Alphastream

The Alphastream Game Design Blog

Why So Many DMs Have Trouble Challenging Players

Twitter conversation between Sly Flourish and NewbieDM on story vs challenge.

Two of my favorite people on Twitter, Mike Shea and Enrique Bertran, were talking about monsters. Mike makes the great point in a recent blog post that when choosing monsters for an adventure, you should first think about the story. The monsters should make sense.

Enrique pointed out that sometimes the monsters that fit the story won’t present a satisfying challenge. His 12th level characters are steamrolling his monsters. There is a reason for that.

Why So Many DMs Struggle

If you have trouble challenging your players, you aren’t alone. From forums to Discord to Twitter, lots of DMs are crying out for help.

Some of this is to be expected. In any RPG, the DM has one brain. The players have 4-6 brains. The players know their characters superbly, while this may be the first time a DM is running a particular monster. This is not a bug. It’s a feature, because we want the players to win.

However, we want the players to feel challenged – at least when we are intending to design a harder fight. D&D 5E has four encounter difficulties: Easy, Medium, Hard, and Deadly. We can pick monsters and use either the DMG or Xanathar’s to create an encounter appropriate for the players. Except… the math doesn’t work.

I don’t think the encounter guidelines are that bad. In general, it’s an okay system for selecting different monsters and seeing how hard they are. The problem is with the monsters themselves and how little damage they inflict.

We can also argue that the monsters can’t counter what a typical party does, but I again believe that’s a feature. We want the characters to shine. But we want them to feel challenged as well.

A party poses by the small dragon they have defeated, in this classic image by Larry Elmore.
Dragon Slayers, by Larry Elmore

Monsters Don’t Hit Hard Enough

Let’s take an average class like the Rogue. Starting Hit Points are 8 plus Con modifier. Assuming a Con of 12, that’s 9 Hit Points. Each level, they gain 6 Hit Points (5 + Con mod). A level 5 rogue has (9+6+6+6+6) 33 Hit Points. (Most classes have d8s for hit points. The barbarian has d12, the fighter/paladin/ranger have d10, and the wizard/sorcerer have d6.)

If we look at our encounter guidelines, a fight with three CR 3 creatures against five PCs would be halfway between Hard and Deadly (4,200 XP). On average, a CR 3 monster inflicts about 20 points of damage (the DMG guidance for building monsters says 21-26, but actual monsters WotC creates tend to deal less damage than the guidelines).  For CR 3, the average Attack bonus is +5.

So, if our rogue has AC 15 (Studded leather, Dex 16), the monster will hit half the time and inflict an average of half its damage each round… or 10 damage per round. The monster needs 3 rounds to drop our rogue.

Now, that might happen, especially if 2 or all 3 of the CR 3 monsters gang up on our rogue. But our rogue can Disengage as a bonus action, and is accompanied by other companions. Let’s say the four other allies each have similar Hit Points. The total pool of Hit Points is 165 (5*33).  The total damage all three monsters inflict is 30 a round, assuming they hit half the time. They need 5.5 rounds (into the sixth round) to defeat all four PCs. Most combats don’t last six rounds. And, realistically, PCs are smart. They will focus fire, quickly eliminating one of the foes. They also may have spells or abilities to turn the tide in their favor in various ways. And, importantly, they can heal each other and pop back into the action.

My point is, on damage alone, it’s unlikely to be true peril. That’s okay, because we don’t need true peril for the game to be fun (more on that next time). However, this will get worse over time for the DM. And, in all of my examples, consider that we aren’t taking into account the wild shaped druid, the barbarian’s Hit Points, the paladin’s absurd AC (with shield due to multiclassing, of course). Players are motivated to win, even if they aren’t super optimizers.

The Intricacies of the Encounter System

It may be worth mentioning that the encounter math is imperfect in several ways. First, monsters themselves vary greatly as to how challenging they are. A CR 1/4 flying sword is +3 to hit and deals 5 damage once. A CR 1/4 wolf gets pack tactics, has +4 to hit, and deals 7 damage and can knock you prone.

Second, the way encounter difficulty is challenged can mean the same group of monsters work even if you level every character up! Five 5th level PCs facing three CR 3 creatures and one CR 1 creature is between hard and deadly. If the characters are 6th level… the same group of monsters is still between Hard and Deadly! (Even if you use the rules in Xanathar’s, we see this happen at various points in the tables.) In other cases, adding even a very weak monster will throw an encounter into another challenge category, even if the monster adds no actual challenge in play. It’s an imperfect system, and one that is hard for DMs to gauge.

