KOLE
2020-05-25, 08:52 AM
I've got a party of 5 soon to be level 5 characters. This was the first time playing D&D for most of them, so I was very generous with rolled stats, leading to the party having a great stat spread. I've been generous with magical items (though they don't have anything above uncommon). The party mix is great, and in spite of being new(er) players, they gave mastered their classes in pretty quick order and have been dominating everything I've thrown at them, even after adjusting CR for having an extra member and dialing most encounters to hard/deadly. One of them goes down from time to time due to crits or a string of lucky hits, but otherwise, the party as a whole are doing great. I've been dialing up the CR steadily to compensate, as I don't feel I've challenged them properly yet.
I try my damnedest to not play without all 5 party members as the table/chemistry is never the same, but our Bladesinger had a solid month of busy weekends that he could not work around. So after having a shopping episode and stretching out some background exposition with a couple of favorite NPCs, I could not stall any longer, and I could not have the party press forward since our quest involves a long travel into unknown territory. So, in two days, I threw together a fun dungeon crawl, designed to see just how much the party could take. I strictly followed DMG guidelines of EXP budget, went over by about 1,000, and made sure each encounter was hard bordering deadly.
Barely slowed them down, they steam rolled it. Even with having lots of environmental challenges (whole cavern was difficult terrain) and having smart tactics with my creatures.
One surprising key to success: I gave the Paladin a Battleaxe of Warning early in the campaign. That insta-save against surprise is way stronger than you'd think. Not complaining, just a note for posterity.
So, the encounter I decided to toss together started with the idea that miners accidentally opened a deep, subterranean lake that acted as a lair of an Aboleth. The idea was for the party to take down his brainwashed minions, encounter his projected illusion, and demand the lake passage be filled in to prevent the Aboleth's spread. However, the party seems interested in scoring some water breathing potions/scrolls and taking the sucker down themselves.
At first, I was terrified, but if they take a side job or two before going back to get some water breathing ability, they'll be level 5, and if all five of them go in, the Aboleth will be just barely 400 XP past the deadly encounter threshold. Given how good these guys have been doing lately, does it seem reasonable to run with this? Or is level 5 too soon to take on an Aboleth?
I try my damnedest to not play without all 5 party members as the table/chemistry is never the same, but our Bladesinger had a solid month of busy weekends that he could not work around. So after having a shopping episode and stretching out some background exposition with a couple of favorite NPCs, I could not stall any longer, and I could not have the party press forward since our quest involves a long travel into unknown territory. So, in two days, I threw together a fun dungeon crawl, designed to see just how much the party could take. I strictly followed DMG guidelines of EXP budget, went over by about 1,000, and made sure each encounter was hard bordering deadly.
Barely slowed them down, they steam rolled it. Even with having lots of environmental challenges (whole cavern was difficult terrain) and having smart tactics with my creatures.
One surprising key to success: I gave the Paladin a Battleaxe of Warning early in the campaign. That insta-save against surprise is way stronger than you'd think. Not complaining, just a note for posterity.
So, the encounter I decided to toss together started with the idea that miners accidentally opened a deep, subterranean lake that acted as a lair of an Aboleth. The idea was for the party to take down his brainwashed minions, encounter his projected illusion, and demand the lake passage be filled in to prevent the Aboleth's spread. However, the party seems interested in scoring some water breathing potions/scrolls and taking the sucker down themselves.
At first, I was terrified, but if they take a side job or two before going back to get some water breathing ability, they'll be level 5, and if all five of them go in, the Aboleth will be just barely 400 XP past the deadly encounter threshold. Given how good these guys have been doing lately, does it seem reasonable to run with this? Or is level 5 too soon to take on an Aboleth?