How to make challenging high level encounters?

[Rfkannen]

One problem that my groups tend to run into is that at high levels it is extrememly hard to make fights that are actually dangerous to the pcs. The cr system just kind of breaks down, and a lot of high level monsters are just kind of weak. How do you make challenging high level combats?

[Unoriginal]

One problem that my groups tend to run into is that at high levels it is extrememly hard to make fights that are actually dangerous to the pcs. The cr system just kind of breaks down, and a lot of high level monsters are just kind of weak. How do you make challenging high level combats?

The CR system doesn't break down more than at any other level.

What makes any encounter a challenge is giving the enemy superior action economy, and give the PCs enough fights that they actually can't do all of said fights with full ressources

[MaxWilson]

One problem that my groups tend to run into is that at high levels it is extrememly hard to make fights that are actually dangerous to the pcs. The cr system just kind of breaks down, and a lot of high level monsters are just kind of weak. How do you make challenging high level combats?

My comments below assume that extreme summoning abuse is not happening: it's still basically just 4 PCs with high-level abilities vs. monsters, not 4 PCs, 4 Simulacra, 12 Efreets, and 80 animated skeletons vs. monsters. If PCs are abusing summons spells I recommend that you give the summons a cut of the XP. Anyone so interested in summoning abuse is probably also interested in reaching higher levels.

Either ignore the difficulty system (one option), or game the system (the other option) by choosing monsters that punch above their weight class.

Personally I ignore the difficulty system (most of my encounters that are intended to be challenging turn out to have been Deadly x3 or higher if I calculate the difficulty afterwards, sometimes Deadly x10+ if PCs are expected to take a CAW approach to them over the course of hours or days) but for the sake of Internet posting lets say you're trying to stick to Hard encounters and not exceed the party's level in CR.

An Iron Golem isn't much of a threat. A Beholder and two Spar Spawn Manglers is! (Especially if the Beholder paralyzes a PC while both Manglers are still alive--two Spawn Spawn Manglers can deal over 300 HP of autocrit damage in one turn to a low-AC paralyzed target!)

Four Neogi Masters (Hold Person IV, Charm, poisoned bites) and two Mind Flayer Arcanists (Wall of Force, Shield, Dominate Monster, Mind Blast, Extract Brain) are only Hard on paper for a level 16 party but a potential TPK. A Paladin aura could save them from all the charming/dominating (especially a Paladin of Devotion aura, which IMO is underrated) but that requires that the PCs assume Fireball Formation for all the Mind Blasts! The monsters have enough aggregate HP (71 HP x 6 = 426 HP) that the PCs can't simply nova them all into oblivion before they act unless the monsters are in Fireball Formation themselves.

You can fit six Young White Dragons in the Hard budget of a level 16 party. That's 270 HP of AoE cold damage in a single round, and 798 HP of bad guys.

Two Abominable Yetis (for paralyzation and brute force) plus five Quicklings (for anti-caster mobility and damage) is a worthy foe for a level 16 party.

Three Oni and seven Orogs is on the weaker side but still an acceptably tough fight IMO.

Four Hobgoblin Devastators and twenty-seven Hobgoblins is also acceptable.

Two Githyanki Gishes and two regular Githyanki Warriors, and a Red Dragon Wyrmling is a bit on the weak side but if you use the right tactics it could be challenging, which makes this a bit more on the Tucker's Kobolds side of thing (use things that are weak but played very cunningly). E.g. Gishes cast Invisibility III/IV to cover all the monsters, then approach the party and gain surprise. One Gish uses advantage from invisibility to Plane Shift the PC wizard to the Negative Energy Plane (no more Counterspells from the party!) and then follows up with a bonus action (War Magic) attack on the healer/bard for ~28 HP of damage, the other Gish restrains the party Paladin with Telekinesis and lifts him off his flying Pegasus, and then also attacks the healer/bard for ~28 HP of damage. The other Githyankis and Wyrmling either focus fire on the healer/bard if that makes sense, strafe the paladin (using Misty Step after each attack sequence to escape retaliation), or pin down the fourth PC with attacks + threatened opportunity attacks somewhere.


