Stacking Dice Bonuses

[Ramshack]

Hey All,

Just seeking some advice on how to DM around what appears to be some stacking class features ruining the integrity of the game. Mainly various class features adding bonus dice to rolls. My group is playing a Lore Bard, Peace Cleric, Circle of Stars Druid along with 2 rangers, eldritch knight and a monk... (7 players a problem for another day)

However due to their classes they are getting many features that can effect and boost their dice which is trivializing many encounters. They run bless or guidance (+d4), plus bardic inspiration (+d6), plus embolden bond (+d4) and then the weald or woe feature (+d6). This kind of stacking seems inherently wrong in 5e but rules as written seem to show its legal.

But the resulting shenanigans' are allowing people to roll into the 40s at very low levels. Normally with advantage on the d20 because of so many rangers and druids and clerics running guiding bolt and faerie fire. and then 2 melee characters took shield fighting style to apply disadvantage to two incoming attack's each round as a reaction as well. There is just so much dice manipulation at the table.

My initial though is to limit a +d6 from one spell and one class feature at a time. And to use the strongest if multiple effects are stacking. But I want to be fair to the players as well and not just say no to say no.

Any help or advice?

[Willowhelm]

It sounds like things working as intended but probably there is some additional limitation that they’re conveniently forgetting…

Could you give a concrete example?

Eg. Guidance is touch, bardic inspiration has a limit per rest and needs to be given before (using a bonus action), advantage doesn’t stack and is cancelled by disadvantage, to use guiding bolt from stars Druid (limited uses per rest) you need to be holding the map (how many weapons/shields are they holding etc), weal and woe you only get one type per long rest and only a limited number and they must be a reaction (so only one per turn..)

I think the real issue is you’ve got 7 characters at 6th level or so…

[Kane0]

Houserules that you can at most roll ome or two extra dice on top of advantage/disadvantage?

Or perhaps implement the advantage/disadvantage mechanic om those extra rolls, so if you have both bond and bless giving +1d4 you roll them and pick the best of either rather than adding both.

[Ramshack]

It sounds like things working as intended but probably there is some additional limitation that they’re conveniently forgetting…

Could you give a concrete example?

Eg. Guidance is touch, bardic inspiration has a limit per rest and needs to be given before (using a bonus action), advantage doesn’t stack and is cancelled by disadvantage, to use guiding bolt from stars Druid (limited uses per rest) you need to be holding the map (how many weapons/shields are they holding etc), weal and woe you only get one type per long rest and only a limited number and they must be a reaction (so only one per turn..)

I think the real issue is you’ve got 7 characters at 6th level or so…

Yes most of the uses are limited I'm aware but when they really want to they can have bless running and embolden bond running, they have a saved bardic die from before and the druid uses a reaction or if its a skill check someone helps them and grants advantage and combined with advantage on most attack rolls and disadvantage on 2 attacks each round from shield style reactions and sometimes a third from vicious mockery. it feels a bit overwhelming. It doesn't happen every roll obviously but when they really want to they can almost always roll advantage with +2d6+2d4 or +1d6+2d4 and give some a disadvantage with a 1d6

[Greywander]

Aren't most of these finite resources, many with short durations, or only lasting for a single roll? I'd say the first thing to do is double check that you're running these abilities correctly. If a bonus is only meant to apply to a single roll, don't let it carry over to subsequent rolls as well. If a bonus is only meant to be applied once per turn, don't apply it to every roll (though someone else's turn would count).

Bardic Inspiration only applies to a single roll. After it is used it is gone. It sticks around for up to 10 minutes if you hold off on using it.
Emboldening Bond only applies to one roll per turn. This means you can apply it to multiple off-turn rolls, provided each roll is on a different creature's turn. It lasts for 10 minutes.
Cosmic Omen uses the druid's reaction, which inherently limits it to once per round. Still great for out of combat use. This lasts until your next long rest. Nice ability.
Bless and Guidance don't stack; Bless only applies to attack rolls and saving throws, Guidance only applies to ability checks.

So yes, there's a lot of potential stacking going on. The druid one is the only one that's really up all the time, though, and only when they get the weal option. (Nevermind, it does have limited uses.) Well, that and Guidance. The rest require expending a resource, and it only lasts for a limited amount of time. I say let them have their fun, they spend build resources to get these abilities. If they're strong enough, you can allow them to tackle challenges that would normally be above their level, if they thing they can handle it.

I'm surprised there isn't a Divination wizard or a halfling in this party.

Edit: Try mixing in some enemies that use saving throws instead of attacks. Bless and Emboldening Bond will still help with those, but advantage and disadvantage become more difficult to bring into play (unless they're a yuan-ti or gnome or something). Don't make all enemies use saves, just a few here and there to keep them on their toes.

[Ramshack]

Aren't most of these finite resources, many with short durations, or only lasting for a single roll? I'd say the first thing to do is double check that you're running these abilities correctly. If a bonus is only meant to apply to a single roll, don't let it carry over to subsequent rolls as well. If a bonus is only meant to be applied once per turn, don't apply it to every roll (though someone else's turn would count).

Bardic Inspiration only applies to a single roll. After it is used it is gone. It sticks around for up to 10 minutes if you hold off on using it.
Emboldening Bond only applies to one roll per turn. This means you can apply it to multiple off-turn rolls, provided each roll is on a different creature's turn. It lasts for 10 minutes.
Cosmic Omen uses the druid's reaction, which inherently limits it to once per round. Still great for out of combat use. This lasts until your next long rest. Nice ability.
Bless and Guidance don't stack; Bless only applies to attack rolls and saving throws, Guidance only applies to ability checks.

