Help me help my DM make combat more challenging without it being unfair

[Exocist]

My DM has a problem with the baseline assumptions of 5e making it difficult for PCs to die in combat. He feels that it makes combat boring because there's no real risk involved for the players. He wants to increase the difficulty of combat encounters such that it feels like there is a real risk that the PCs could die in each combat (which means he should probably use an older/different system but still...), but as (as the players) are worried that it might become unfairly challenging.

Currently, the three of us are level 6 (Open Hand Monk, Illusionist Wizard & Fighter with custom Subclass). He is planning to throw things like Mind Flayers (CR 7 - probably issue due to 2/3 players having garbage INT saves), 2 CR 8 monsters (as a single encounter for the entire day) or a whole graveyard full of undead (IIRC 3 of basically every official undead from CR 0 to CR 1), again as a single encounter for the entire day.

Some information
- We are using elite array
- We can short rest if all 3 of us are adjacent to each other and one of us spends our action to do so. Can only be done twice per long rest (DM didn't want to track short resting).

So my questions are:
- Do these encounters seem to be at a reasonable level of difficulty for our party/am I worrying about nothing?
- If they don't seem reasonable, what would you suggest the DM do in order to increase combat difficulty?

[Lunali]

I would simply suggest going with 1-2 deadly encounters per adventuring day instead of a larger number of relatively weak encounters. To balance overall xp gains, I would probably just go with milestone leveling instead. This would mean dungeons would have to be uncommon, I would lean towards 'random' encounters on the road or interactions in a city or other point of interest instead.

[Exocist]

I would simply suggest going with 1-2 deadly encounters per adventuring day instead of a larger number of relatively weak encounters. To balance overall xp gains, I would probably just go with milestone leveling instead. This would mean dungeons would have to be uncommon, I would lean towards 'random' encounters on the road or interactions in a city or other point of interest instead.

DM does did do milestone levelling until current level, he wanted us to be level 7 for the next segment but didn't have any material to go with, so he just decided to have the above as potential "random" encounters.

How deadly would you suggest these encounters be (i.e. closer to the 1x deadly or 2x deadly mark).

[PhantomSoul]

Follow-up question:


- We can short rest if all 3 of us are adjacent to each other and one of us spends our action to do so. Can only be done twice per long rest (DM didn't want to track short resting).

Do you mean you can have a Short Rest during Combat up to twice per Long Rest?



My rule of thumb: Just give them "Deadly" encounters based on CR and don't worry too much about it. We don't do 6-8 Encounters even on average outside of Dungeons, but instead the Combats are more difficult (compensates for rarity) and often designed to be a bit longer (means not only nova characters feel special).

[Exocist]

Follow-up question:



Do you mean you can have a Short Rest during Combat up to twice per Long Rest?



My rule of thumb: Just give them "Deadly" encounters based on CR and don't worry too much about it. We don't do 6-8 Encounters even on average outside of Dungeons, but instead the Combats are more difficult (compensates for rarity) and often designed to be a bit longer (means not only nova characters feel special).

Yes, Action is just to specify what it uses in Combat. Out of combat, it doesn't cost anything, but there's still a cap of 2/long rest.

How many deadly encounters/how deadly are the encounters (closer to 1x or 2x)?

[Lunali]

How deadly would you suggest these encounters be (i.e. closer to the 1x deadly or 2x deadly mark).

Start low to get a feel for how the party will fight enemies. Alternatively, set up deus ex machinas ahead of time in case you need to rescue them.

[Kadesh]