But the point here isn’t to blame the encounter system. I don’t love it, but I don’t believe it is as big a problem as the underlying monster math. Let’s look further.

Higher CR Monsters Don’t Keep Up

When our party levels up, they are gaining 6 Hit Points each level. (Okay, the rogue is. The fighter gains 6 + Con, so probably 8-9 hit points each level. The barbarian is getting 7 + Con, so probably 9-10 Hit Points each level!)

How does monster damage keep up with this? It doesn’t. On average, the monsters WotC publishes gain 5 damage with each CR, but some levels they get none at all.

A party of five 8th level rogues has 51 Hit Points each, for a pool of 255 total Hit Points. An encounter with four CR 4 creatures is between Hard and Deadly. CR 4 creatures deal an average of 25 points of damage a round and have a +6 attack bonus. Even if the monsters hit on every single attack, they need to get into the third round to defeat the party. If they hit 75% of the time, they need to get into the fourth round of combat, and if they hit 50% of the time, into the sixth round of combat.

The above math isn’t in the DM’s favor, and it gets much worse the moment one of the four monsters is dead or unable to attack. Spells like hypnotic pattern, sleep, banishment, and counterspell prevent that damage… sometimes for several rounds. It all adds up to an even worse scenario. This is a fight that’s supposed to be between Hard and Deadly. Our damage output drops significantly if we have a medium challenge, calling for one fewer monster.

How about level 12? A party of five 12th level rogues has 75 Hit Points each, and a total pool of 375 Hit Points. An encounter with four CR 6 monsters is halfway between Hard and Deadly. A CR 6 monster deals an average of 35 damage a round and has a +6 attack bonus. We get roughly the same results in terms of the rounds of combat needed, but we all know our players are even smarter and their PCs even more capable.

It gets worse when the party faces a single creature. A CR 16 Steel Predator is between Hard and Deadly for this party, but it deals 46 damage a round if all three attacks hit. It will need 8 rounds to defeat all the characters, even if every attack hits! I didn’t account for the “Stunning Roar,” but even if half the party is stunned for two rounds, it’s unlikely to change the outcome.

Next Time

Next week we will look at what DMs can do. Yes, the solution is often to add damage, but we will talk about the technique behind doing so, as well as important factors to consider when you do alter the challenge level.

44 comments on “Why So Many DMs Have Trouble Challenging Players

  1. Richard Green
    June 4, 2021

    Great post! My PCs are 8th level and I am already dealing with a multiclassed paladin with a high AC and shield/shield of faith/protection from evil. Looking forward to part 2!

    • Alphastream
      June 4, 2021

      Thanks! I thought about spending some time looking at what it’s like with some of those variables. A tank with high AC can nullify a lot of damage output, making it very unlikely mathematically for there to be a proper challenge. The same is true with counterspell and banishment and hypnotic pattern. Nullifying monster damage becomes a huge swing in the favor of the characters… and probably is less fun. And summoned monsters exacerbate this. They become an incredible hit point shield. I may write a post just on that aspect.

      • Richard Green
        June 4, 2021

        I have two players in particular that take being hit in combat as a personal affront. When we played 4e, one of them played a swordmage with a ridiculous AC.

        Hypnotic pattern is an awesome spell. I took great pleasure in my last Ghouls game having a group of capricious shadow fey continue firing arrows at the hypnotised targets to snap them out of it.

      • Lukas Matos
        June 5, 2021

        First things first. We as DMs seem to harbor the idea of focusing fire on the party weak links. Why our monsters need to be dumb?
        Second, even on boss fights, we don’t make bosses who know how to use the magic itens that are in it’s possessions, but the players will always use and abuse what they have, and it’s there yo be used!
        Third, no amount of tweaking will balamce an encounter when the party is full resources and can take along rest after, the game is about the long run, resource management and choices.
        Our dungeons never have truly deadly traps, but the reason for a trap is to kill.
        Everything i said is in my own experience both as DM and as player.
        Mathematics alone won’t cover and should never cover these flaws.

    • Venomlemming
      June 5, 2021

      Reflex. Saves.

  2. NewbieDM
    June 4, 2021

    Awesome post, look forward to reading more. For reasons. 🙂

    • Alphastream
      June 4, 2021

      Thanks! I even used your favorite art as an homage to you!

  3. Richard Green
    June 4, 2021

    And don’t get me started on summoned pixies or wolf packs in 5e or celestial ankylosauruses etc in 3e!

