights a little harder, AND even if they survive the creature, they will start to fear them.

[Cespenar]

More encounters per day isn't a foolproof solution. As a player (in Out of the Abyss right now) I hate mindless random encounters just to fill out the "adventuring day".

Our DM is buffing up our encounters just like the OP. We're having fun. For example, in the Purple Worm Lair, the DM put 2 worms instead of one, but arranged things so that they coincided with both the drow group and the fomorians. Lots of chaos ensued. We got off relatively easily but only due to a combined moment of luck/ingenuity by our wizard. Didn't have 6-8 encounters that day, just this one.

Inversely, the Beholder Eye quest. I didn't read the book but I expect it to have been run pretty close to the intended level. But due to some clever beholder play, it was a difficult battle. We struggled a lot, countered the beholder's shenanigans with our own, and won. Again, we had just that one encounter that day.

So, I'd say, as long as you're making it difficult in an "interesting" way, it's not an arms race. Just check your players' responses and see if they are having fun or not.

[lordshadowisle]

I've dm-ed OOTA and I've modified the game to avoid the some of the problems you're seeing.

First is the NPCs. The second half of the book gives you an army, which makes no sense to manage. I've cut the whole army out. The party now has a quest to gather information, and to act if required. There may(or may not) be an army behind the party, but the party neither controls or is controlled by it.

For the first half of the book, the escapee NPCs (all 10 of them) didn't have much of an impact on combat; I've handwaved their contribution in battles by a combination of lack of weaponry, cowardice (sarith), and falling back to protect the other unarmed escapees.

The second point is the adventuring day. It was obvious that if we followed the random encounter system, there would be no challenge at all; simply burn most of your resources and combat is trivial. Instead, I rolled (in advance) all the encounters from one destination to another (essentially the travel step), and tried to combine them into a single day or two to follow the adventuring day guidelines. It's a bit of an artifice, but my party is of the consensus that the travel doesn't need to be stretched out. In any case, I've described the underdark as being largely barren stretches of wasteland/tunnel intermittently populated with useful geographical features (water, resources, minerals, etc), which helps to explain why encounters all happen at particular places/days.

[joaber]

The easiliest thing to do that will fix all your problems: use variant rest rule while travelling. Now short rest is one day and long rest a week.
Justify that with demon lords influence and nightmares that delay normal recovery. You can keep this even ib the cities and give some potion to they recovery as a long rest.

[Silfazaris]

34 characters?

In the future, I suggest 1 PC per player. Followers exist (if at all) to do stuff in the background for them; not to adventure with them. They should be Guards, and maybe a Veteran or two, or Cultists and maybe a Cult leader or two. Low HP 'Redshirts' that get in the way rather than really do anything.

This makes the PCs 'unique' (they're the crew of the Enterprise; the followers are the redshirts).

Im aware that this AP has a large number of followers, but you should really just have them in the background doing very little. This isnt their story, its the PCs.



I would expect 6 PCs (plus a caster and golem) to destroy 3 x CR 8s with very little effort.

Now lets see if they can do it 6-8 times between long rests.



Stop.

Do not dial up encounter difficulty as a matter of course; either add more encounters and/or use more encounter free days. Dialing up encounter difficulty will simply force the Players to use Nova strike tactics. It will entrench this problem you're having.

If your encounters are not affecting the success or failure of the current quest (via resource depletion) and are just getting creamed why are they there at all?

Dont use 'random' encounters as just a daily % chance. You should use them at your whim to deplete party resources or to push the players in a certain direction, or to hurry the players up. Occasionally throw one in to surprise them and keep them on their toes. Insert a 'random' encounter (or the chance of one) whenever you think it fits the story or is needed to inject some pacing into the game, or if the PCs are having too easy a time of it.

'Random' encoutners are best used within a 'normal' adventuring day of 6ish encounters. Either as one of those encounters, or as an additional encounter triggered by the PCs (tarrying/ slowing down/ doung something foolish/ random chance).