The CR system doesn't break down more than at any other level.

What makes any encounter a challenge is giving the enemy superior action economy, and give the PCs enough fights that they actually can't do all of said fights with full ressources

People like to talk about action economy but it's also the weight of HP and attacks. Ten orogs have AC 18, 420 HP, and attack twenty times at +6 to hit for d12+4 damage per hit (210 damage potential per round). If there were a single monster with AC 18, 420 HP, and two attacks at +6 for 10d12+40 (105) damage each, it would be a CR 22 monster worth 41,000 XP (https://5e.tools/crcalculator.html#10,18,210,6,false,Medium,93,10,f alse,0,false,0,mf-aggressive:true)! But ten Orogs is worth only 4500 XP (11,250 adjusted XP under the DMG method). You get more bang for your buck by spending it on more monsters, and it's not really about action economy. It's just about how CR scales.

[Unoriginal]

People like to talk about action economy but it's also the weight of HP and attacks. Ten orogs have AC 18, 420 HP, and attack twenty times at +6 to hit for d12+4 damage per hit (210 damage potential per round). If there were a single monster with AC 18, 420 HP, and two attacks at +6 for 10d12+40 (105) damage each, it would be a CR 22 monster worth 41,000 XP (https://5e.tools/crcalculator.html#10,18,210,6,false,Medium,93,10,f alse,0,false,0,mf-aggressive:true)! But ten Orogs is worth only 4500 XP (11,250 adjusted XP under the DMG method). You get more bang for your buck by spending it on more monsters, and it's not really about action economy. It's just about how CR scales.

Fair, action economy isn't the right term, but we're in agreement that it's a given 5e favors the side that has the most bodies (as long as all the bodies can and will affect the battle, trying to fight at 100 in a 10 ft wide dungeon corridor is generally not possible).

Also worth noting that those 10 Orogs would in some ways be easier to deal with than the hypothetical CR 22 monster (less HPs per individual means they lose DPR as the battle progress, for one) and in some ways much harder (20 attacks will hit much more often than 2 attacks, their number let them do varied positioning and tactics rather than being a singular point for the adventurers to pile on, less risk of a save-or-suck spell to turn the tide of the battle, ...).


The deadliest encounters in 5e will always be one (or more) boss with a bunch of relevant minions, as the weaknesses of one configuration are compensated by the other. Not a bad thing, IMO.



but for the sake of Internet posting lets say you're trying to stick to Hard encounters and not exceed the party's level in CR.

Important to note that one Hard encounter isn't actually hard, if the PCs are at full ressources and in an environment where they can do as pleases them.

[MaxWilson]

Also worth noting that those 10 Orogs would in some ways be easier to deal with than the hypothetical CR 22 monster (less HPs per individual means they lose DPR as the battle progress, for one) and in some ways much harder (20 attacks will hit much more often than 2 attacks, their number let them do varied positioning and tactics rather than being a singular point for the adventurers to pile on, less risk of a save-or-suck spell to turn the tide of the battle, ...).

Yeah, it depends. Two Fireballs destroys the Orogs but not the CR 22 Un-Orog; but you can Telekinesis or Stunning Strike a single CR 22 Un-Orog but not the ten Orogs.

My personal takeaway is that 5E's designers expect the PCs to have access to AoEs. A party of all Champions and Open Hand Monks will punch below its weight every time they run into a mob of monsters. The game math expects there to be at least one Wizard/Elemonk/Warlock/something in the party.


Important to note that one Hard encounter isn't actually hard, if the PCs are at full ressources and in an environment where they can do as pleases them.

Well, it depends on how much the DM is gaming the difficulty system. I think some of the Hard encounters I posted are actually challenging for a typical party, on the order of 25%+ chance of a PC death and 10%+ chance at a TPK. Think e.g. what happens when a Bladesinger gets caught in an anti-magic eye and then attacked by two Star Spawn Manglers.