1. The Fighter Custom subclass might be making things too easy
2. The DM doesn't track short rests. You choose when to rest and how long for. The DM in the meanwhile tells you whether you quakified for a short orblong rest, and if anything happened to interrupt it. Creating a 'Kumbayah' specific rule seems a bit self defeating.
3. The DM's guide details how CR is intended to be used, in respect to 'XP Budget' and how CR affects things. Given that you are a party of 3, encounters normally developed to be medium for a party of 4 will be more challenging, and even more so when you go for Hard or deadly.
4. Even throwing 1 or 2 additional mooks is going to cause a bump in the difficulty, especially if they have control effects (Nets being the easiest available).
5. Significant Boss monsters should have legendary reactions. A Dire Wolf with Legendary Bite+Trip, Disengage+Move and Howl to Wis Save or Frighten enemies in 30ft for a round is going to cause some consternation when they were expecting the 'meta-knowledge' of it being a slightly more dangerous wolf.
6. Terrain adds to an encounter. Someone dippijg behind a tree with an additional AC of 2 nullified the advantage of the Archery Fighting Style, and becomes 10% harder to hit with ranged attacks. A prepared amount of terrain to either slow the target to 15ft gives an additional round or 2 of softening up party or capable of isolating the weakest members. Throw some things like Caltrops, Pit Traps, or similar, and suddenly the party is severely limited in what they can do.
7. Prevent the party from resting. Early game, have them surrounded by wolves, and just watch and wait. Watch as they accrue exhaustion. If they ever just sleep, well, then you can attack, have them drag away the awake one (remember all enemies can use the attack action to make Grapple checks etc, even if their profile doesn't give them particular notes about doing so). Get the players paranoid. Attack in the darkness, target the pack mules.
8. At higher levels even mundane things they expect to see could be threats. A Rakshasa posing as a merchant could well be spying up the party for their magical gear. Or operating as a spy for a more powerful fiend.
9. Just up the stats. A creature which takes 4 rounds to die with their HP stat as standard takes 8 rounds to die with HP doubled (i.e max hp per hd). That is 4 extra potential multiattacks it can take.
10. Do not be afraid to retrofit the monster on the fly. Your Orcs don't have Ranged attacks? Give them all slings, and the leader the ability to Scream so loud that is assaults the spirit of the target Magic Initiate Toll the Dead+Cause Fear). A Fire Giant with Great Weapon Master hurts, especially if you give it Reckless Attack

In short, action economy is key, but you have to balance between what is challenging, and what is fun for the players. Unlike the party, the DM has the easiest way of manipulating the action eco, and that is by introducing new opponents. Each new opponent not only has additional actions to take, but requires additional actions to be dealt with. The DM can also prepare terrain, which limits the players movement, either in the hardest form (strict limiting of moves, via Hold Person, Knockback, Grapple, Difficult Terrain Impeding Structures) or soft form (make it uninviting to do so: Spike Growth, Caltrops, or similar).

The players are here to play the game, and removing the players ability to play the game isn't very fun. A Wall of Force on a Red shirt is less fun limiting than it is on the players. If you want to prepare them for later challenging missions, then prep then with earlier combats. Want to fight an Blue Dragon? Send them up against a Behir. Let them hunt out gear to protect from Lightning etc.

[PhantomSoul]

Yes, Action is just to specify what it uses in Combat. Out of combat, it doesn't cost anything, but there's still a cap of 2/long rest.

How many deadly encounters/how deadly are the encounters (closer to 1x or 2x)?

Being able to take a Short Rest mid-Combat will have a massive potential effect on how hard the encounter will be. In that case, CR isn't likely to be that much of a barrier because so much will get refreshed randomly in the middle of battle. At that point, focusing on Creatures that prevent that Rest from being taken is probably the best bet (e.g. by forcing the party to be separated) or environment setups that do the same thing is crucial. Alternatively, Creatures that benefit from the party being in a position to Rest (e.g. you have to be near each other, so AoE spells and effects get to be powerful... though you didn't mention the party members had to be Conscious and all able to take Actions...).

[Unoriginal]

Honestly, not allowing to short rest mid-combat will make things much deadlier for everyone without being unfair.

[Pex]

- We can short rest if all 3 of us are adjacent to each other and one of us spends our action to do so. Can only be done twice per long rest (DM didn't want to track short resting).


That, right there. Get rid of that and go to normal rest rules. Your way, in a crucial combat the monk has double ki points, the wizard gets spell slots back, and I suspect the homemade fighter gets stuff back. He already has two second winds and two action surges. Your party is not needing to conserve its power. For one combat you can go nova doing everything then get almost everything back and do it again.

Don't overcompensate and go to gritty rules. That's too slow a pace for your game. Regular rest rules are fine. The party has to be more careful with its resources. Use your stuff when you need to because it takes effort to get it back. Your monk is not spending ki every round. The wizard casts more cantrips. The fighter only action surges against tough monsters.

[Unoriginal]

- We are using elite array

What do you mean by this, exactly?



Currently, the three of us are level 6 (Open Hand Monk, Illusionist Wizard & Fighter with custom Subclass). He is planning to throw things like Mind Flayers (CR 7 - probably issue due to 2/3 players having garbage INT saves), 2 CR 8 monsters (as a single encounter for the entire day) or a whole graveyard full of undead (IIRC 3 of basically every official undead from CR 0 to CR 1), again as a single encounter for the entire day.


Only one 2 CR 8 vs 3 lvl 6 encounter for a single day isn't that hard an encounter.

Did your DM mention how many mind flayers?

Keep in mind that with 3 PCs, your party should be able to handle something like 4-5 CR 6 encounter before lacking ressources.