There is nothing wrong with the PCs travelling for a week or two and encountering very little (other than wildlife, commoners, hunters etc). Once they get to the [dungeon/ lair/ adventure locale] feel free to give them a random encounter the day before they get there (its purpose is to deplete HD).

Your best friend is time limiting quests. If the PCs are doing something, there should be a time limit (and consequences for missing this deadline) if they fail. They're being chased by [an angry Demon lord they annoyed/ Drow/ Duergar] if youre stuck for ideas.



Exactly my point above. Your players are reacting to your choices as DM (you've decided to only provide them with 0-2 encounters per adventuring day). Accordingly they are preparing (and reaching for) Banishment and Nova stomping your encounters with the spell on round 1, turn 1.

Its your fault here. You've decided to provide 2 encounter adventuring days. Stop.

If you dont want to stop, announce you're using the 'gritty realism' variant from now on. They can complain as much as they want. Its perfect for occasional 0-2 encounter adventuring days broken up the occasional week of nothing.



Sounds like they're at least 7th level, so I highly doubt 7th+ level PCs are going to have an issue with foraging. Not an issue.



Greater restoration has a GP cost attached. And its a 5th level spell. Its a precious resouce for 9th level casters (assuming they are assigned to a time limited quest, and may need those slots for other things).

Again; your friend is the longer adventuring day. Hit them with 6 encounters between long rests instead of 0-2.



Because you've dialled up your encoutners, its turned your game into rocket tag. Youve murdered all the followers and now PCs are getting offed.

STOP.

You're creating the problem. Im not being a douche here, but the solution is obvious (you can already see it). Add more encounters between long rests, dont increase the difficulty of the few encounters you're already giving them.



Counterspell his Counterspell. Also note, Counterspell only works on a spell you can see being cast within 60'. Position your casters in darkness or invisible (they're Demons and Drow remember) or simply place them 60' away or give them counter spells of thier own.



STOP!

The problem is obvious. You're pushing rocket tag/ Nova strike (1-2 deadly encounter adventuring days) on the players and they are reacting accordingly.

Stay with the 6-8 encounter adventuring day (with 2 short rests) as much as possible (aim for 50+ percent of all your encounters to happen within this 6-8 paradigm). When planning your adventures during the week, frame a bunch of 6-8 encounters within a time limit (of your devising that makes sense with regards to the environment the PCs find themselves).

Do this often enough, and your players will start to marshal resources accordingly.

Your 'increase encounter difficulty' tweaks is causing you most of your problems.



Unsurprising seeing as they only every seem to get 0-2 encounters most adventuring days. They'll rarely need more than one short rest per long rest



Yes. Example:

Provide them with a quiet week of travel doing little, and then stage a (hard) 'random' encounter featuring a bunch of Snirfneblin being carried away by (monsters). Leave a macguffin on the dead bodies of (the monsters) slain by the PCs that indicates the Gnomes are being taken away to be sacrificed (in 4 hours time). The sacrifice will release a (Demon lord).

When the PCs chase up the captured Gnomes they face a race against time to (defeat the remaining 5-6 encounters) and stop the summoning of the Demon lord.

If they fail... its Demon lord time. Have THAT as one of your 'random' encounters.

Rinse and repeat. For example, have the next 'random' encounter be a Drow war party that bumps the PCs. When the Drow dont return to base, the Drow Wizard boss uses clairvoyance/ magic to locate the PCs and gate in demons to crush them. This is then followed by Drider scouts a few hours later sent out on a clearing patrol. For your fourth encounter later that night... a Mindlayer and his intellect devourer pets (that seek to infiltrate the party and take over one of the PCs) - it was this Illithid that the Drow were actually out to find and destroy!.

Once they get comfortable with the longer adventuring day paradigm, THEN (a week or so later) hit them with a single 'random' encounter that is deadly+ just to keep them on their toes.