35 Quicklings would also be pretty nasty.

[Unoriginal]

Well, it depends on how much the DM is gaming the difficulty system. I think some of the Hard encounters I posted are actually challenging for a typical party, on the order of 25%+ chance of a PC death and 10%+ chance at a TPK. Think e.g. what happens when a Bladesinger gets caught in an anti-magic eye and then attacked by two Star Spawn Manglers.

I think you're right about the chances of death, but on the other hand, one PC dying isn't that much of an obstacle for most lvl 15+ PCs.

I don't think the situations you presented have that high a risk of TPK unless the monsters have a big tactical advantage or the PCs act foolishly on the tactical standpoint. That being said, any encounter that has a chance force the PCs to retreat does deserve to be called "hard".

So I'll amend my statement to "most of the time, one Hard encounter isn't actually hard if the PCs are at full ressources and in an environment where they can do as pleases them".


Also, to go back to answer OP's question:

Tactics and environment are huge factors on what turns into a challenge. A snowy mountain and hit-and-run stalking can turn a White Dragon into far more of a nightmare they could ever be in a cavernous lair.

[MaxWilson]

I think you're right about the chances of death, but on the other hand, one PC dying isn't that much of an obstacle for most lvl 15+ PCs.

I don't think the situations you presented have that high a risk of TPK unless the monsters have a big tactical advantage or the PCs act foolishly on the tactical standpoint. That being said, any encounter that has a chance force the PCs to retreat does deserve to be called "hard".

So I'll amend my statement to "most of the time, one Hard encounter isn't actually hard if the PCs are at full ressources and in an environment where they can do as pleases them".

Also, to go back to answer OP's question:

Tactics and environment are huge factors on what turns into a challenge. A snowy mountain and hit-and-run stalking can turn a White Dragon into far more of a nightmare they could ever be in a cavernous lair.

I don't think high-level PCs can afford to be blase about death just because of Revivify/Clone. Sometimes it's perma-death (e.g. Beholder Disintegration, Nightwalker kills, lots of fiends) and sometimes it's solo-death (monsters kill one PC before or after separating them from the party). Even when it's neither (35 Quicklings) it still introduces the chance of snowballing into a TPK.

I agree though that all these encounters are eminently beatable. They're just supposed to be challenging, i.e. to make the players actually THINK and punish them if they play thoughtlessly.

Totally agree about tactics. A Purple Worm which shows up and just starts attacking random PCs, different every round, is a whole different ballgame from a Purple Worm who surfaces just long enough to swallow the party paladin and then burrows back down and away.

[J-H]

1) No solo monsters
The demilich has two Mummy Lord butlers. The enemy high priest has three junior priests around him, throwing Bane, Bless, and Counterspell. The enemy anti-paladins grant their blades a soul-devouring ability that does extra necrotic damage on hit, and prevents <9th level spells from raising the dead unless the specific sword is retrieved and placed with the body within 24 hours.

2) Enemies use buffs too
That casting dragon? It's smart... it starts the battle with Improved Invisibility up. The vampire wizard? Same...he doesn't have to be visible to use Vampire Charm. The enemy wizard in his lair? Unseen Servants pull down a couple of tapestries that were covering Symbol: Insanity on the stairway up to his lair. Enemy sorcerers Quicken Blade Ward on their turn, giving them resistance to weapon damage for the round. The enemy Conjurer drops a Prismatic Wall on the battlefield, cutting the party into two unequal halves.

3) Terrain is a factor
Use flight, climbing, mud, lava, and water in their turn, or maybe two at a time. Let PCs who can climb show off, and let enemies use the terrain to deny unfavorable engagements. Shove someone into the lava (10d10 damage/rd) or off a cliff (10d6 falling damage and out of the fight).

4) HP loss is not the only way to fail
My players (level 13) recently won+lost an encounter. The enemy Aaracokra were crushed, with only a couple escaping - but both wooden airships involved in the battle got burnt to a crisp by Fireballs & Firestorm. Instead of having a 72 mi/day aerial travel speed, they are now stuck moving half speed in a dense jungle (no druid, no ranger, no wizard, so no fast travel options). Make battles not just "kill stuff" but "Kill and..." ... catch the escaping enemy informant; ... protect the non-combatants ...steal the Magic Teleporting Sword from the enemy fighter ...Make them run away so you can follow their tracks.