[Exocist]

Being able to take a Short Rest mid-Combat will have a massive potential effect on how hard the encounter will be. In that case, CR isn't likely to be that much of a barrier because so much will get refreshed randomly in the middle of battle. At that point, focusing on Creatures that prevent that Rest from being taken is probably the best bet (e.g. by forcing the party to be separated) or environment setups that do the same thing is crucial. Alternatively, Creatures that benefit from the party being in a position to Rest (e.g. you have to be near each other, so AoE spells and effects get to be powerful... though you didn't mention the party members had to be Conscious and all able to take Actions...).

Don't think we've ever actually SR'd mid-combat. All party members need to be not incapacitated for the SR to work, should have mentioned that my bad.


1. The Fighter Custom subclass might be making things too easy
2. The DM doesn't track short rests. You choose when to rest and how long for. The DM in the meanwhile tells you whether you quakified for a short orblong rest, and if anything happened to interrupt it. Creating a 'Kumbayah' specific rule seems a bit self defeating.
3. The DM's guide details how CR is intended to be used, in respect to 'XP Budget' and how CR affects things. Given that you are a party of 3, encounters normally developed to be medium for a party of 4 will be more challenging, and even more so when you go for Hard or deadly.
4. Even throwing 1 or 2 additional mooks is going to cause a bump in the difficulty, especially if they have control effects (Nets being the easiest available).
5. Significant Boss monsters should have legendary reactions. A Dire Wolf with Legendary Bite+Trip, Disengage+Move and Howl to Wis Save or Frighten enemies in 30ft for a round is going to cause some consternation when they were expecting the 'meta-knowledge' of it being a slightly more dangerous wolf.
6. Terrain adds to an encounter. Someone dippijg behind a tree with an additional AC of 2 nullified the advantage of the Archery Fighting Style, and becomes 10% harder to hit with ranged attacks. A prepared amount of terrain to either slow the target to 15ft gives an additional round or 2 of softening up party or capable of isolating the weakest members. Throw some things like Caltrops, Pit Traps, or similar, and suddenly the party is severely limited in what they can do.
7. Prevent the party from resting. Early game, have them surrounded by wolves, and just watch and wait. Watch as they accrue exhaustion. If they ever just sleep, well, then you can attack, have them drag away the awake one (remember all enemies can use the attack action to make Grapple checks etc, even if their profile doesn't give them particular notes about doing so). Get the players paranoid. Attack in the darkness, target the pack mules.
8. At higher levels even mundane things they expect to see could be threats. A Rakshasa posing as a merchant could well be spying up the party for their magical gear. Or operating as a spy for a more powerful fiend.
9. Just up the stats. A creature which takes 4 rounds to die with their HP stat as standard takes 8 rounds to die with HP doubled (i.e max hp per hd). That is 4 extra potential multiattacks it can take.
10. Do not be afraid to retrofit the monster on the fly. Your Orcs don't have Ranged attacks? Give them all slings, and the leader the ability to Scream so loud that is assaults the spirit of the target Magic Initiate Toll the Dead+Cause Fear). A Fire Giant with Great Weapon Master hurts, especially if you give it Reckless Attack

In short, action economy is key, but you have to balance between what is challenging, and what is fun for the players. Unlike the party, the DM has the easiest way of manipulating the action eco, and that is by introducing new opponents. Each new opponent not only has additional actions to take, but requires additional actions to be dealt with. The DM can also prepare terrain, which limits the players movement, either in the hardest form (strict limiting of moves, via Hold Person, Knockback, Grapple, Difficult Terrain Impeding Structures) or soft form (make it uninviting to do so: Spike Growth, Caltrops, or similar).

The players are here to play the game, and removing the players ability to play the game isn't very fun. A Wall of Force on a Red shirt is less fun limiting than it is on the players. If you want to prepare them for later challenging missions, then prep then with earlier combats. Want to fight an Blue Dragon? Send them up against a Behir. Let them hunt out gear to protect from Lightning etc.