For the first part of the book I let them control the followers sheets as the book suggested.
I removed Ront, Turvy and Topsy by throwing them to the spiders as demonstration of Ilvara's cruelty. Shuushar and Stool are non-combatants, so they ended up with 5 followers to control.
At the first 3 chapters, they used the followers and they really helped them survive in the combats. But from Chapter 4 to Chapter 7 I decided to completely remove them from combat, using them only to help foraging and roleplaying. It worked very nicely.
I don't complain for the first part of the book. I ran it as intended and it worked very nice.

But then, following the book and reading the followers characters sheet I realized they needed to be used. The Order of the Gauntlet Fighters or Paladins or whatever, they had no skills outside of combat, but they were good combatants with 58hp each, there was no reason to not let them help against a big bad demon.
I used the Handling Mobs option from DMG.
I had to improve the encounter difficulties not because of the followers, but because a party consisting of six 9th-level players, a golem of Challenge 7 plus a drow wizard of Challenge 6 raised their XP Threshold to the skies.
They wanted the followers to take part in the combats, so **** happened.

I wanted to follow the book, Malifice. Like I said, although I DM for 18 years, I've never DM'ed a premade adventure before, so I'm unexperienced with premade adventures and modules, so I wanted to follow the book without changing anything so I wouldn't screw things up. I'm also new to D&D 5E, I didn't want to ruin the game.
I know they are having fun, they are always active on our whatsapp group making plans for their characters, asking things, saying that they are having lots of fun, and they are very excited when I told them that I plan to make an Abyss campaign after they finish the book.
But, although they say they are having fun, I feel the game is easy for these encounters.

I already made 2 deadly encounters for them and they managed to survive close to death with 2 deaths in the groups (but the clerics can resurrect).
One was a trio of caster succubi servants of Grazz't. They infiltrated the party, charmed 3 of the followers and convinced the party to take a "detour". That detour was a trap, leading them to an encounter with Grazz't itself. Although Grazz't didn't intefere in the combat after the conversation, he mentioned that he would kill them all to feed his pets. They were very tense and they thought they would lose their characters.
But then the sorcerer had the BRILLIANT idea of casting a fireball in a place that would hit 2 of the succubi but it would hit Grazz't as well. Everyone told him not to do, but he did anyway.
A slaughter fest started. Grazz't teleported into melee with him and dominated him.
He killed half of the followers (I forgot to mention that was actually one of the players who killed half of the crew). He also knocked both clerics out. Then Grazz't killed him with his sword but let the players escape after the succubi were dead.

It was a very nice encounter in my and in their opinions.

The other encounter was two servants of Loviatar who chased the cleric of Ilmater with two hostages: her father who tried to kill her in birth because of her obyrith-like appereance (she is a tiefling) and the obstetrician who saved her from her father, a cleric of Ilmater who teached her everything she knows.
It was a very tense scene that led me and another player to cry in real life because of what they did with the hostages (an absurd torture to the cleric) and what they said.
The group could do nothing, or both hostages would be killed.
The servants of Loviatar made the cleric choose one of the hostages to survive and one of the hostages to live. Although her father tried to kill her, she was a cleric of Ilmater, and her father was a good person according to the cleric of Ilmater who was a friend of his.
She tried to commit suicide because she knew they didn't like to kill, but only to torture her. But she was stopped by a hold person spell.
She had to choose and she picked her father to be killed.
They released the priest of Ilmater after they cut 4 of his fingers off and his left arm. The combat started.
The combat took around 22 rounds and they barely survived. They killed the female servant of Loviatar (a cleric) but they didn't kill the male servant (a blackguard). The male servant fled because otherwise he would have to deal with 3 flying characters (the only who have left) and he didn't have the ability to fly.

They loved this scene and the roleplaying took like 1 hour after the combat when they were talking about the tortures, Loviatar and trying to confort the cleric of Ilmater (the PC).

After the second part of the book, these were the only 2 difficult encounters. And we had 2 sessions for the second part of the book (our sessions start 10AM and end at 9PM)

"Its your fault here. You've decided to provide 2 encounter adventuring days. Stop."