[Unoriginal]

My personal takeaway is that 5E's designers expect the PCs to have access to AoEs. A party of all Champions and Open Hand Monks will punch below its weight every time they run into a mob of monsters. The game math expects there to be at least one Wizard/Elemonk/Warlock/something in the party.

That's true, I've seen it happen live when PCs ran afoul of a whole goblin community at once without having any AoE.

Th game also expect the PCs to have good single target damage on a regular basis, too, but it's much easier to get that. Still I could see a group that could kill hordes all day struggle against a big target the Champions and OH Monks would tear appart without a risk.


1) No solo monsters
The demilich has two Mummy Lord butlers. The enemy high priest has three junior priests around him, throwing Bane, Bless, and Counterspell. The enemy anti-paladins grant their blades a soul-devouring ability that does extra necrotic damage on hit, and prevents <9th level spells from raising the dead unless the specific sword is retrieved and placed with the body within 24 hours.

2) Enemies use buffs too
That casting dragon? It's smart... it starts the battle with Improved Invisibility up. The vampire wizard? Same...he doesn't have to be visible to use Vampire Charm. The enemy wizard in his lair? Unseen Servants pull down a couple of tapestries that were covering Symbol: Insanity on the stairway up to his lair. Enemy sorcerers Quicken Blade Ward on their turn, giving them resistance to weapon damage for the round. The enemy Conjurer drops a Prismatic Wall on the battlefield, cutting the party into two unequal halves.

3) Terrain is a factor
Use flight, climbing, mud, lava, and water in their turn, or maybe two at a time. Let PCs who can climb show off, and let enemies use the terrain to deny unfavorable engagements. Shove someone into the lava (10d10 damage/rd) or off a cliff (10d6 falling damage and out of the fight).

4) HP loss is not the only way to fail
My players (level 13) recently won+lost an encounter. The enemy Aaracokra were crushed, with only a couple escaping - but both wooden airships involved in the battle got burnt to a crisp by Fireballs & Firestorm. Instead of having a 72 mi/day aerial travel speed, they are now stuck moving half speed in a dense jungle (no druid, no ranger, no wizard, so no fast travel options). Make battles not just "kill stuff" but "Kill and..." ... catch the escaping enemy informant; ... protect the non-combatants ...steal the Magic Teleporting Sword from the enemy fighter ...Make them run away so you can follow their tracks.

Good points all around.

I would add: most creatures don't fight to the death when there are alternatives, if they can think rationally, a fair amount of encoutners should result in the enemies fleeing and/or seeking reinforcement.


I've seen way too many fights where everyone from the elderly archmage to the cowardly thief act like fanatical berserkers with a death wish and a laser focus on taking the PCs down with them.

[Danielqueue1]

Tucker's kobolds.

I once ran a one-shot as a teaser for a campaign I was building. 6 fifth level characters vs 4 basic normal bandits in a fortified and trapped ruined keep. The party made it to the top of the tower and achieved their objective, but not a single bandit was killed. (Party took a short rest, bandits recovered hp from the same short rest.)

A high level party is trickier, but put a half dragon at the gate flanked by a couple drakes, dragon cultists behind, a couple kobolds with a shortbow at every arrow slit and a Dragon flying overhead, and even high level parties will look for another way in, or a way to split the enemy off from eachother.