  4. Tyler Owens
    June 4, 2021

    The math works out better when you remember that the cr calculations are assuming that there will be 6-8 similar encounters and only one short rest between each long rest. That’s what everything is balanced to. Of course fights are easy when players can burn through all of their spell slots and special abilities with reckless abandon because they’ll only have one or two fights before recharging.
    I have literally never been in a campaign where we’ve done more than three encounters between long rests, my groups are just way more rp focused than combat focused. Long dungeon grinds bore us. So to compensate I have to crank the cr/number of enemies way beyond what the calculations suggest my players can handle to give them a challenge.

    • Alphastream
      June 4, 2021

      This is a fascinating point, because the DMG guidance says that… but designers have since then said that they assume everyone is fully refreshed when they design anything. They also have acknowledged that many groups don’t stick to that concept at all. Traversing the wilderness may see one fight every couple of days, while a dungeon can see back-to-back fights. Nothing helps us with that situation.

      Even in that dungeon situation, parties are amazingly resilient. When we designed the D&D Open competition, we had 2 rounds. Round 1 was Hard, Hard, Deadly. Round 2 was Hard, Hard, Deadly, Deadly, Hard, Deadly. You would think we would have had tons of deaths, but it was actually very few across hundreds of players!

      I do agree with your style. I like to have about 1 combat in most of my home campaign 3-4 hr sessions. Every now and then I have a dungeon with more than that.

  5. April
    June 4, 2021

    I experienced these issues when DMing the Rise of Tiamat module (my only DM experience). I ended up having to modify monster abilities to make it work. My group was fine with it and the encounters went back in line with being more challenging, possibly deadly. It involved a lot of work though and there were a cpl of sessions that they just obliterated monsters (dragons!) before I realized what was happening.
    I enjoy reading these articles about action economy and the inherent faults in the monster to PC abilities, they are helping me plan my encounters and better understand how it all works together.

  6. Josh
    June 4, 2021

    In my experience most of us dms miss the part in the dmg that says a typical adventuring day should have something like, 8 encounters. Most parties seem to want a long rest after every other battle… The difficulties make far more sense when you interrupt long rests frequently. My frustration is that your players are gonna get annoyed by so many interruptions. Not to mention there are a number of spells that pretty much guarantee an uninterrupted long rest. X.x

    • Alphastream
      June 4, 2021

      I agree. If a DM interrupts rests routinely, then the players will dig deep on spells and subclasses that offer an uninterrupted rest. This post focuses on the issues, but I am making a point to note your suggestions so I can address them in the next post.

  7. Sean
    June 4, 2021

    Action economy is is huge. Put out a bunch of annoying low level pleebs to get In the way. Get some reach and knock em down as best you can.

    • Alphastream
      June 4, 2021

      In the next article I hope to talk about this option. How has it felt for your players to have lots of weak foes? Does it feel fun and also challenging?

      • Jacob
        June 4, 2021

        My party’s Wizard enjoys blowing up half-a-dozen mooks with each Fireball, even though its preventing him from locking down the Leader while they face the Artificer in one on one, and leader’s pet monster hunts down the Rogue, and the Cleric tries to keep everyone on their feet and not get killed in crossfire.

  8. Jacob
    June 4, 2021

    I think you’re dealing with a few common misconceptions here.

    Firstly, the encounters you are describing are above the minimum threshold for a Hard encounter and below the minimum threshold for a Deadly Encounter. That makes them Hard encounters. They’re not in-between Hard and Deadly. They’re just Hard.

    Secondly, WotC’s use of the word Hard is misleading.

    Let’s look at how WotC describes a Hard:

    “Hard. A hard encounter could go badly for the
    adventurers. Weaker characters might get taken out
    of the fight, and there’s a slim chance that one or more
    characters might die.”

    So, a Hard encounter isn’t expected to KO any characters. They might get KOed if they are weak. And the chance that a character will die is “slim.”

    Thirdly, the DMG’s guidelines for creating a monster are a lot more complicated than just picking numbers off the table. Monsters will almost always have at least one stat below what’s listed in the table in order to account for the monster’s features, or flying, or saving throws, or resistances. Also CR is descriptive. Monsters aren’t optimized for their CR.

    All that said, you are right that some monsters just plainly have the wrong CR, e.g. the CR 6 Young White Dragon.

    And WotC’s CR adjustments for certain creature features are whack. They treat Pack Tactics as a measly +1 to Attack while treating the Goblin’s Nimble Escape as a +4 to Attack and AC.