Like I said, I tried to follow the book to not mess up with the book's intent, and that's why I didn't make the 6-8 encounters per day paradigm, because I'm doing what the book asks me to do. But after seeing my last session of the game, I had no other choice to convince myself that I needed to change something, that's why I'm here and I agree with you.

I don't think you are being a douche. I loved your ideas of: the svirfneblin being sacrificed, the drow war party. I actually wrote them down and I'm probably using them, many thanks.
Overall I loved your suggestions, many thanks for your reply :D


Since there's so much to talk about and I don't have that time (sorry, I promised earlier and now I can't fulfill), let me bounce off of what Malice said.

First, he's absolutely right. However, OotA is not designed that way. Here's what I did:

1) Customized my own "dungeons" to creat a 6-8 encounter day.

My favorite one was their entry into the library. I andeach the entry a portal, and the entrance was under water. They had to fight through an Aboleth dungeon woth 8 planned encounters in one of the rivers feeding into the Darklake.

2) Added non-attacking monsters for tension.

As the crossed the Darklake, I had 2-3 random encounters per day, but not all of them were combat. Sometimes it was just a tense passing of Duergar slavers. And once, I had a water troll following them, feeding off their kills. May not work at level 7, but it was really tense by the third day back when they were level 4.

3) Sped up travel time for the second half of the book.

One we passed Vizerans Tower, I stopped focusing on travel. Travel through the underdark by that level isn't threatening - it just slows down game play. So all random encounters were gone and it was all just narrated if they encountered something that they could easily kill. Don't waste game time on it.

Instead, I focused on the meat of the chapters, and used that to create the 6-8 encounters per day.

This would be in the purple worm tunnels, the maze, the Putrid wedding giant fungus area and leading into the astral plane battle menzoberanzan, and then the final battle.

All in all, this adventure poorly follows the recommended encounter design for this edition, but that's really only during the travel. You can make up for it if you think of the chapters that detail single locations as a "dungeon" and then design encounters for that entire dungeon.

That's what I tried to tell him. Out of the Abyss is not designed to have 6-8 encounters per day, and as an unexperienced premade module DM (this is the first premade I DM, I always DM my own adventures) I tried to follow the book.
The only time where I had a lot of encounters in the same day was in: The Silken Paths, Whorlstone Tunnels, the Darklake, Neverlight Grove main quest and Rockblight.

I loved the entry portal for Gravenhollow. I will think about one similar to yours, but not underwater, I will try to design my own entry.
A water troll will be melted by them, they are at 9th-level now (I'm using Milestone, and since the book suggests they should be at level 10 by the end of Chapter 10...)
And they managed to kill water trolls when they were level 3-4 because the sorcerer of the group is a fire focused sorcerer. They realized by themselves about troll's weakness.
I can make some creatures to pursue them, but the creatures need to be in pairs or multiple creatures. A single creature won't scare a group of 6 characters + 2 decent CR followers.
Unless, I put an Aboleth to follow them underwater, that's a good idea I believe.

Maybe you are right about travel. All encounters from the book are trivial to my party and that's why I tried to make a new Random Encounters table, but, Chapter 10 is designed to make a 60/90/120 days travel to Gravenhollow with Random Events and I didn't want to skip a whole Chapter, even more because I'm using this chapter to make them go from 9th-level to 10th-level as the book suggests.
I want to tell you that for Chapter 5 and 6 I put only a few random encounters and put them straightly into the Chapters to advance in the storyline. I also did that in Chapter 9. I put 3 or 4 encounters and threw them into Mantol Derith, but I just think I can't do that with Chapter 10.
I'm probably doing that with chapter 11-16 .
The problem is our game sessions takes like 11 hours and we play monthly. I feel they could do Chapter 11 and 12 in just one day if I ignore travel. And although I want to finish the book so I can DM my own adventure in the Abyss (I love Lower Planes themes) I don't want to go straight to the point in every Chapter. I read the book last year (I don't remember everything of course) and if I recall correctly it's something like this from now on: get info in gravenhollow and meet vizeran, he invites the party to his tower, they go to the tower and hear about the ritual, they go to wormwrithings, maze engine and labyrinth to gather the components, they get Quenthel's support, they participate in Zuggtmoy's wedding, they choose a place and the ritual begins, the end fight begins, and end of story. It sounds very short to me, but I could be wrong.