[The Cats]

Give combats objectives other than just beating the other guy to 0hp. Few things I've done:
-Against impossible odd the party just has to protect the archmage for enough rounds to complete his ritual
-The party can't kill the giant magic flying snake or the demi-plane they're in will collapse killing all of them, but they have to stop its rampage
-The bad guy keeps cursing party members making them take the same amount of damage he does so they have to figure out how to kill him without killing each other
-The party has to play hot-potato to keep the artifact out of the bad guy's aura

Use the environment and lair actions. lava and storms and stuff are cool and all but this is a fantasy game so go wild.
-At the top of each round the evil wizard shoots magic missiles at four of the runes in the walls, making them shoot lightning bolts at certain angles
-A summoning circle keeps bringing in new combatants until its disrupted or destroyed
-An underwater battle on the backs of a large group of fast-moving whales. if someone falls off they get left behind
-Walls of force appear at intervals splitting party members from each other

For exploration don't bother having a specific way to counter problems prepared. Figuring that out is the party's job and at high level they have plenty of tools. Just throw stuff at them and if they come up with something that sounds feasible make them roll for it to see if it'll work (or if it's a really good solution just give it to them).
-The party has to get past a monster way stronger than them without waking it but to do so they have to smash through solid stone. (My party pinned the monster with an immovable rod and used a combination of stone shape and brute force to get through)
-A magic fog teleports anyone who enters the hallway it fills to a random location. The party needs to get to one place, but all the others are very harmful. (My party just blundered through again and again, using up a ton of resources, until luck sent them to the right place)
-The party wants to get into a ruin but has to appease the guardian spirit first that wants them to "Prove your pride, prove your love, and prove your generosity." (My party decked one member in tons of magic items and used intimidation to prove pride; brought a bunch of the cleric's cultist followers to fawn over him to prove their love, and sacrificed a legendary magic item to prove generosity)

[LumenPlacidum]

100 kobolds with their slings and 2 Mages who hang back under greater invisibility and wait to counterspell area spells and line-of-sight-blocking spells. This is, theoretically, a "hard" encounter for a party of 4 16th level characters. I would imagine that almost any such party is doomed.

A level 16 fighter has about 160 hp, behind an AC of about 20. With pack tactics, the kobolds have a 34% chance of regular-hitting, for an average of 4.5 damage each. They have a 9.75% chance of critting for a whopping 7 expected damage. That comes out to an expected damage per action of... 2.2125. As such, the kobolds expect to do 221 damage to such a character. The fighter is likely doomed.

Let's assume that with every round, the party hits every time and kills a kobold with every hit. We'll assume that the party has something like 10 attacks per round, meaning 10 dead kobolds every round.

We'll also assume the party goes first:

Round 1: 10 kobolds die, there are 90 left. The kobolds retaliate and do ~199 damage, killing pretty much any one character.
Round 2: 8 kobolds die, there are 82 left. The kobolds retaliate and do ~181 damage, killing pretty much any one character. Round 2 alt: 5 kobolds die and the first character is revived. The 85 kobolds retaliate and probably re-kill the first and still kill a second character.
etc.

Even assuming that the party can continue to kill 10 kobolds per round, the kobolds will expect to do a total of almost a thousand damage to the party, essentially split up as needed. This assumes that the mages do nothing other than protect from area spells.

That said, building "Action Oriented Monsters" really helps make fights a little less one-sided.

----------------------------------------------------------

Continuing to noodle the numbers about the hypothetical kobold army encounter.

If the party contains a twilight cleric and a peace cleric, then three of the critical hits are mitigated completely by reactions made by other party members. The remaining ones must bypass the 1d6+16 temporary hitpoints. So, the reactions drain 21 damage from the expected output of the kobolds, and the remainder still overwhelm the shield and crush someone. It becomes a little more annoying to do the math once the number of expected crits drops below the number of remaining characters.



Why did I post this? Because if you take things to the logical extremes, you still get encounters that will eat parties alive. It is only because people want to use the somewhat less effective higher level monsters

Also, to deal with the caveat indicated by the whole player party abusing summoned monsters. What if some of the opponents do as well? A hydra has no upper limit on the number of heads it can grow. Have a mad druid there to keep healing it and it could attack the party with 800 heads. There could be a high level wizard or necromancer who has created an army of animated objects, tiny servants, and skeletons/zombies. If the players are abusing having summons, then there's little reason to not include such things in the XP budget of their controller rather than counting them individually for xp purposes (although I wouldn't actually do this unless I were trying to be confrontational). Those challenge 6 mages can keep all their level 3 slots for counterspell, and spend all their 4th and 5th level slots on Tiny Servant for a total of 14 servants per mage. Then, fit 6 of them into a "hard" encounter, for a total of 84 tiny servants plus the remaining slots on the 6 mages. They aren't too impressive individually, but they can do some serious harm as a group. Especially since the mages can just pile on the magic missiles to anyone who looks incapable of casting shield.

