The Bonegarden

[Hardy911]

Hey folks,

I've been playing D&D for a couple of years and after a long break I decided to pick up D&D 5e and as an oldschool 3.5 veteran I'm very happy with many aspects of the current system because overall it has become a lot easier to play and run. Some of the things still feel a little off, for example putting together tough challenges for my group, that consists of five players total. But that's not the whole point of this thread. What I`m actually wondering is if there are any DMs around who have run the Bonegarden module.

My starting questions are:

Did you use the whole module? I find the spaceship and the city below very confusing and decided to kick them out.

How did you handle encounters? I find the amount of encounters huge, in other words: life-threatening to a point that it might become a safe TPK.

How can I efficiently put together encounters that originate from 3.5 monsters? My biggest problem is transferring the encounters to 5e, because many things have changed.

Cheers,
Hardy

[Son of A Lich!]

I've never ran modules before in my life, but I can understand the issues you are presenting here.

First things first - You should be aware of your party's typical DPR right? Like, the range of damage they're likely to do in a single round of combat?

If you have that, you can balance encounters by understanding how to make the action economy flow in their favor.

Lets say I have a party of 5 characters, and I know that they able to do about 80 (Minimum of 30, max of 100) points of damage in any one round (Before critical hits, resistances and such).

If I put in 5 goblins (Purely an example), that can do 20 damage a round each, and have 40 hp total, then I can expect combat to end in two rounds (Round down, you players can pop rest abilities to speed up their side of the clock). This is because the 80 DPR is enough to kill two goblins, and even 160 DPR from the goblins ((5x20)+(3x20)) won't be enough to kill the entire party. It would be enough to kill 1 player, but I would have to have the goblins all come bearing down on a single player, and that's not happening. The goblins aren't that smart and I'm not going to rely on them getting the jump on that one player.

That's not going to be much of an encounter. The set up for the players (Rolling initiative, perception checks, using potions or what have you) is more taxing then what they get from the fun of combat (Remember, this is players, not the PCs. The PCs are not really at risk here).

So, we can crank up any one of the three variables to mix it up a bit. We can improve the Goblin's health (A cleric that heals any goblin wounded but not killed, or give them better armor), we can improve their DPR (Magic, better weapons, ranged weapons, etc), or we can just simply add more goblins. I don't like having more goblins then the party and a half, it just gets crowded and makes me do more work (And I think it's less fun for the Party too, waiting for me to finish attacking with each individual goblin).

7 goblins would put it at 140 damage the first round, and then I start risking killing the players for the first round, but because I am losing two attacks each turn and it's less likely that I'm going to be in melee with every goblin (And every goblin in melee is likely going to be dead by the time it gets back around to their turn), so I think this is still an over taxed encounter.

But it's getting better.

I'm going to add a big brute to the encounter - They have a cave troll. The Cave Troll has a DPR of 40, and a HP of 100. The Party cannot kill it in one turn, but It's not at risk of killing any one of them in a turn. Worse, it heals every turn, effectively reducing the parties DPR without any change of it's own Action Economy.

5 goblins and the Cave Troll make the DPR 140, the collective health 300, and the clock starts ticking. 140 damage is dangerous to keep up for more then two rounds. Goblins are easy to kill, but the Troll is more dangerous. The party can handle this entire encounter by 4 turns, but they can control the clock by focusing down the troll or the goblins before the other side.

The players have meaningful choices, they aren't going to waltz through the encounter, and the ramifications of bad decision making is all on them. They have to make the bed they want to sleep in, regardless of what that means for them.

Hope that clears it up a fair bit, If you want help in figuring out the DPR of your party, lemme know.
-SoaL

[Hardy911]

Well, thanks for the post, this does kind of help with encounter building, since I'm looking for a guideline of how to put together encounters (the XP calculation mechanism doesn't really work in my eyes, though I like the general concept).

But any other questions still remain open, probably because there is barely anybody around who ran a 3.5 module on 5e.

[Hardy911]

So, I've sat down and decided to put together an encounter for a 5 player party of lvl 12 characters. The Monster looks like that, based on the Monster creation guideline in the DMG p. 274:

Name, Challenge, Type Darnoc CR 6 Undead
AC 15
HP 100
Speed 30
Attributes Str 16, Dex 16, Con 10, Int 12, Wis 12, Ch 14
Saves Dex +6, Con +3
Resistances /
Immunities necrotic, poison, piercing damage
Condition Immunities exhausted, poisoned
Senses Darkvision 60ft. PP 11
Languages Don't speak, understand Common
Abilities Thorn Strike: (1/day)
Darnoc makes rng attack +6 (20ft. cone / 2d8+3/13 arrows)
Attacks 2 claws: +6 2d6 + 3 each

Thorn grasp: when the Darnoc hits with two attacks, he tries to pull the enemy into his thorn armor as a free action: grapple check +6 (2d10 + 5/16 dmg) per round

Frightful presence: Wis DC 15 or frightened (disadvantage on ability and attacks concerning source, can't move closer, new save at end of turn/14h immunity)
tactics: spread out, single attackers (go for weak, small characters)


Let me know what you think. If anything is to cryptic, feel free to ask.

[Kadesh]

5 Level 12's vs a CR6 creature? AC15 and 100 HP? You have an AoE attack using a to hit roll: these should be saves, or multi attacks.