But, I'm taking Malifice and your advices to make the 6-8 encounters.
I designed 25 combats out of 90 days of travel (they chose normal pace). I'm thinking about
making 4 days of encounters, featuring 6 encounters each day, and then putting them in the Gravenhollow. Do you think it's a good idea? Maybe I can create 4 dungeons or 4 situations like Malifice described to make these encounters.
LIke I said: Poisoned Supplies, Spoiled Supplies, Madness, Vanishing NPCs and Discipline Problems can't be used due to create food an water, lack of followers and greater restoration.


Let me give you some more general advice, although Out of the Abyss is a prime example of why:

Don't be afraid to simplify. Don't be afraid to cut out mechanics that seem cumbersome, and don't worry about getting things 100% by the book if the book isn't that great in certain areas.

What I did with my campaign was change up the rules for travel during the second half. As I told the party: "Before, you were naked, scared, and fighting to survive for just one more day. Now? You are heroes leading a small army. The foraging, the killing little minions? You've got people for that, now."

I rolled for summary combat and summary casualties (if a fight seemed like it might be a lot for them to handle), and didn't worry about splitting the XP for easy things; the game is a little too stingy with XP, anyway.

Banishment is annoying, but that's what legendary resistances are for; if it's a big, important, fight, don't be afraid to give a mob one or two uses, even if it's not in the book. You should be rolling your dice behind a screen. Whether or not the monster saved, or had to burn a resistance, just mention that it "seemed to shrug off the spell." Nothing discourages players more than operating in the dark with one or two failures in a row.

As for challenge: don't be afraid to amp up the dial on some of the encounters. I had a 7 person party that took down a fully powered Demogorgon without casualities, and that was with a couple of lesser fights before hand. Considering introducing creatures that WILL go for downed party members, either from intelligence of bloodlust; it makes fights a little harder, AND even if they survive the creature, they will start to fear them.
I did that for some encounters since the beginning. Like when they found some violent fungi and some duergars, I just told them they managed to win with no casualties.

About banishment, some monsters have really low charisma saves, so if I keep rolling behind a shield and tell them the monsters saved they gonna feel I cheated. All of us are friends for 20 years and they know me very well, they are my best friends. So I'm gonna stick with your legendary resistance thing, thanks. It really makes sense for the hard guys like the "Servants of..." I mentioned since they are dedicated servants of the Demon Lords, not regular monsters.

15th-level 7-man party took down a CR 26 Demogorgon at full health and with none of the penalties from the ritual. Really? That scares me. That would ruin my plan for an Abyss campaign where they would face the Demon Lords on their layers :(

I'm gonna take your idea of monsters trying to kill downed members. Usually my friends and I don't DM like that, to waste turns killing someone downed, we prefer to let the monsters down everyone and only then kill the party. But that wouldn't be a problem in a big group of monsters.

More encounters per day isn't a foolproof solution. As a player (in Out of the Abyss right now) I hate mindless random encounters just to fill out the "adventuring day".

Our DM is buffing up our encounters just like the OP. We're having fun. For example, in the Purple Worm Lair, the DM put 2 worms instead of one, but arranged things so that they coincided with both the drow group and the fomorians. Lots of chaos ensued. We got off relatively easily but only due to a combined moment of luck/ingenuity by our wizard. Didn't have 6-8 encounters that day, just this one.

Inversely, the Beholder Eye quest. I didn't read the book but I expect it to have been run pretty close to the intended level. But due to some clever beholder play, it was a difficult battle. We struggled a lot, countered the beholder's shenanigans with our own, and won. Again, we had just that one encounter that day.

So, I'd say, as long as you're making it difficult in an "interesting" way, it's not an arms race. Just check your players' responses and see if they are having fun or not.

My players also hate mindless encounters. When they were in the Darklake, the quantity of encounters made them get upset and bored after they faced dozens of Merrows and Trolls and I had to cut by half the number of encounters.