*shrug*

[Debaterinarms]

I agree with your larger point that action economy is important and large numbers can help, but your assumptions certainly don't line up with my T3-4 games. I have played a lot of games into T3 as both player and DM and I have run 4 campaigns into T4 (from level 1), including two that are still ongoing.

Obviously my games are not representative of everyone's experience, but 20 AC is what a plate wearer with shield proficiency has with absolutely no other factors; fighting style, species, feats, magic items, cover, spells, nothing else is considered here, which makes this an assumption for a level 5 fighter/paladin/war cleric/etc., not a level 15+ one.

Invisibility is not an impressive buff at this level of play, it is commonly countered. Similarly, physical damage resistance can be acquired in a number of ways at this point. Counterspell is much shorter range than many characters' movement or effective combat range, and the odds of making a dispel against a high level spell are not good enough to dismiss such defenses out of hand.

Yes, a white room analysis of massed missile fire would imply this is a good solution, but one could say the same of a Necromancer Wizard PC using massed skeletons, and having DMed for a player who often tries this tactic, it is really unwieldy and unlikely to be effective outside of optimal circumstances.

The point is good, but its not decisive. I really enjoy high level play and am always looking for better ways to challenge players, but it isn't so simple in my experience.

[MaxWilson]

100 kobolds with their slings and 2 Mages who hang back under greater invisibility and wait to counterspell area spells and line-of-sight-blocking spells. This is, theoretically, a "hard" encounter for a party of 4 16th level characters. I would imagine that almost any such party is doomed.

A level 16 fighter has about 160 hp, behind an AC of about 20. With pack tactics, the kobolds have a 34% chance of regular-hitting, for an average of 4.5 damage each. They have a 9.75% chance of critting for a whopping 7 expected damage. That comes out to an expected damage per action of... 2.2125. As such, the kobolds expect to do 221 damage to such a character. The fighter is likely doomed.

Nitpick: slings have a short range (30'/120') which tends to cancel out advantage from Pack Tactics, when you have Pack Tactics in the first place. My experience is that an Eldritch Knight could survive this encounter fairly easily by (1) using Expeditious Retreat and/or Action Surge to break contact, denying Pack Tactics, so that all the kobolds are firing at disadvantage (from long range or firing at a prone target). Changing advantage to disadvantage cuts expected damage per round from 221.75 to 28.75. (2) also Shielding against hits, until the kobolds have been whittled down a bit. Now you're looking at only 1.75 DPR that gets through the Shield. There are limits to how many Shields the EK has so you can't rely on this forever, but it buys time to throw Fireballs and/or shoot kobolds and/or get out of range. (3) using partial cover to mitigate the need to Shield.

Note further that kiting the kobolds with Expeditious Retreat will tend to encourage them to bunch up into Fireball Formation: if I move 60' back and shoot the closest kobolds to me, denying Pack Tactics, then it becomes clear to the kobolds that their only hope of getting Pack Tactics is to rush forward a whole BUNCH of kobolds (a dozen or more), hoping that I can't shoot them all before they can close with me. But if I can Fireball, like a 16th level EK can, then that turns out to be a bad idea too.

TL;DR I agree with you that big encounters are challenging enough to require a fighter to think. I am just nitpicking by pointing out that the Fighter can improve his odds quite a lot with good spells and tactics, especially by denying Pack Tactics. That's what makes tough encounters fun, especially for Fighters.

[Unoriginal]

IMO what's most likely to happen in the 100 Kobolds + invisible Mages setup, if the players have time to think, is that the frist caster in initiative order would try casting an AoE or a protection spell (like a Wall spell), maybe get counterspelled, and then the adventurers would target the counterspellers.