So yes, there's a lot of potential stacking going on. The druid one is the only one that's really up all the time, though, and only when they get the weal option. (Nevermind, it does have limited uses.) Well, that and Guidance. The rest require expending a resource, and it only lasts for a limited amount of time. I say let them have their fun, they spend build resources to get these abilities. If they're strong enough, you can allow them to tackle challenges that would normally be above their level, if they thing they can handle it.

I'm surprised there isn't a Divination wizard or a halfling in this party.

The eldritch knight was originally going to take the divination halfling wizard with the halfling feat that lets him use his reaction to replace teammates 1s and since he's the most experienced player at the table i asked him politely to change based on everyone else builds.

[Ramshack]

Well consensus seems to agree its not a big deal but for me really the cumulative effect is quiet frustrating, all incoming attacks have disadvantage, most outgoing attacks at advantage and always at least 1 or 2 additional dice sometimes all 4 to boost critical rolls.

[Kane0]

Everyone seems to think its no big deal but really the cumulative effect is quiet frustrating, all incoming attacks have disadvantage, most outgoing attacks at advantage and always at least 1 or 2 additional dice sometimes all 4 to boost critical rolls.

Im thankful it hasnt happened at my table, because it does concern me too.

I would go with the 'advantage' on extra dice so piling on extra bonuses onto a roll isnt worthless but does give diminishing returns.

[Greywander]

Hmm, perhaps the problem is that you're not throwing enough encounters at them? Encounters don't have to be combat, just something that will make them expend resources. Of course they're powerful when they can blow all their resources at once. You need to give them a reason to pace themselves. That isn't always easy to do, particularly without slowing the game to a standstill. IIRC, the guideline in the DMG is 6 to 8 encounters per long rest, whereas what I tend to see in practice is one or two encounters. Perhaps there are some ways to run quick non-combat encounters that can burn some resources and be fun for the players without slowing the game down too much.

Edit: Also, check the edit on my last post, in case you didn't see it.

[Ramshack]

I do try to to do this, last session was a pretty typical dungeon crawl with about 6 encounters and 3-4 mroe they were able to bypass. Each encounter taking about 6 rounds or less of combat Bless and embolden bond were up the entire time. Plus vicious mockery and the shield style can be used every round so thats at least 3 incoming attacks a round being given dis advantage 4 classes can cast faerie fire and 3 can cast guiding bolt lol. I do appreciate the advice, but i just need to get more creative with debuffing spells. and generating advantage for the npcs i suppose. Though part of me says i should just approach my players and say this kind of focused party is very effective and games the system but its negatively impacting my fun as well at this point. and find a way to scale it back.

[Willowhelm]

Well consensus seems to agree its not a big deal but for me really the cumulative effect is quiet frustrating, all incoming attacks have disadvantage, most outgoing attacks at advantage and always at least 1 or 2 additional dice sometimes all 4 to boost critical rolls.

Again… can you give some concrete examples?

How are all attacks at disadvantage? The fighting style I think you’re referring to (Protection) requires the attack to be against a different creature within 5 feet. How many of the party are standing within 5 feet? Why not attack that player directly? If they’re clumping why not use an area of effect option? How does the bard give everyone inspiration for every fight when the inspiration only lasts 10 minutes and they only have a limited number per rest? How is the bless always up and running?

Out of combat with time on their hands… yes, they can stack it up and break skill checks. There are 7 of them working as a team.

They’re tier 2(ish?) adventurers with magic on their side and overlapping competencies. If you’ve got 7 of them then they should be facing challenges twice as difficult as a “normal” party of the same level (which, when by the book, are already pretty trivial).

If they use the resources of multiple players to achieve a guaranteed success on something that another group might’ve managed with a single character and a lucky roll… did it “break” anything?

As long as everyone’s having fun then no worries. If someone (including you) isn’t then talk it out.

[Mastikator]

Guidance and embolden bond both costs actions, augury takes a minute to cast (11 if ritual) and bardic inspiration takes only a bonus action but is a limited supply.

One way to enforce action economy is to call for an ability check that needs to happen immediately, ie if they wait a turn to cast guidance and embolden bond they will have lost their chance and auto failed.
Also never allow it retroactively, if someone shouts out "I cast guidance" then it won't apply retroactively.

Third is resources, things like bardic inspiration, if they're confident in spending it on ability checks, make them make more ability checks more often. Have more encounters and fewer chances for rest (also enforce short rest limits).

[Greywander]

The cleric should have less than 6 uses of Emboldening Bond, same goes for Cosmic Omen and Bardic Inspiration, and probably Bless, too. Now, I wouldn't be surprised if a few of the combats overlapped the duration on some of these abilities, so it was still up from the previous fight, but this shouldn't be happening all the time. If they're just moving through the dungeon SWAT-style, killing everything that moves, then yeah, they might be able to clear a whole section of the dungeon before the durations run out. But if they stop to search the rooms, or if they need to solve some kind of puzzle to progress (which may be as simple as finding the key to a locked door), then those durations are going to run out.

Now that I think about it, moving through a dungeon like a SWAT team isn't a bad idea. Clear out the baddies now, search for treasure later.

Something else to try is bringing in enemies that can inflict conditions, e.g. the poisoned condition.

You might also try different configurations of enemies to see which ones they breeze through and which ones give them trouble. Three big brutes? One big brute and like 30 mooks? A necromancer with spooky skeletons? Archers that are inaccessible? Enemies that explode on death? Two or more spellcasters, with some mook meat shields? Ghosts with possession abilities?