I'm sure my players are having fun. But who doesn't have fun when they kill powerful monsters easily? That's what came to my mind. I know my players for 20 years, they love to down powerful creatures with ease, that makes them feel their characters were well made.
I know they are loving the story because they are always commenting about the story and how they love it, also they love some custom stories I put in the game.
I'm gonna try to recall what were the most difficult encounters since the beginning of the game:

- Lost Tomb of Khaem's Wraith when they were 3rd-level
- Pliinki and her spectator when they were 5th-level
- A custom encounter that I created against a Szarkai Drow Warlock when they still were 6th-level (She was CR 10)
- A custom encounter featuring three CR 8 succubi in the presence of Grazz't himself who didn't intefere until the sorcerer hit him with a fireball, then he dominated the sorcerer making him kill half of the followers NPCs and downing everyone but 2 players and then killing him. They were 8th-level.
- A custom encounter featuring 2 servants of Loviatar last session (CR 14 each). They were 9th-level

But the fact is, according to what I'm seeing and the others have said, if you don't make the encounter Deadly, a party consisting of 6 players of 9th-level, plus one golem of CR 7 and one drow wizard of CR 6 will always win the encounters easily if they are only one per day since they have all spell slots, hp and resources at their disposal. Last session I put 5 Otyughs (that makes a hard encounter). The clerics spent around 3 or 4 spell slots only, the Warlock only used greater invisibility, hex and spammed eldritch blast. The sorcerer also spent around 4 spell slots.

What's happening is, they already figured out that the system is one encounter per day, maybe two. So what's happening is: The fighter always use Action Surge on the first round, the clerics always use 5th and 4th spell slots in the start of combat, the warlock always use her two spell slots without fearing it. All that because they know it's only one encounter, and they win it easily. No matter what encounter I put, it's not difficult.
The combat with the servants of Loviatar of CR 14 was only difficult because they both had used a potion of invulnerability on the first round of combat and they both had regeneration 20, only because of that.


I've dm-ed OOTA and I've modified the game to avoid the some of the problems you're seeing.

First is the NPCs. The second half of the book gives you an army, which makes no sense to manage. I've cut the whole army out. The party now has a quest to gather information, and to act if required. There may(or may not) be an army behind the party, but the party neither controls or is controlled by it.

For the first half of the book, the escapee NPCs (all 10 of them) didn't have much of an impact on combat; I've handwaved their contribution in battles by a combination of lack of weaponry, cowardice (sarith), and falling back to protect the other unarmed escapees.

The second point is the adventuring day. It was obvious that if we followed the random encounter system, there would be no challenge at all; simply burn most of your resources and combat is trivial. Instead, I rolled (in advance) all the encounters from one destination to another (essentially the travel step), and tried to combine them into a single day or two to follow the adventuring day guidelines. It's a bit of an artifice, but my party is of the consensus that the travel doesn't need to be stretched out. In any case, I've described the underdark as being largely barren stretches of wasteland/tunnel intermittently populated with useful geographical features (water, resources, minerals, etc), which helps to explain why encounters all happen at particular places/days.
That's what I did, but not intentionally, I've cut the army out, but by dying, so in a way or another they see how dangerous the Underdark is. I've read in some 3rd edition Ravenloft book that putting some NPCs to be killed is a good way to show danger to the players without killing them, and I followed that.
The fact is: I hate killing players. I like that idea of the story ending with no deaths in the group, just like a video game RPG. And I've already planned some scripts and stories for the second part of my game, which will take part in the Abyss. They will meet Iggwilv (my most loved NPC from all D&D books), they will face Pale Night and have an audition with Malcanthet (my most loved demon lords). I already planned tons of stuff.
I don't like the idea of disintegrating a high level PC and then making him create another background for another character who will not have any significant impact in the story, starting powerful from scratch.

I did and I do that too, I always roll the encounters in advance, even treasures. I don't like wasting game time with die rolls for random encounters and treasures. That helps me ignore some trivial encounters and also to put some item that could help the party.