    5th Edition has a lot of varied monsters. Some are better at fighting Magic Users. Some are better at fighting brutes. Some are better when they outnumber the party. Some are best when they battle a lower level party all on their own, or with minons. Some are deadly at range. Others are deadly up close. Most only perform at their best in one or two of those situations.

    • Alphastream
      June 4, 2021

      Good points/questions! My use of Hard is deliberate, in that I don’t think most DMs want to kill characters… they want that feeling that the encounter could be dangerous, that it could “go badly for the adventurers.” Having a character go down, with a slim chance someone might die… that’s what I would call a challenging encounter. It’s not about a TPK. It’s just that it’s hard to mathematically measure that. If we look at the rounds it takes to deplete all the hit points, that gives us a feel for how perilous it might be. Five or six rounds? That doesn’t feel like hard to me. It feels like Medium, where there might be “one or two scary moments for the players, but the characters should emerge victorious with no casualties.”

      • DM Badger
        June 6, 2021

        Hi there.

        I DM 4 campaigns a month [about 23 sessions a month]. I have learnt to redefined WOTC terms of encounters. I have had to do this because of things like action econmy, experienced players and other factors. These are my redefinitions
        Easy equates to trivial
        Medium equates to Easy
        Hard equates to Medium
        Deadly equates to Hard

        To that extent I have also created a new tier that I call lethal. This is a tier of encounter that is designed to kill players but with a few caveats.
        1. Experienced power gamers only, [only one of the groups I DM]
        2. I want the fight to be one that *can* kill characters, [now PCs] but not one that will kill pcs. I know that might sound like semantics but really it isn’t. My power gamers are often casual about fights as they can breeze over then so quickly [and sometimes that is deliberate, I want them to expend some resources, action surges or heals, etc before the bigger fight]. But at least one of the fights I present at them provides the need for a much more co-ordinated set of attacks and teamworks from them. If a player falls unconscious in fights but doesn’t die, I feel satisified that it was a good challenge for them. I actually dont mind if I kill a pc at all. I am just not determined to kill them. Again sounds like semantics but death happens in D&D and my players have come to expect it and as a result they are more on the button in certain fights because of that fact.

        I am very happy to tweak monsters to give them extra abilities in line with the pcs themselves. During covid I have been rolling mosters [boss and mini boss] as if there were pcs giving them a char sheet instead of stat blocks, this allows me to tweak accordingly the fights as they happen. Gives me a wider range of tools for that monster that are not served by the original stat block.

        I also employ waves of mobs that are delayed by 2 to 4 rounds, again depending on ho the ight is going. If I have misjudged the fight and it seems trivial, then the waves come in sooner. If the fight is prooving to be a bigger challenge than I expected then I delay the wave by a round or two. Not enough for them to fully recover but enough so they are not steam rolled.

        All of that said, I still significantly struggle with tier 3 / 4 fights as they are ultimately a walkover for the pcs or at least 1 pc dies someimes all. I would really value some direction on this in the next article.

        • Alphastream
          June 6, 2021

          I absolutely agree!

      • Tim Breen
        June 13, 2021

        A “casualty” is someone who is “killed or injured,” so an encounter with “no casualties” sounds really easy to me. 😉

  9. Jacob
    June 4, 2021

    If the monsters can deal enough damage to KO all the PCs in 5 rounds, then that means that in a typical party they can drop a PC in Round 1 when the dice are on their side. If the party is unlucky and uncareful half the party could be down before they stop the monsters in Round 2 or 3. That tends to match WotC’s description of a “Hard” encounter: A weak character might get KOed.

    WotC’s encounter math also isn’t very favorable for encounters with 3 or 4 monsters, as it applies the same multiplier to encounters with 3 monsters as encounters with 5 or 6 monsters.

    So, a Hard encounter with 6 monsters will almost always be harder than one with 3. If find the math works pretty well with two monsters.

    A pair of CR 4 Flameskulls could drop an entire Level 5 party of 5 in one round, flying in dropping Fireballs…and that’s only a Medium Encounter.

  10. Pugnotaur
    June 4, 2021

    Great article! I had a lot of awkward moments starting out in 5e, mainly because I design all of my own monsters. At one point I realised that I was making a couple of mistakes in building them, and I’ll be interested to see if you touch on this in your next article.

    I was confused as to why none of the monsters in the Monster Manual seemed to conform to the “Statistics By CR” table in the DMG. I later figured out that it’s a lot more involved than just taking the numbers from a single row in the table.