Use traps, as well. Traps are a good way to burn through some resources. And remember, not every trap can be disarmed; you can't really disable a spike pit. Ooh, here's an idea: a door with an obvious pressure plate in front of it. The door handle activates the trap, the pressure plate opens the door. It's basically the perfect type of trap, because it doesn't make it super inconvenient for the creatures actually living there.

[Ramshack]

Again… can you give some concrete examples?

How are all attacks at disadvantage? The fighting style I think you’re referring to (Protection) requires the attack to be against a different creature within 5 feet. How many of the party are standing within 5 feet? Why not attack that player directly? If they’re clumping why not use an area of effect option? How does the bard give everyone inspiration for every fight when the inspiration only lasts 10 minutes and they only have a limited number per rest? How is the bless always up and running?

Out of combat with time on their hands… yes, they can stack it up and break skill checks. There are 7 of them working as a team.

They’re tier 2(ish?) adventurers with magic on their side and overlapping competencies. If you’ve got 7 of them then they should be facing challenges twice as difficult as a “normal” party of the same level (which, when by the book, are already pretty trivial).

If they use the resources of multiple players to achieve a guaranteed success on something that another group might’ve managed with a single character and a lucky roll… did it “break” anything?

As long as everyone’s having fun then no worries. If someone (including you) isn’t then talk it out.


So two of the players call themselves the shield bros, They stay within 5 feet of each other s often as possible and are often the target of 2 of the clerics embolden bonds and bless spells. When one person is attack each round the other can use their reaction to impose disadvantage. In addition the one of the shield bros has the shield feat so he can knock people down as a bonus action to grant others advantage. Finally the bard uses vicious mockery on ranged targets. Finally the cleric will use mind sliver cantrips to lower enemy saving throws. Additionally the bard, cleric and druid all have guiding bolt helping grant advantage on the biggest threats and the rangers druid and bard can use faerie fire for other targets. All that happens every every round. Throw in bardic inspiration and weld or woe bonus for important rolls and it feels like its impossible to do anything. I know they cannot do all 4 bonus die every turn but they can have advantage on most attacks impose disvantage on the biggest threats and have normally 2 bonus die a turn and on the most important rolls use a bardic die or a druid reaction.

[Ramshack]

The cleric should have less than 6 uses of Emboldening Bond, same goes for Cosmic Omen and Bardic Inspiration, and probably Bless, too. Now, I wouldn't be surprised if a few of the combats overlapped the duration on some of these abilities, so it was still up from the previous fight, but this shouldn't be happening all the time. If they're just moving through the dungeon SWAT-style, killing everything that moves, then yeah, they might be able to clear a whole section of the dungeon before the durations run out. But if they stop to search the rooms, or if they need to solve some kind of puzzle to progress (which may be as simple as finding the key to a locked door), then those durations are going to run out.

Now that I think about it, moving through a dungeon like a SWAT team isn't a bad idea. Clear out the baddies now, search for treasure later.

Something else to try is bringing in enemies that can inflict conditions, e.g. the poisoned condition.

You might also try different configurations of enemies to see which ones they breeze through and which ones give them trouble. Three big brutes? One big brute and like 30 mooks? A necromancer with spooky skeletons? Archers that are inaccessible? Enemies that explode on death? Two or more spellcasters, with some mook meat shields? Ghosts with possession abilities?

Use traps, as well. Traps are a good way to burn through some resources. And remember, not every trap can be disarmed; you can't really disable a spike pit. Ooh, here's an idea: a door with an obvious pressure plate in front of it. The door handle activates the trap, the pressure plate opens the door. It's basically the perfect type of trap, because it doesn't make it super inconvenient for the creatures actually living there.

Thank you solid advice, breaking up the encounters to ruin the 10 minute timers will be the biggest help. I think, as you're right they will go swat style to preserve buffs. I also try mixing up the creature encounters more mooks the less powerful protection is from the shield bros

[Kane0]

Also dont forget monsters that can throw PCs out of position or toss out stuff like dispels.

[Willowhelm]

So two of the players call themselves the shield bros, They stay within 5 feet of each other s often as possible and are often the target of 2 of the clerics embolden bonds and bless spells. When one person is attack each round the other can use their reaction to impose disadvantage. In addition the one of the shield bros has the shield feat so he can knock people down as a bonus action to grant others advantage. Finally the bard uses vicious mockery on ranged targets. Finally the cleric will use mind sliver cantrips to lower enemy saving throws. Additionally the bard, cleric and druid all have guiding bolt helping grant advantage on the biggest threats and the rangers druid and bard can use faerie fire for other targets. All that happens every every round. Throw in bardic inspiration and weld or woe bonus for important rolls and it feels like its impossible to do anything. I know they cannot do all 4 bonus die every turn but they can have advantage on most attacks impose disvantage on the biggest threats and have normally 2 bonus die a turn and on the most important rolls use a bardic die or a druid reaction.

Ignore the shield bros. Don’t attack them. That’s a waste of bless and emboldening bond and all that shielding. Walk right on by and go kill the squishies (which also might remove a bless…)

There’s plenty of little tactics to counter all the things they’re doing but that can get a little close to undermining the characters where you are deliberately targeting their abilities. (Then again… sometimes that’s legit).

Seems like the simplest fix here is to have more creature in the fights. (Rebalance the action economy.) If they dodge 5 attacks in a round, have 5 more mooks in the next fight so they can’t dodge those ones.

They want to fight at range? Dungeons with twisting corridors and tight spaces.

Ambushes (no pre-fight prep)

Opponents who know their tactics.

Light of sight blocking.