From reading everyone's opinion, that's what I'm going to do, I'm going to merge all encounters I planned for Chapter 10 into 4 days and I'm probably going to turn them into dungeons, maybe with some traps or involving real difficult demons or mad casters as end bosses after they depleted some of their resources.

[Silfazaris]

The easiliest thing to do that will fix all your problems: use variant rest rule while travelling. Now short rest is one day and long rest a week.
Justify that with demon lords influence and nightmares that delay normal recovery. You can keep this even ib the cities and give some potion to they recovery as a long rest.

OMG. That's really clever! I can plan to make 6 encounters in a week, in consecutive days, meaning they will have only 1 short rest between fights.
But I also liked the idea of creating dungeons. So I probably will merge your idea with the other guys ideas.
Making one or two dungeons and after the dungeons I put 1 week without encounters so they take a long rest. Then after the long rest I put the daily combats with short rests.

Nice!

[joaber]

OMG. That's really clever! I can plan to make 6 encounters in a week, in consecutive days, meaning they will have only 1 short rest between fights.
But I also liked the idea of creating dungeons. So I probably will merge your idea with the other guys ideas.
Making one or two dungeons and after the dungeons I put 1 week without encounters so they take a long rest. Then after the long rest I put the daily combats with short rests.

Nice!


it's what I did in my table, mix the rules to fit the dungeon. I add another random factor: nightmares that affect 1 to 3 playes at night, each roll a d20 and may not recover all, or just hp and hit dice, or spellslots and other long rest resources, or get a lvl of madness, or don't get any hard effect. Each nightmare is related with one demon lord (and many times with character background).

This make players take more care about they resources, the druid stopped to conjure 40 goodberries before sleep when she didn't recover any spellslot. The paladin stopped to divine smite the demon that appears while they were resting because he knew he'll recover all those slots after that fight. And even the battle master started to manager better his resources because didn't knew when the short rest would really refresh them.

[Cespenar]

You say that they are mowing down your encounters, but then you list various modified encounters that they only barely pulled through. It seems like you already can manage it, at least sometimes.

[busterswd]

I did that for some encounters since the beginning. Like when they found some violent fungi and some duergars, I just told them they managed to win with no casualties.

About banishment, some monsters have really low charisma saves, so if I keep rolling behind a shield and tell them the monsters saved they gonna feel I cheated. All of us are friends for 20 years and they know me very well, they are my best friends. So I'm gonna stick with your legendary resistance thing, thanks. It really makes sense for the hard guys like the "Servants of..." I mentioned since they are dedicated servants of the Demon Lords, not regular monsters.

15th-level 7-man party took down a CR 26 Demogorgon at full health and with none of the penalties from the ritual. Really? That scares me. That would ruin my plan for an Abyss campaign where they would face the Demon Lords on their layers :(

I'm gonna take your idea of monsters trying to kill downed members. Usually my friends and I don't DM like that, to waste turns killing someone downed, we prefer to let the monsters down everyone and only then kill the party. But that wouldn't be a problem in a big group of monsters.

Don't FUDGE your rolls, but be conscious of the information you give your table. If a monster burns a legendary resistance, don't declare they used a legendary resistance; let the players speculate on whether they should try to waste their actions banishing again on something that seemed to just shrug it off. Metagaming knowledge is incredibly powerful, and creating doubt in their minds is a way to reduce that power. If they ASK later, then you can tell them legendary resistance, but if they trust you, they may not.

To be fair, the 7 man party had a Paladin, which was one of the only ways to mitigate the semi permanent damage, and really helped on some of the saves. Your experience may vary. Some of the Demon Lord stat blocks are distinctly underwhelming, though, especially if you have one of their hard/soft counters. Jubilex falls over and dies if you stop his healing, intentionally or accidentally, and one of my players basically soloed 1/3 G'razzt's HP on his monk because he had excellent saves, a magical bow, and flying boots.