[Rfkannen]

So to use a party I am in as an example, how would you challenge a level 11 gloomstalker archer ranger, a sword and board battlemaster, a hexblade/whisper bard, and a moon duid?

[MaxWilson]

So to use a party I am in as an example, how would you challenge a level 11 gloomstalker archer ranger, a sword and board battlemaster, a hexblade/whisper bard, and a moon duid?

They're light on spellcasting. Since "challenge" is a mental exercise for the players (you want them kicking themselves afterwards for things they should have done differently), one of my goals is being to be trying to bait the Moon Druid into wildshape too soon, either without casting spells or after casting the "wrong" spells, so maybe I'd prepare a web-filled cavern with a Venom Troll and three Giant Spiders openly visible at the north end (tempting the druid to go into elemental wildshape to tank vs. all that poison) and a Drow Arachnomancer in command, not initially visible, through a door at the south end. Round 1, troll and spiders fight PCs at the north end. Drow summons more giant spiders. Round 2, door at the south end opens and sixteen wolf spiders Dash in over the walls and ceilings, surround the archer and bard, and hopefully cause some nice panic while the Drow sticks their head through the doorway only long enough to Dispel a key PC spell like Haste or Spike Growth. If the spiders die, switch to Dominate Monster and dominate the Battlemaster, or summon more spiders. Fight in melee only if forced to (because commanders don't fight, and also because concentration), but fight HARD if so.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Have synergistic abilities for groups of enemies and have a good look at spell lists for enemies. I had our group fight against a couple of flesh golems recently and the caster that was supposed to have a couple of fireball spells got changed to lightning bolts. The caster was able to heal the golems and zap the party all at once. Not a high level example, but this is the kind of thing intelligent baddies are going to do.
Reaction and Bonus action spells aren't just good for characters; they are good for the baddies as well, and even high level monsters can benefit from Shield, Absorb Elements, and Misty Step. As others have said this helps the action economy.
Also, not only do baddies need some cannon fodder, they also need something useful to do while the cannon fodder is up front. There are way to many high CR monsters with very few useful actions they can do beyond melee attack. I've just added a couple of spells to most mid- high level Demons and Devils, so they aren't just sacks of HP.

[Amdy_vill]

One problem that my groups tend to run into is that at high levels it is extrememly hard to make fights that are actually dangerous to the pcs. The cr system just kind of breaks down, and a lot of high level monsters are just kind of weak. How do you make challenging high level combats?

so I have played a lot in tier 3 and 4 and the best advice is to get fermiller with mob combat tables and loud the fights up with monsters. give a few big boss monsters and then give the mobs 1 hp. it works well and doesn't require building a monster but if you want you can dive into the dragon talks, and dragon magizen stuff on monster making and that should halp.

[da newt]

With 100 Kobolds, how many of them get a clean shot without at least 1 other Kobold in the way providing 1/2 cover, and for most you'd have 2, 3, or 4 Kobolds between you and the target ...

And you can't make a ranged attack if you are within melee without DISADV ...

So only 15 Kobolds can attack w/ ADV and no Kobolds in the way, one Kobold has to sacrifice themselves to be within melee (as long as they last) and all the others have at least 1/2 cover?




But yes - many enemies can help make an encounter more difficult because that means many attacks and many different targets.


Personally, I like encounters that roughly match the Party in terms of #s and capability. This tends to make things pretty even. When the encounter is 1 v many, the many have a distinct advantage. When an encounter is a few high capability, vs a bunch of low capability the higher capability can counter/overcome the numbers deficit. I prefer to create encounters where there is no 1 BBEG, but a group of capable foes. If the foes also have a variety of capabilities, it tends to be more interesting too (v a handful of foes that are carbon copies of each other).

[MaxWilson]

Personally, I like encounters that roughly match the Party in terms of #s and capability. This tends to make things pretty even. When the encounter is 1 v many, the many have a distinct advantage. When an encounter is a few high capability, vs a bunch of low capability the higher capability can counter/overcome the numbers deficit. I prefer to create encounters where there is no 1 BBEG, but a group of capable foes. If the foes also have a variety of capabilities, it tends to be more interesting too (v a handful of foes that are carbon copies of each other).