Magical darkness.

Aoe

Split the party

Silence

Counterspell

Dominate/possess players

This all assumes you’re willing to go off piste and put significant effort into rebalancing encounters for this party… 7 players is just not standard.

Then of course there are non combat challenges. Just plain old difficult decisions. Two objectives and not enough time. Two directly opposing objectives.

Where’s the RP side of this group? What’s the story? Or is this “just” hack and slash?

[Mastikator]

How would they deal with darkness or fog cloud? You could also run a larger number of weaker mobs to shift the action economy back

[Ramshack]

Ignore the shield bros. Don’t attack them. That’s a waste of bless and emboldening bond and all that shielding. Walk right on by and go kill the squishies (which also might remove a bless…)

There’s plenty of little tactics to counter all the things they’re doing but that can get a little close to undermining the characters where you are deliberately targeting their abilities. (Then again… sometimes that’s legit).

Seems like the simplest fix here is to have more creature in the fights. (Rebalance the action economy.) If they dodge 5 attacks in a round, have 5 more mooks in the next fight so they can’t dodge those ones.

They want to fight at range? Dungeons with twisting corridors and tight spaces.

Ambushes (no pre-fight prep)

Opponents who know their tactics.

Light of sight blocking.

Magical darkness.

Aoe

Split the party

Silence

Counterspell

Dominate/possess players

This all assumes you’re willing to go off piste and put significant effort into rebalancing encounters for this party… 7 players is just not standard.

Then of course there are non combat challenges. Just plain old difficult decisions. Two objectives and not enough time. Two directly opposing objectives.

Where’s the RP side of this group? What’s the story? Or is this “just” hack and slash?

Thanks! alot of good information here. I dont want to completely undermine my players i want them to have cool and fun moments but this give me a lot of good tactics to switch in and out especially for big story driven fights. And I agree 7 players is too many but its been so long since we could play with covid and real life so many people were interested in hanging out again i couldnt say no to someone. I'll make it work out so were all having fun.

[stoutstien]

How large, in scope and number of targets, are your encounters? 7 PCs is a massive swing as far as the action pools goes which is probably a larger issue than entry level tactic. Dice manipulation will enhance this but alone it should only be an issue if they also have no concerns about resource management.

The level of difficulty needed for any given table is also hard to judge but as a baseline the published modules and DMG suggestions are closer in line with a random generated PHB only party with no variant rules in play.

[Emongnome777]

1) First off, thank you for stepping up for your friends and taking the DMs mantle for such a large group. DMing isn't easy and it's twice as hard for 7 players. You're obviously doing the best you can so everyone can have a good time.

2) DMs deserve to have fun too. I think you're attitude is spot on: "I dont want to completely undermine my players i want them to have cool and fun moments..." This is the opposite of the "me vs. them" attitude that can infect a DM even with good intentions.

3) If the players know you want them to have fun, they also need to know you want to have fun too. I'd be open and honest with them. Maybe (I'm not sure on this one), you may want to bring up how you're considering building some encounters to be a soft counter to their core dice-stacking strategy. The players shouldn't feel bad for building a team with good synergy, and if you just incorporate some of the great suggestions you've gotten so far without being open about it, the players could feel like you're punishing them for their play style. There's a balance here and you're best bet is to work with your players to find it so everyone is happy. You know them better than any of us so you're the best judge on how to approach this.

4) Here are a few counter strategies that I don't think are mentioned:
- Focus fire on the ones concentrating on bless, faerie fire, etc.
- Use flanking optional rule to negate the disadvantage when attacking the shield brothers
- Sprinkle in much higher CR creatures so attacks with advantage still miss some

[Tanarii]

Are you accounting for the fact that seven players drop the difficulty of a fight due to the effect on the enemy multilier for numbers? If you're running modules, you need to increase the total XP of the encounters significantly.

In other words, for level 6 characters:
If an Medium encounter (one of 6 in a session) is 4 creatures of 300xp (2400 adjusted for party of 4) you need to increase that to 7 creatures of 300 xp (4200 adjusted for party of 7). If it was 2 creatures of 800xp, it now needs to be 3 of 800xp plus a 'minion' of 400xp, or 2 of 800 and 3 of 400xp.

Also don't be tempted to increase the power of enemies. Increase numbers.

Edit: But yeah, no matter how you cut it and no matter what their builds, seven characters is a challenge.

[MoiMagnus]

Any help or advice?

Firstly, I think the core issue is the 7 players. The game was definitely not created around 7 players stacking all of their bonuses on a single one. You've probably guessed by yourself that when there are 7 players, you need to put more enemies so that the PCs don't outnumber the creatures (because when the PCs outnumber the enemies, they've pretty much won). But the same is true for skill rolls, when they are a lot of PCs, you need to craft situations in which a lot more than a single skill roll are required, otherwise the PCs will "outnumber the enemies" too efficiently (well, you don't need one skill check per PC, but you essentially need to put twice as many of them than what you would put in a 4 player campaign).

Secondly, if the PCs focus on "succeeding at d20 rolls" in their build, I think it's fair for them to succeed at most d20 rolls.

Thirdly, an important point is that you should not gate things that are impossible behind high DCs. Impossible tasks are impossible, you simply don't roll, they don't have a DC 40 or something.