As for hitting downed party members: remember, it takes two swings to outright kill someone; with a mob, that's basically less than a turn. It's more about the threat of doing it. Give the party forewarning, don't kill the person who can res, and make it atmospheric. For example, if they're tackling Yeenoghu and some gnolls, and a party member hits 0 HP: "Fortus the Paladin falls, blood flowing from his wounds." *on the gnoll turn* "The gnolls stiffen simulataneously, smell something in the air, and begin leering at the fallen paladin. They howl in unison, their frenzied cries spiralng through the air." *gnolls pass their turn, next turn they bum rush the paladin if hes still down*

[FinnS]

Lots of great solutions listed but before going too complicated, the first step (especially for OotA) should be switching to Milestone XP.
That should solve half your issues right off the bat. Then tweek what you need after.

[Malifice]

OMG. That's really clever! I can plan to make 6 encounters in a week, in consecutive days, meaning they will have only 1 short rest between fights.

Yep. Its the 'Gritty realism' variant. Short rest (overnight) and long rest (week of no encounters).

It perfectly matches the pacing of your campaign (your PCs seem to go a few days with no encounters, and get 1-3 encounters on the days they do have them).

As long as they get the chance to long rest (take a week off) every 7 or so encounters, it should fix all your problems.

[Silfazaris]

Thanks everyone for your repplies, I really appreciate it. I did some changes on how my game will be from now on. I'll come back to tell you the differences after the next session. Thanks again!

[coredump]

When I ran it, I ruled that the arduous conditions, and the corrupted environment, made it very hard to get a long rest while traveling. Thus they never knew how many days...and thus how many encounters...there would be between long rests.

Worked great and encouraging resource management.

[ad_hoc]

The options also aren't just 1 hour/8 hours or 8 hours/ 1 week. You can tweak it to fit your needs. For example 2-3 hours for short rest, 1 full day for long rest. Or whatever.

You can also use it differently depending on circumstances. At our table PCs can long rest for 8 hours if in a safe location such as an inn.

If they are scrambling through the Underdark searching for a town, then they can't long rest.

The resting mechanics are narrative devices. Long resting resets the tension. If you can long rest somewhere then that is a safe spot and the PCs don't need to worry, basically.

[Silfazaris]

Again, many thanks to everyone for the suggestions. I ended up creating 2 minor adventures in their journey to Gravehollow using the resting tips from you guys. I'll also use the "nightmare" suggestion from one of you messing up with rests.
One of the minor adventures will be a small cabal of mind flayers who kidnapped some females to make what the rare followers of Pale Night use to do (impregnate them to fill the material plane with new half-demon breeds). There will be some fights against minions of them, then a fight against the demon they were going to use as the male, and then finally a fight against them.
The other will be one NPC they defeated along the story who made a pact with some entity and came back to life more powerful. This NPC will set an ambush envolving some of its minions against the group to show up in the end when the group resources are very low. I'm thinking about Buppido with some raising undead powers (probably something envolving some raise undead magic items or some innate spellcasting). Seems nice to me since they really liked Buppido and didn't want to kill him. They got upset when they discovered Buppido was truly evil with insane godlike ambitions. A return of him will bring some flavor to the story and some roleplaying stuff.

My game is running next Sunday and I'm excited.
I'll come back on Sunday to tell you how it went :smallsmile:

[Silfazaris]

Yeah guys. The game session just finished.
The gritty realism worked very well. They had to spend all their resources and the combats were waaaay more difficult because they weren't using all resources at once like crazy.
The sorcerer from the group even said "The truth is I wasn't caring about saving my spell slots and sorcery points". Today he didn't use a single point of sorcery on the whole session and tried to save as many spell slots as possible.
Now they are inside a dungeon in a minor quest facing perils to reach a cabal of arcane illithids who kidnapped some female humanoids to impregnate them in order to make new breeds of hald-demons. They faced a few traps, 3 combats already and there are still 3 combats before they reach the end fight.

Many thanks for all who helped! +1,000

Bonus: It was really funny when the ranger targeted my 5 huge black puddings with a lightning spell. Free split :D