1. Possibly. Said Fighter subclass is meant to be more of a Commander-type fighter but it's very potentially broken as hell (just reading through the 3rd level ability). It's possible that it might get toned down at some point, but my DM's first edition was 3.5, so he kind of glosses over when Fighters are too good.
2. The issue was creating ideal system balance (2 short rests per long rest). Sure, you remove the ability to be ambushed while taking a short rest (can still be ambushed during a LR), but it was intended so that short rest classes would theoretically live up to system expectations. In practice, it has meant easier access to healing by spending hit dice after a particularly difficult combat, rather than waiting for the opportunity to rest. It's possible that it would just be better to triple SR resources and make us decide when we want to short rest.
3. Hence the problem, he doesn't believe the 6-8 medium-hard encounters per day is challenging enough.
4. Of course, but would it drag the combat from "hard" to "unfair"?
5. DM is custom building significant boss monsters, no meta knowledge there.
6. This is potentially something I will suggest my DM do. What would you suggest the best way to implement traps is?
7. I mean this does work in theory, attempting to find a way to chase the wolves off/make yourselves appear threatening without actually getting into combat. Solid suggestion.
8. Campaign setting is Ravenloft, pretty sure everyone is a demon in disguise. Might be harder to find someone that isn't a demon in disguise.
9. DM is more a fan of giving creatures more actions if he wants them to have more actions, rather than HP bloat. He finds that HP bloat just leads to things feeling like they drag on too long.
10. This is a good suggestion. Aside from giving everything a ranged attack (because duh) what are some other retrofits you've felt have worked well for otherwise bland monsters?

[Exocist]

What do you mean by this, exactly?

Just in case people thought that we were rolling stats and ended up with 20s in every stat or something. Because then the answer would be pretty obvious - "You're obviously way above the power level you should be".

It's worth mentioning that while we do have magic items, aside from the fighter's, they're not that useful. I have a silver + magical shortsword (but no enchantment bonus, it's just treated as magical), wizard has an item that allows him to include/exclude creatures from his illusions (I.e. make an illusion that only X and Y can see), Fighter has a greatsword that he can turn to necrotic damage in order to add 1d6 to his attacks (half-flametongue essentially, "drawback" being the quantity of undead).




Only one 2 CR 8 vs 3 lvl 6 encounter for a single day isn't that hard an encounter.

Did your DM mention how many mind flayers?

Keep in mind that with 3 PCs, your party should be able to handle something like 4-5 CR 6 encounter before lacking ressources.

2 Mind Flayers.

Is 2 CR 8s vs 3 level 6s (as a single encounter) really not that hard? Seems like they could shred through our HP pools fairly quickly, all while taking a while to take down (HP Wise). I can disable 1 (possibly both) with stunning strike (depending on their CON save), Wizard could likely do the same with Hypnotic Pattern or Suggestion (depending on WIS save). Maybe I am overreacting. It just seems like it's a lot for a single encounter.

[Gastronomie]

First of all, allowing short rests during combat is a really weird thing to do, not to mention how it completely crashes the base premise upon which the difficulty of all combat encounters are calculated, meaning it is impossible to determine the difficulty of an encounter in such a campaign using guidelines in the books. (And even the guidelines in the books are not that reliable upon.)

I would advice the DM first stop that rule and make short and long rests the original length stated in the PHB, and then start thinking about what to do with the enemies to throw in his encounters.

[Kadesh]

It appears as though the fault is with the DM right at the start. He has introduced rules and houserules which have broken the game, and introduced more rules to mitigate the damage of those houserules.

As a 3.5 Player, he was probably worried about the 15min adventuring day, but by introducing in combat Short Rest (short of a Very Rare Potion - level 11+ rarity and consumable, I wouldn't have thought it to be suggested) he has encouraged it, so that everyone can burn a two actions to get 3 reset/short rest mechanics and healing dump.

If he has a particular complaint with Short Resting, then all Short Rest mechanics become 3* resource/long rest mechanics in its stead, and spend a minute to restore Health Points. Simple.

My advice? Get to a satisfactory end point in your game now, then end it. Then get the DM to pick up the DMG, PHB and Monster Manual, alongside a prewritten campaign. Storm Kings Thunder is ideal IMHO. And play through it. As written in all books.

Then, you are all aware of how it plays. And how a DM DM's.

Also, pin a note at the top of the screen: THIS IS NOT 3.5.

[Unoriginal]

Just in case people thought that we were rolling stats and ended up with 20s in every stat or something. Because then the answer would be pretty obvious - "You're obviously way above the power level you should be".

I still don't know what "elite array" means for your table.[/QUOTE]

[LordEntrails]

imo, first thing, if you are worried about "fairness" you are absolutely worried about something you should not be worried about.

Gaming is about "fun" not fairness. Get over the concern of your character dying and not being able to have them resurrected. I know, I know, you have put a lot of thought, time, and love into your characters. When a character dies, that is simply an opportunity to create an even more enjoyable character. And it is an opportunity for you to have a memorable experience telling about the epic / stupid / unlucky / weird way they died. Some of the best RPG stories (and memes) are about how characters die.

Unlike real life, death is something we can enjoy in a game. Enjoy it.