[Pildion]

So two of the players call themselves the shield bros, They stay within 5 feet of each other s often as possible and are often the target of 2 of the clerics embolden bonds and bless spells. When one person is attack each round the other can use their reaction to impose disadvantage. In addition the one of the shield bros has the shield feat so he can knock people down as a bonus action to grant others advantage.
Finally the bard uses vicious mockery on ranged targets. Finally the cleric will use mind sliver cantrips to lower enemy saving throws.
Additionally the bard, cleric and druid all have guiding bolt helping grant advantage on the biggest threats and the rangers druid and bard can use faerie fire for other targets.
All that happens every every round. Throw in bardic inspiration and weld or woe bonus for important rolls and it feels like its impossible to do anything. I know they cannot do all 4 bonus die every turn but they can have advantage on most attacks impose disadvantage on the biggest threats and have normally 2 bonus die a turn and on the most important rolls use a bardic die or a druid reaction.

So the players are playing their characters correctly? I'm really not seeing a problem with that. The issue your facing is 7 party group, you need to basically double the number of enemies this group is fighting. Just remember not to gib them ether, doubling the number might be to high. With a group this large playing with good tactics its going to be tricky for you as the DM. Let them know up front you'll be trying to make the game more tuff, but fair with the party so large. you might start with adding 50% more enemies, if its still to easy for them, add more still.

Also like the others have said, you can throw things at them that their dice can't account for at all, a good few puzzles and riddles perhaps?

[Ramshack]

So the players are playing their characters correctly? I'm really not seeing a problem with that. The issue your facing is 7 party group, you need to basically double the number of enemies this group is fighting. Just remember not to gib them ether, doubling the number might be to high. With a group this large playing with good tactics its going to be tricky for you as the DM. Let them know up front you'll be trying to make the game more tuff, but fair with the party so large. you might start with adding 50% more enemies, if its still to easy for them, add more still.

Also like the others have said, you can throw things at them that their dice can't account for at all, a good few puzzles and riddles perhaps?

Not trying to punish the players for playing characters but they have themed the party abilities in a manner that allows them to game the dice quiet frequently. Its difficult to challenge them when they can swing the dice so wildly in their favor. They are very smart players and aren't going to waste the best abilities on mooks. They will save their bardic inspirations and weils and woes etc for the biggest encounters.

I understand the game allows it. But I am a little taken aback that so many people don't see an issue on stacking abilities to allow level 6 characters to impose advantage for themselves and disadvantage for the strongest enemies every round and having up to +20 in just bonus dies, not even counting character stats or proficiency bonuses etc. on saves or ability checks. If they wanted they could roll in the high 40s lol.

Im worried if the game encounters keep becoming trivialized then it wont be fun. It's like aim botting in a game, it can be fun for 10 minutes but once you realize there is no challenge it becomes boring. So that's why I'm here. How can I make encounters more challenging and engaging And many people have given great suggestions.

Thanks everyone.

[stoutstien]

Not trying to punish the players for playing characters but they have themed the party abilities in a manner that allows them to game the dice quiet frequently. Its difficult to challenge them when they can swing the dice so wildly in their favor. They are very smart players and aren't going to waste the best abilities on mooks. They will save their bardic inspirations and weils and woes etc for the biggest encounters.

I understand the game allows it. But I am a little taken aback that so many people don't see an issue on stacking abilities to allow level 6 characters to impose advantage for themselves and disadvantage for the strongest enemies every round and having up to +20 in just bonus dies, not even counting character stats or proficiency bonuses etc. on saves or ability checks. If they wanted they could roll in the high 40s lol.

Im worried if the game encounters keep becoming trivialized then it wont be fun. It's like aim botting in a game, it can be fun for 10 minutes but once you realize there is no challenge it becomes boring. So that's why I'm here. How can I make encounters more challenging and engaging And many people have given great suggestions.

Thanks everyone.

To could offer them the option to seek greater challenges so the risk/reward is within their agency rather than thinking upping the tension is directly punishing/adversarial towards them.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Not trying to punish the players for playing characters but they have themed the party abilities in a manner that allows them to game the dice quiet frequently. Its difficult to challenge them when they can swing the dice so wildly in their favor. They are very smart players and aren't going to waste the best abilities on mooks. They will save their bardic inspirations and weils and woes etc for the biggest encounters.

I understand the game allows it. But I am a little taken aback that so many people don't see an issue on stacking abilities to allow level 6 characters to impose advantage for themselves and disadvantage for the strongest enemies every round and having up to +20 in just bonus dies, not even counting character stats or proficiency bonuses etc. on saves or ability checks. If they wanted they could roll in the high 40s lol.

Im worried if the game encounters keep becoming trivialized then it wont be fun. It's like aim botting in a game, it can be fun for 10 minutes but once you realize there is no challenge it becomes boring. So that's why I'm here. How can I make encounters more challenging and engaging And many people have given great suggestions.

Thanks everyone.

I feel for you. I was running Descent into Avernus with a group of 5 (plus an NPC that gave a nice buff to everyone) including a Shepherd Druid and a Cleric that thought it would be cool to focus on Animate Dead so that a band of undead would carry him around. The player with the Cleric isn't a powergamer, and in theory the Cleric shouldn't have been a particularly strong character, and the player was more into the role playing aspect, but once the Shepherd Druid got finished buffing the party, the undead, as well as his own summoned minions the party was starting to look like a small army.
My situation sounds a lot more manageable than yours, and I know how much I was having to work to make things interesting. When you have extra characters with abilities that stack/ layer the power growth is most certainly not linear. It's exponential.
I do agree with other posters regarding number of encounters and expendable resources. Even if it's not every day, the party needs to be thinking about blowing off everything if an even worse encounter is around the corner. That said I do think some of the new material starts to mess with bounded accuracy where what you're describing can happen, particularly if players pick strong options or work together to come up with strong tactics.

