D&D (2024) A Different Way To Run High Level Monsters

[Reynard]

I am at RPG Con in Mildord Mass, running 4 sessions of of high (17th) level D&D 2024 epic fights. I playtested a couple times and each one, the damage power output of the PCs was just unbelievable, and even CR 25 Legendary creatures with minions died in less than 2 rounds.

So for the actual con, I developed a different system. Instead of a giant pile of HP, the godling (a Collossus per the MM) has 3 "Hit Boxes." The PCs filled a hit box if they collectively did 150 points of damage to the godling in a single round, and it was defeated when 3 hit boxes were filled. The collosus (a godling called Warforge) spat out modified Shield Guardians as a legendary action, and could use a reaction to redirect damage it was taking to a shield guardian. the shield guardians also exploded when destroyed.

Filling a hit box also refreshed the PCs' Heroic Inspiration as well as the Collosus' legendary actions and resistances (and would have done recharges if it had any).

It was a much more fun battle than the playtests had been. I will continue to tweak the formula a little bit. Today they fight The Ruin That Walks (a epic mimic that is the dungeon) and then Hateweaver (a powerful psionic drider thing). Tomorrow is The Mother of Monsters, a chimera goddess based on Tiamat's statblock.

 

[aco175]

I almost went to that convention this weekend. Have fun.

I like the idea of buckets of HP needing to be dealt with like a semi-game in the game. This might be cool for a high level game where tons of HP is a grind more than fun.

I was thinking if having other things for some of the PCs to do would help keep things interesting over just dealing damage. Maybe a specific type of damage deals extra or less damage or a skill puzzle. Rogues and disarming traps could remove a part and lower the buckets total HP for one of them making it easier to destroy one of them.

 

[bedir than]

The Ruin That Walks

This name is brilliant.


Also, I enjoy your overall concept. I can't wait to learn more

 

[Charlaquin]

Seems like a good mechanic for boss battles!

I think people keep running into the problem that they want individual encounters to be challenging, and D&D is just fundamentally not designed that way. It’s built around the assumption of many mostly trivial encounters gradually taxing the party’s resources until they’re forced to retreat. As long as the game continues to be built around that model of challenge, no amount of tweaking PC and monster stats is going to fix the problem people who want individually challenging encounters are running into.

 

[Tonguez]

Yeah I shifted to running Kaiju as terrain challenges a while back, splitting the creature into zones with their own damage goals.

So Legs can be climbed or disabled, bodies traversed while avoiding or disabling attacks from arms/wings etc, then the head being vunerable only if the arms are dealt with.

Refreshing heroic inspiration and legendary actions with each box is cool

Seems like a good mechanic for boss battles!

I think people keep running into the problem that they want individual encounters to be challenging, and D&D is just fundamentally not designed that way. It’s built around the assumption of many mostly trivial encounters gradually taxing the party’s resources until they’re forced to retreat. As long as the game continues to be built around that model of challenge, no amount of tweaking PC and monster stats is going to fix the problem people who want individually challenging encounters are running into.

Yeah, lairs are the answer. People need to forget individual monster encounters and just treat them as part of a broader lairs (and regions) with multiple points that can challenge PCs.

 

[Reynard]

Session 2: The Ruin That Walks

A shard of an unknown god of lies and secrets burrows in to places where secrets are held and becomes that places in the form of a giant mimic. In this case, it was the Vault of Kings, the royal tomb of the Realm where the First Queen and every successive King after is interred. The royal necrophant came to the PCs because when he went to go about his duties in the Vault, he was attacked by one of the Kings (in the form of a Death Knight). The PCs agreed to go into the tomb and confront the restless dead. Upon arrival, they notices something was a amiss and one of them used a Gem of Seeing to reveal the mimic nature of the place.

They had an audience with the Death Knight King and the Demi Lich Queen, successfully talking themselves out of a fight and promising to set things to rights while preserving the secrets buried with the long dead monarchs.

Down in the bowls of the Vault where the current king's future tomb was being excavated they found the godling's Heart: itself a CR 25 legendary, along with some enhanced mimic minions and some poor unfortunate dwarves stonemasons were were unlucky enough to have been present when the god subverted the Vault.