    Firstly, a monster’s CR is the average of its offensive CR and its defensive CR. Most monsters (well actually, all of the monsters I’ve examined in the Monster Manual) have a defensive CR LOWER than their overall CR and an offensive CR HIGHER than their overall CR. In other words, they hit hard but go down quickly. For example, a CR 3 monster often has a defensive CR of 2 and an offensive CR of 4.

    Secondly, you calculate the offensive CR by determining the impact of the monster’s abilities on its damage per round and its attack bonus (or save DC as the case may warrant). This may not be obvious, and often requires the application of the “average over 3 rounds” method used for damage.

    For example, the Ghoul really threw me for a loop. I couldn’t understand why its CR was 1. With the attack bonus and damage per round printed in its star block, it didn’t make sense. If you run the numbers, its AC of 12 and its 22 hit points give it a defensive CR of 1/8, and its Bite with +2 to hit and 9 damage give it an offensive CR of 1, which would result in an overall CR of 1/2, and that’s being optimistic. If you use its Claw attack instead its CR is even lower (offensive CR 1/2).

    However, if you consider the best case scenario for the Ghoul in the first three rounds of combat…

    Round 1: Claw attack (+4) hits, 7 damage. Target fails saving throw and is now paralyzed.

    Round 2: Bite attack has advantage due to paralysis. According to the Player’s Handbook, passive checks with advantage get +5, so it makes sense to add 5 to the attack bonus for this round to reflect advantage here. The attack hits. Attack is within 5 feet, and successful attacks made against paralyzed targets within 5 feet are critical hits! The attack bonus and damage for this round are +7 and a whopping 18, respectively.

    Round 3: Everything is going perfectly for the Ghoul, so we assume the target failed its repeat saving throw for paralysis, so we simply hit them a second time with our bite (+7, 18 damage).

    If you average the attack bonuses for the first 3 rounds, you have 4, 7, and 7, for an average of 6. And the damage average for 7, 18, and 18 is 14.33 (recurring), so we’ll round down to 14. That gives it a muscular offensive CR of 2! The Monster Manual did not lead us astray after all.

    I hope this helps someone, because it’s a massive game changer for building your own beasties!

    • Alphastream
      June 4, 2021

      This is all fantastic analysis, thank you! On top of that, Wizards has its own special version of the rules in the DMG. It’s an internal spreadsheet they unfortunately don’t plan on sharing. It weighs different aspects, such as resistances and the ability to fly, and that further shapes the CR.

      • Pugnotaur
        June 4, 2021

        Oh man, for real? I always thought the DMG’s explanations of how things like flying and resistances impact CR were a little light on the details. I suppose it makes sense when you consider that they probably don’t want to overwhelm us with information — one of 5e’s crown jewels is its accessibility — but gee whiz that spreadsheet would make it easier to design decent monsters!

        Thank you for the compliment on my analysis! I had to get down and dirty not just for designing the monsters on paper, but also for building a suite of apps to automate elements of session prep and session management (a monster builder that generates stat blocks and calculates CR for you, an encounter builder that calculates XP thresholds and such, a combat manager etc etc). I’m hoping to put them up for free at some point soon because holy cow do they make prepping and running sessions a breeze!

        • Alphastream
          June 5, 2021

          That’s awesome. I made something similar for all my adventure design. I think you should sell it on the DMs Guild!

          • Pugnotaur
            June 5, 2021

            Oh, cool! Is the thing you made for your adventure design available for purchase somewhere?

          • Alphastream
            June 5, 2021

            Funny you should ask. It is not, but I may be offering it in the future to subscribers. I did a lot of rework on it today!

        • DM Badger
          June 6, 2021

          *but also for building a suite of apps to automate elements of session prep and session management (a monster builder that generates stat blocks and calculates CR for you, an encounter builder that calculates XP thresholds and such, a combat manager etc etc)*

          Please reply to this comment if you ever play to sell / distribute this thing.

  11. Sean B
    June 4, 2021

    I sincerely agree with this and it makes for a brilliant read. I initially ran LMoP as my first DM experience for the group and found it ran well. Then proceeded to continue in fearun with the same PC’s and with level 5 I found the CR ratings for hard/deadly just weren’t up to the task. Almost a year in, I found myself actively trying to kill my pc’s with more and more difficult enemies only for them to thwart my effort with relative ease. Fast forward a little and I’m running a new campaign that requires the party to rest for 24 hours in a comfortable location such as town with an Inn to gain the benefits of a long rest and a short rest becomes the regular night rests out in the wilderness. The long rest in town prompts RP during the downtime in town and caution when in combat, especially with spell slots. Everything feels a little more dangerous now and more thought goes into planning for other encounters during the travel between towns and quest locations.