[BerzerkerUnit]

I think the DM here is having what I call the Stunning Strike problem.

They see the players doing something that, when it's good, is great, but isn't something so consistently and reliably performable. However, when it happens it's so good it stands out every time. Even though, statistically, it's peak effect is occurring a fraction of the times dice are actually rolled.

Monk Stunning Strikes seem soooo amazing because when they land it's just a giant NOPE button for the npc. 1 successful stun can turn the tide of a combat. But Stunning strikes are statistically improbable to land with two thresholds for failure on a Con save which is, across all monsters, all books, the one the NPC is likely best at.

I hear bardic inspiration, I know that's 3-5 times a rest. I hear peace cleric, 2-3 times 10 minutes per rest. I hear bless, varies more but not likely more than 3 x per rest. Realistically, they're stacking all 3 ~6 times per rest, maybe 7 rounds of combat assuming the cleric is throwing a buff on Turn 1. How many rolls do you call for between rests? A Dozen? Peace cleric helps for 10 minutes, +guidance, that's 2d4 ~+5. That's great, but given the variance on a d20? Hardly a guarantee. Bardic Insp and Advantage? ~+9 on average. Great! your Investigation checks won't fail and stall out an adventure. Great, you don't get ambushed. Great, you find the hidden money. and ultimately, Great, you're out of dice for the fight.

Find more things to burn the Bardic dice on between combats. Track minutes between fights as well so Peace Cleric activation eats the clerics action in the fight instead of having it up going in (believe me, when Peace Cleric got on my radar I instituted a d10 minutes rule, IE out of combat, exploration, searches, conversations, plans. All those things start to take 1d10 minutes, I roll and keep rolling for each activity and let the players know when it adds up to 10 and the buff wears off. If they're trying to run from fight to fight to keep it up, there's a higher risk of missing something important like scouting ahead, planning, or a side quest.

Finally, all these things are expended resources, let them be great. Arbitrary house rules to nerf effective player collaboration because... you want them to be less effective? I can't imagine that going over well. To me that communicates "well, I guess I should spend more of my resources on myself instead of buffing and should build for personal power instead of party synergy."

I dream of the day my players sit down and build PCs that synergize so well, instead I keep getting a bunch of mavericks.

Good luck whatever you decide.

[Kane0]

Devils advocate here, Peace and Twilight clerics often get a lot of flak for being so good. Peace bond stacking with bless would factor into that.

[kazaryu]

I do try to to do this, last session was a pretty typical dungeon crawl with about 6 encounters and 3-4 mroe they were able to bypass. Each encounter taking about 6 rounds or less of combat Bless and embolden bond were up the entire time. Plus vicious mockery and the shield style can be used every round so thats at least 3 incoming attacks a round being given dis advantage 4 classes can cast faerie fire and 3 can cast guiding bolt lol. I do appreciate the advice, but i just need to get more creative with debuffing spells. and generating advantage for the npcs i suppose. Though part of me says i should just approach my players and say this kind of focused party is very effective and games the system but its negatively impacting my fun as well at this point. and find a way to scale it back.

ok so...3 attacks per round are at disadvantage....against a 7 person party? it sounds like you're not really balancing your encounters around the party.

one of the biggest things for balancing encounters in 5e is action economy. attacking twice as often, for half damage, is usually superior to attacking half as often for double damage. in a lot of cases for the reasons you've listed. my point is that you have a 7 man party, if 3 attacks/round being at disadvantage is enough to be significant...it sounds like you're not attacking enough, there's a reason the protection fighting style is considered one of the weakest, if not the weakest.

as an aside, if your shield users are burning reactions giving you disadvantage, then they're not threatening opportunity attack. push past them and target the squishies. split up their enemies so they can't cover each other. your bard is spending actions using cutting words? thats good for you...i mean, its not a mistake on his part, neccisarily, saving spells for big fights is useful, but it doesn't mean that overall the bard is far less effective in the smaller fights than he could be.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Devils advocate here, Peace and Twilight clerics often get a lot of flak for being so good. Peace bond stacking with bless would factor into that.

I don't think one needs to be Devil's advocate to argue this. The Peace Cleric is going to be the largest contributor to the OP's issues. Despite many replies here (including mine) suggesting increasing the number of encounters as a partial solution Emboldening Bond has a duration that would legitimately allow a group to easily have 2-3 encounters in many common adventures: castle, dungeon, etc. Stacked on top of Bless and other intelligent spell use the 1/ turn limit on using the d4 isn't likely to come up as often as the other buffs will cover most rolls.

Can a DM balance for this? Sure. But it's going to look like a lot of baddies that have ratings way beyond what's suggested against characters with relatively low hp. There's potentially massive damage if they crit or a party member fails a save against a breath weapon or big spell. The likelihood of permanently dead characters would have to go up.

If I was DMing I'd probably ask the player with the Peace Cleric if they'd be willing to try something else as part of the solution here.

[Tanarii]

I hear bardic inspiration, I know that's 3-5 times a rest. I hear peace cleric, 2-3 times 10 minutes per rest. I hear bless, varies more but not likely more than 3 x per rest. Realistically, they're stacking all 3 ~6 times per rest, maybe 7 rounds of combat assuming the cleric is throwing a buff on Turn 1. How many rolls do you call for between rests? A Dozen? Peace cleric helps for 10 minutes, +guidance, that's 2d4 ~+5. That's great, but given the variance on a d20? Hardly a guarantee. Bardic Insp and Advantage? ~+9 on average. Great! your Investigation checks won't fail and stall out an adventure. Great, you don't get ambushed. Great, you find the hidden money. and ultimately, Great, you're out of dice for the fight.