Next, understand challenge ratings and encounter difficulty. (As well as the comments above as well, lots of good stuff upstream.) A level 6 party against a CR6 creature is not a 50/50 win/lose proposition. It just means the party will actually have to use some of their daily consumables (i.e. spells). "Deadly" doesn't mean it will wipe out your party.

Finally, back to the first point, don't worry, have fun!

[Segev]

One way to increase challenge and investment is to make the fights have victory and loss conditions that are not dependent on the deaths of one side or the other. What are you fighting? There should be a goal. Something that, having achieved it, one side can claim victory just by getting away. Or which constitutes losing even if the party are all still alive.

Protection missions, item acquisitions, races to a plot-relevant place or person or item...

When this happens, fights can be a lot less fair, and the difficulty calibrated more by the ease or difficulty of the task rather than the foes. It also allows the GM to have loss for the party be an option, because it isn’t a game over. So now the party can feel the tension of an uncertain victory without the trigger being cocked in ending the game entirely.

[MrStabby]

I would say avoid reducing the number of encounters per day. It really does screw up balance: some spells ar just a lot more efficient on tough encounters than easy ones (wall of force for example). If you have fewer, tougher encounters you massively boost those classes that can have this kind of effect. You screw up the balance between nova and sustained damage. Even common abilities like spirit guardians can get a boost they don't really need - bigger fights reduce the risk of getting 30 seconds of value from a 10 minute spell - potentially more than doubling it's power.

My advice to the DM would be to play NPCs and monsters a bit more like PCs (not build enemies as PCs, but play them that way). By this I mean play them like they are fighting for their lives, using every trick available, using every aspect of their knowledge and training and using consumable items. The DM should also equip them to allow this.

Give caltrops, healing potions, javelins, tripwires and so on to enemies. The DM should ensure more ambushes, more attacks from inaccessible places, more cover and more tricks and illusions.

A useful rule of thumb for adding to the toughness of encounters is that the DM should try and make the encounter take two more rounds of combat to clear up (as an aspiration). Difficult terrain, spread out ranged enemies, spells like web and hypnotic pattern, hit and run tactics and so on should be used.

Making use of darkvision asymmetry is also good. If enemy NPCs can force or entice a PC to light a torch and then get advantage on the poor sap sat within that radius of light with ranged spells and weapons then they can add to the pain of the encounter. It makes sense that if a monster has blindsight it is probably nocturnal.

NPCs should also play smart with things like spells. They should have spells that target different saves and use them wisely. An NPC won't know everything about the party but it is fair that they might not throw strength save spells at people in heavy armour or Int saves at people carrying a spellbook. If a PC looks half elven then throw a Con save spell at them not a Cha save spell. If there is a dwarf don't throw poison effects at them but maybe lay down a Bane spell

[Exocist]

I still don't know what "elite array" means for your table.[/QUOTE]

15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8


It appears as though the fault is with the DM right at the start. He has introduced rules and houserules which have broken the game, and introduced more rules to mitigate the damage of those houserules.

As a 3.5 Player, he was probably worried about the 15min adventuring day, but by introducing in combat Short Rest (short of a Very Rare Potion - level 11+ rarity and consumable, I wouldn't have thought it to be suggested) he has encouraged it, so that everyone can burn a two actions to get 3 reset/short rest mechanics and healing dump.

If he has a particular complaint with Short Resting, then all Short Rest mechanics become 3* resource/long rest mechanics in its stead, and spend a minute to restore Health Points. Simple.

My advice? Get to a satisfactory end point in your game now, then end it. Then get the DM to pick up the DMG, PHB and Monster Manual, alongside a prewritten campaign. Storm Kings Thunder is ideal IMHO. And play through it. As written in all books.

Then, you are all aware of how it plays. And how a DM DM's.

Also, pin a note at the top of the screen: THIS IS NOT 3.5.

We've never used get together + action to short rest in combat, so it mostly just works out like you described.

This is fair though, I will suggest to him that the short rest to refresh be only usable out of combat (maybe make it a 1 minute ritual or something).


One way to increase challenge and investment is to make the fights have victory and loss conditions that are not dependent on the deaths of one side or the other. What are you fighting? There should be a goal. Something that, having achieved it, one side can claim victory just by getting away. Or which constitutes losing even if the party are all still alive.

Protection missions, item acquisitions, races to a plot-relevant place or person or item...

When this happens, fights can be a lot less fair, and the difficulty calibrated more by the ease or difficulty of the task rather than the foes. It also allows the GM to have loss for the party be an option, because it isn’t a game over. So now the party can feel the tension of an uncertain victory without the trigger being cocked in ending the game entirely.

I think he is trying to go this route.