  12. G. Thomas Trammell Jr.
    June 5, 2021

    The problem is not with the monsters. I killed half a party of 11th level characters with an EASY encounter. The numbers they give are merely guidelines to help reduce the inexhaustible options available.

    Look at the creatures, their abilities, give them environment to strengthen our weaken as needed, or outright fudge it. Your number one goal is fun and storytelling. Heck, one campaign I just started giving monsters extra HP, another I altered the average damages, etc.

    Don’t be afraid to override stats and roles for the enjoyment of all, just keep it consistent.

  13. David Dalrymple
    June 6, 2021

    If it looks like a combat encounter isn’t going to be as thrilling for the players as I had hoped, I have no qualms about keeping the monster alive for another round or two after it drops to 0 HP. I’d never allow a monster that “should” be dead to actually kill a player character; I just want the players to sweat a bit. I think that’s a good way to make your players feel challenged without being unfair to them (so long as they never find out).

    Also, I think it’s worth pointing out that some groups I’ve DMed are quite terrible at teamwork, and the DMG’s encounter-building guidelines work just great for such a group, even at the upper echelons of tier 2.

    • Alphastream
      June 6, 2021

      It is true. When we ran the D&D Open, there was always a table or two that had multiple TPKs (and, fortunately, still had fun). I used to travel around the US and play at various stores… I recall one where I was sure the combat would be painfully easy (I could do the encounter math in my head), but lo and behold the party proceeded to use some very unusual tactics and it ended up a really challenging and fun fight.

  14. Adam S.
    June 7, 2021

    My DM ran into a problem early on in our last Pathfinder campaign. He let us have a Deck of Many Things perhaps a bit too early. I drew a card which turned my investigator into a werebear. It was pretty bad at first for him because I could solo tank encounters but he eventually started throwing high CR gunslingers at me. But then the problem reversed and I grew frustrated because I went from doing everything to doing nothing because I got downed almost immediately by 2-3 gunslingers using called shots and unloading on me with revolvers. Eventually I sacrificed myself for another player and he ruled that my investigator got to come back but was no longer a werebear. I’d been buying items and taking skills solely meant to boost the bear side and after a resurrection without it my character felt practically useless.

    I think my DM is pretty great but when one player unintentionally becomes an insane powerhouse he’s completely lost. The werebear is not the first time this has happened and I doubt it will be the last.

    • Alphastream
      June 8, 2021

      That’s one of the toughest situations to deal with – when one or two players are really optimized (for whichever reason) and the rest are not. Personally, as DM I like to have a talk with those optimized players and work out an agreement. We want it to be fun for them, but also not derail the game or leave the rest of the party feeling like they aren’t needed. Like… maybe the lycanthropy starts to affect you, so you have to get cured. The cure lets you keep your sanity, but also reduces your capabilities down to reasonable levels?

  15. Tomas Gimenez Rioja
    June 9, 2021

    Great analysis! There are plenty more things to take into consideration but you made excellent points on how the system works. It is made to be difficult for the player characters to lose, more so when you take into account that Death Saves plays heavily for the players’ side
    This is why I like to use monsters from Kobold Press for example, as they present a much greater challenge for the players. Looking forward to reading part 2!

    • Alphastream
      June 9, 2021

      I’m very curious whether KP simply used the DMG values, or whether they deliberately pushed the damage up.

  16. Pingback: How to Challenge Players? Just Add Damage! | Alphastream

  17. Pingback: Special Reasons Why DMs Have Trouble Challenging Players | Alphastream

  18. Pingback: The Best D&D Blogs in 2021 ... Chosen by a Blogger!

  19. Pingback: Making High-Level D&D Click: Advice from Alan Patrick, the DM Who Has Run More Tier 4 Than Anyone | DMDavid

  20. Pingback: Why It’s Time for WotC to Come Clean on Monster Design | Alphastream

  21. Pingback: The Future We Want for Spellcasting Monsters | Alphastream

  22. Pingback: Why Classic Adventures Offer Characters Meaningless Death | Alphastream

Leave a Reply to Jacob Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Information

This entry was posted on June 4, 2021 by and tagged , , .

Mastodon

Follow me on

Mastodon logo Mastodon

BlueSky

Follow me on

BlueSky logo BlueSky

Privacy Policy