Find more things to burn the Bardic dice on between combats. Track minutes between fights as well so Peace Cleric activation eats the clerics action in the fight instead of having it up going in (believe me, when Peace Cleric got on my radar I instituted a d10 minutes rule, IE out of combat, exploration, searches, conversations, plans. All those things start to take 1d10 minutes, I roll and keep rolling for each activity and let the players know when it adds up to 10 and the buff wears off. If they're trying to run from fight to fight to keep it up, there's a higher risk of missing something important like scouting ahead, planning, or a side quest.
A reasonable assumption is about 6-7 round of combat between each rest, with a total of 20 in a full adventuring day. That's assuming none are deducted because of resource using non-combat encounters. Deduct about 3 round of combat equivalent for each Medium non-combat encounter, one that uses half your available short rest resources or 1/6 of your long rest ones. If it burns all your short rest or 1/3 of your long rest, it's a Deadly non-combat.

In other words, 3-5 Bardic inspirations cover 6 rounds of medium combat or 3 rounds of medium combat plus one non-combat medium encounter (with actual expected resource use). That's usually plenty.

[Mastikator]

The likelihood of permanently dead characters would have to go up.

That would also solve the problem. Dead PCs can't give bonuses. :smallbiggrin:

[Ramshack]

LoL, i don't think the full effect is being explained or translating well. Obviously I know they cant have all effects running all the time but they can impose disadvantage 3 times every turn and have advantage on nearly every attack roll going out in additional to at the minimum bless and embolden bond. And since the players can see the roll and act before confirmation they can sprinkle in bardic inspirations and weil and woes at critical moments it is very hard to create challenging encounters when they steam roll monsters and make every save and never get hit. I really think you need to see it in action especially those saying they wish their players will do this.

And to reiterate I'm not mad at them for doing this, i'm not here to say how do i make it stop or punish them, my advice was how do I DM encounters to make it more challenging/interesting around this strategy. And to the others who spendt time giving advice instead of just telling me my frustration isn't justified or that its a non issue I appreciate it.

Some good advice I received was: I need to spread out the combat times to stretch time on bless and embolden bonds timers. Sprinkle in some non combat challenges. Increase enemy numbers and ideally from multiple directions to avoid the shield bros or run past them after their reactions are down. More intersting combat maps with more cover, turns and elevation. And I think most importantly some things are just impossible even if they roll advantage with +2d6+ 2d4 +7 and get a 45 or something. All solid advice

[Guy Lombard-O]

If I was DMing I'd probably ask the player with the Peace Cleric if they'd be willing to try something else as part of the solution here.

Agreed. Just reading that mess of unbalanced makes me wince. Twilight's just as bad.

Also, maybe throw Sleet Storm into the bad guys' rotation. Great way to shut down a lot of the PCs' abilities for an encounter. Pair it up with some (not too powerful) blindsight minions for a scary situation. Note: to really give the right feel for the encounter, drop everybody's actual visibility to 0 when the spell's cast. See if they can remember/fumble their way out of the cloud, individually.

[Greywander]

Some good advice I received was: I need to spread out the combat times to stretch time on bless and embolden bonds timers. Sprinkle in some non combat challenges. Increase enemy numbers and ideally from multiple directions to avoid the shield bros or run past them after their reactions are down. More intersting combat maps with more cover, turns and elevation. And I think most importantly some things are just impossible even if they roll advantage with +2d6+ 2d4 +7 and get a 45 or something. All solid advice
Yup. Some people might claim that this or that class or subclass is overpowered, or this or that racial ability, or these combinations of features, and so on, and while this might be true in some cases, it's kind of missing the point. None of these things would actually be a problem if the DM handles the game appropriately, the problem is that certain overpowered combinations, or even something that just changes what a PC can do, such as racial flight, means that things don't really work like how a DM would typically expect, and certainly not within the parameters laid out by the DMG. This means it requires more effort on the part of the DM to (a) assess what the actual issue being caused is, and (b) figure out an appropriate way to handle it in game.

Let's take racial flight as an example. At-will flight will trivialize certain types of challenges. To be fair, so do a lot of cantrips (e.g. fixing an item with Mending vs. searching for a replacement or getting a craftsman to repair it). If the DM changes nothing about how they run the game, they will get frustrated as things that were meant to challenge the players are instead breezed passed due to the ability to fly. If the DM adapts to the ability of that PC to fly, then they can still offer the party new challenges, including perhaps some that wouldn't even be possible unless someone in the party could fly. But this does require a lot more effort on the part of the DM, and goodness knows they have enough on their plate already.

A clever tactic the DM can use is to make the players do the legwork. If the players are doing something you don't know how to handle, turn it back on them by making an NPC who does the same thing and see how the players address it. This doesn't work for everything, but it can be a simple way to troubleshoot certain types of issues.

[BerzerkerUnit]

Yup. Some people might claim that this or that class or subclass is overpowered, or this or that racial ability, or these combinations of features, and so on, and while this might be true in some cases, it's kind of missing the point. None of these things would actually be a problem if the DM handles the game appropriately, the problem is that certain overpowered combinations, or even something that just changes what a PC can do, such as racial flight, means that things don't really work like how a DM would typically expect, and certainly not within the parameters laid out by the DMG. This means it requires more effort on the part of the DM to (a) assess what the actual issue being caused is, and (b) figure out an appropriate way to handle it in game.