The mimics were an annoyance, but more important the main enemy could absorb one as a reaction and "heal" the damage done that round by whatever they had left in HP. This meant the PCs could not just ignore them and had to split their attention. Otherwise the main monster was a brute, hitting hard always with advantage because the attack could come from anywhere (the whole room was the monster).

Good fight. lots of fun. In the end, everyone contributed and the session time was filled.

 

[Theory of Games]

I think people keep running into the problem that they want individual encounters to be challenging, and D&D is just fundamentally not designed that way. It’s built around the assumption of many mostly trivial encounters gradually taxing the party’s resources until they’re forced to retreat. As long as the game continues to be built around that model of challenge, no amount of tweaking PC and monster stats is going to fix the problem people who want individually challenging encounters are running into.

D&D IS designed for challenging individual encounters, but if the GM doesn't use the threat tactically, it will flop unless the dice betray the players.

Tactics are a vital aspect of most games.

 

[Shardstone]

I am at RPG Con in Mildord Mass, running 4 sessions of of high (17th) level D&D 2024 epic fights. I playtested a couple times and each one, the damage power output of the PCs was just unbelievable, and even CR 25 Legendary creatures with minions died in less than 2 rounds.

So for the actual con, I developed a different system. Instead of a giant pile of HP, the godling (a Collossus per the MM) has 3 "Hit Boxes." The PCs filled a hit box if they collectively did 150 points of damage to the godling in a single round, and it was defeated when 3 hit boxes were filled. The collosus (a godling called Warforge) spat out modified Shield Guardians as a legendary action, and could use a reaction to redirect damage it was taking to a shield guardian. the shield guardians also exploded when destroyed.

Filling a hit box also refreshed the PCs' Heroic Inspiration as well as the Collosus' legendary actions and resistances (and would have done recharges if it had any).

It was a much more fun battle than the playtests had been. I will continue to tweak the formula a little bit. Today they fight The Ruin That Walks (a epic mimic that is the dungeon) and then Hateweaver (a powerful psionic drider thing). Tomorrow is The Mother of Monsters, a chimera goddess based on Tiamat's statblock.

So is if 150 points of damage fail to be dealt in a single round, does it reset for the next round?

 

[Reynard]

Session 3: Hateweaver

Hateweaver was actually the first of the fallen gods I had developed for this storyline (conceptually speaking). A god of enmity, Hateweaver loves nothing more than creating division and conflict within societies and watching them ultimately collapse under the weight of that conflict.

In this instance, Hateweaver had inserted himself into a dwarven society and stoked anti-gnome sentiment (parallels to real world issues were intentional). As a being that elevated peoples already present biases, this meant that the extra lawfulness of the dwarves broadly moved easily into a police state, but there were also the extra violent troll slayer berzerkers.

Ultimately, the PCs put the puzzle together, beat up some berzerkers, and then were "condemned" to face the godling (their intention).

I think I overtuned Hateweaver "big attack" -- it was a area effect psychic blast that stunned targets who failed the save. The big fight turned into a bit of a slog because the best damage dealers ended up stunned a few rounds.

Broadly speaking, though, it was a good session and I got to play in person with two people who I had not seen in many years because they decided to fly to the con. So that was awesome.

 

[Reynard]

So is if 150 points of damage fail to be dealt in a single round, does it reset for the next round?

Yes.

Session 4: The Mother of Monsters

Taking all the things I learned from the first 3 sessions, I built the Mother of Monsters a little differently.

Being a legendary chimera, I gave her 5 zones (Body, Tail, Goat head, Lion head, Dragon head) and gave each its own AC, threshold, attack and legendary action. Note that the MoM still only had 3 legendary actions, and they were all Recharge+ (that is, after use they have a recharge of 6, and a failed recharge means the number reduces by 1). Each zone had a single hit box, and if it filled I did it immediately. As usual, a hitbox filling reset the recharge abilities and gave all the PCs their Heroic Inspiration back. In addition, a zone that was defeated meant that part was gone from the fight and could not attack or use its specific legendary action. I rolled initiative independently for each zone, also. Note that area of effect attacks damaged all zones.

The battle was really fun and tense and one character hit 0 HP multiple times (but the paladin got them back up; no one picked either the cleric or the druid for this session).

My intent is to take everything i learned and formally write up the rules for this kind of thing, and then decide what to do with it, if anything.