Note: even fights in 5E are very, very tough. If you ever put the players up against mirror images of themselves from an alternate dimension, there's about a 50% chance of TPK if both sides fight to the death. By 5E difficulty standards that would be an Uberdeadly encounter or something (Deadly Deadly Deadly Deadly Deadly Dead).

I'm not saying it can't be fun--sometimes it can! but if you're the DM, maybe try to find a reason to make the bad guy team a little bit smaller (4 PCs vs. 3 NPCs) or weaker (level 10 PCs vs. level 7 NPCs) or dumber (don't go deeper than one layer of counterplay vs. PC tactics), or else have a good backup plan for what happens next if the party does TPK. E.g. backup characters, or some kind of captivity arc, maybe gladiatorial combat for the Sorcerer King's pleasure.

[J.C.]

Keep in mind you can build your NPCs using the PHB as if they were regular characters. NPCs built this way tend to be a lot more capable than the generic offerings in the Creature Manuals. Having the NPCs coordinate in their tactics (e.g all on blindsight) can make them a lot more challenging.

Ideally, for maximum player enjoyment at Tier 4 you want to bring the players within a hair's width from a TPK but not a TPK. So don't be afraid as a DM to have the players rely on Revivify, etc.

[da newt]

"Personally, I like encounters that roughly match the Party in terms of #s and capability. This tends to make things pretty even. "

Seems I was not clear what I meant by the above. I was not trying to imply creating a Bizarro version of the party, but creating combat with a handful of badguys and a mix of martial and magic type attacks and similar offensive and defensive power as the party.

IMO, too often written content is either a bunch of minions, or 1 BBEG. I prefer a handful of foes with various features. I find those combats more interesting and challenging.

For example: I think combat with 1 Bodak, 1 Wight, and 2 Will o' Wisps is more interesting and challenging than combat vs 6 Owlbear or 1 Froghemouth even though the challenge rating of the 3 options is similar.

[MaxWilson]

"Personally, I like encounters that roughly match the Party in terms of #s and capability. This tends to make things pretty even. "

Seems I was not clear what I meant by the above. I was not trying to imply creating a Bizarro version of the party, but creating combat with a handful of badguys and a mix of martial and magic type attacks and similar offensive and defensive power as the party.

IMO, too often written content is either a bunch of minions, or 1 BBEG. I prefer a handful of foes with various features. I find those combats more interesting and challenging.

For example: I think combat with 1 Bodak, 1 Wight, and 2 Will o' Wisps is more interesting and challenging than combat vs 6 Owlbear or 1 Froghemouth even though the challenge rating of the 3 options is similar.

Oh, interesting. I'll have to experiment with that style.

[KorvinStarmast]

Four Hobgoblin Devastators and twenty-seven Hobgoblins is also acceptable. My suggested tactic includes half of them beginning the encounter with their long bows out ...
People like to talk about action economy but it's also the weight of HP and attacks. Ten orogs have AC 18, 420 HP, and attack twenty times at +6 to hit for d12+4 damage per hit (210 damage potential per round). Orogs are a fine monster.

[MaxWilson]

My suggested tactic includes half of them beginning the encounter with their long bows out ...

...and the others in hiding so the PCs choose first-round spells and buffs under the assumption that there are only a dozen hobgoblins.

[da newt]

I also like to start combat w/ 'X' foes, and then a turn later the other foes show up from another direction (perhaps from behind) or come out of hiding. It adds suspense and really turns up the pressure.

Orogs are cool, and the other Orc types from Volo's are fun too, but I love the Oni.

Of the same vein, I'd rather include goblins, bugbear and hobgoblins (and include at least one caster) over encountering a group of just one of the goblinoid types.

In a bandit camp I like to have some martial adepts, a priest, a druid, and a mage as the boss along with the generic bandits/thugs. It's the variety that makes it a bit more interesting/challenging.