Let's take racial flight as an example. At-will flight will trivialize certain types of challenges. To be fair, so do a lot of cantrips (e.g. fixing an item with Mending vs. searching for a replacement or getting a craftsman to repair it). If the DM changes nothing about how they run the game, they will get frustrated as things that were meant to challenge the players are instead breezed passed due to the ability to fly. If the DM adapts to the ability of that PC to fly, then they can still offer the party new challenges, including perhaps some that wouldn't even be possible unless someone in the party could fly. But this does require a lot more effort on the part of the DM, and goodness knows they have enough on their plate already.

A clever tactic the DM can use is to make the players do the legwork. If the players are doing something you don't know how to handle, turn it back on them by making an NPC who does the same thing and see how the players address it. This doesn't work for everything, but it can be a simple way to troubleshoot certain types of issues.

I ran a 20th level adventure where every character was just a solo nightmare. Routinely, entire combats would end up hinging on one PC's specialty or resources.

So I created an enemy party that had a schtick where they stacked everything on a zealot aasimar barbarian. So the zealot had resistances and could reroll saves with absurd bonuses while her allies stayed hidden behind walls. She could fly, her base damage with a long sword was d8+d6+44 1xturn and d8+14 for the second. She could self heal when she wasn't running in and out of heal range of the stars druid. There was a monk with mobility that ran into combat every round, making a single attack per party member and stunning striking then moving back out of range and LOS. 3 rds of combat, 12 attacks, 12 attempts, 2 successes and that Barbarian destroyed them.

There were other targets the party could have eaten for lunch. The fiend that had control of the enemy party was in the room, the paladin and cleric could have taken it out in 1-2 turns, but they stayed dogpiling that barbarian for some reason and just got more and more frustrated by what a beast she was with 3 other party members just pouring resources into her.

[Narsham01]

Not trying to punish the players for playing characters but they have themed the party abilities in a manner that allows them to game the dice quiet frequently. Its difficult to challenge them when they can swing the dice so wildly in their favor. They are very smart players and aren't going to waste the best abilities on mooks. They will save their bardic inspirations and weils and woes etc for the biggest encounters.

I understand the game allows it. But I am a little taken aback that so many people don't see an issue on stacking abilities to allow level 6 characters to impose advantage for themselves and disadvantage for the strongest enemies every round and having up to +20 in just bonus dies, not even counting character stats or proficiency bonuses etc. on saves or ability checks. If they wanted they could roll in the high 40s lol.

Im worried if the game encounters keep becoming trivialized then it wont be fun. It's like aim botting in a game, it can be fun for 10 minutes but once you realize there is no challenge it becomes boring. So that's why I'm here. How can I make encounters more challenging and engaging And many people have given great suggestions.

Thanks everyone.

Just to make sure you're running everything correctly: both the shield reaction ability and Vicious Mockery grant disadvantage to a single attack roll. Use larger numbers of enemies with multiattack. Even a CR 2 Gnoll Pack Lord has two attacks per round, and they either have to use two of their three disadvantage-granting abilities against that single gnoll or suffer an attack without disadvantage.

You need to outnumber the PCs and you need to vary the kinds of threats you offer. Saving throws every round, for example. Use more monsters from post-MM releases, which tend to be better designed and more potentially dangerous. The Gnoll Flesh Gnawer has three attacks per round at CR 1, and probably needs two hits from the PCs to drop.

For dungeon adventuring, make dungeons larger and more corridor-filled with empty or potentially empty chambers, instead of a dungeon with five encounters having five rooms. Pressure their SWAT tactics a bit, forcing them to explore faster or use more resources. If they explore faster, that's -5 to passive Perception. Use passive Perception as intended instead of always calling for rolls, because their bonuses to checks only apply to active checks.

Then have dungeon defenders with traps they can manually activate. The PCs come down a corridor at them, and the defenders pull a lever when the first fighter steps forward, dumping him into a pit which closes. Employ other techniques like that to disrupt their coordination, deprive certain PCs of combat effective actions, and force PCs to use actions in combat that neither attack your monsters nor screw over your monsters' actions. One heavy portcullis drop or one 20 X 20 foot pit in the middle of the party could deprive the PCs of multiple actions.

Use wave attacks: the PCs break into the complex but an alarm is sounded. They arrive at a ritual room where multiple gnoll ritualists (with guards) are sacrificing captives. Another group of guards come running down another corridor. The ritualists use the captives to restrict AoE spell options. Force the PCs to use their disadvantage abilities to protect captives instead of themselves.

As for all their bonuses and advantages: after a certain point, who cares? Advantage increases the odds of a critical hit, but bonuses don't. If you expect the PCs to always hit on a "2" or better, that's fine. You can predict the amount of damage they can do. Make sure your enemies are in hp-breaks, so PCs have to two-shot an enemy or three-shot them. If you start out with more attacks on your side, and the PCs have to spend multiple PC-actions to drop a single enemy, you create a buffer for a few rounds before the fight turns decisively in the PCs' favor. If another wave of foes show up, that turns the action economy around again.

Your expectations for a "standard" 5E fight may also be a little off. RAW, most encounters are going to end in 2-4 rounds, so if you're routinely going 6, you may be allowing PCs to bottleneck your monsters so you're wasting actions while PCs aren't. As GM, you have complete control over the terrain they're working with until they start using magic to alter it, so use that. In the Kobold fortress, they're fighting in a corridor when the wooden walls on either side fall in on them and they now have fourteen additional kobold foes (with pack tactics) able to melee any PC in the group. The Drow in the underground caverns take advantage of their 120' darkvision to use hit & run tactics: if you can't see an enemy, you get disadvantage on attacks and are more likely to miss, and the Protection fighting style only works against a foe you can see.