M_Natas
Hero
Second to that.Anything below deadly is a cakewalk, yes, but not pointless. The point of those encounters is to be defeatedly easily, but use up resources in doing so. Then you have so many other encounters during the adventuring day that by the time you get to the last one, you're so low on resources that it's a challenge that could beat you.
It's a dumb and frustrating way to balance the game, but it does have a point.
Yesterday my Group fought a Roper (CR 5). We were 4 5th Level Characters. So a medium encounters by the book.
We had full ressources.
Now, this is the beginning of a dungeon delve, so we need to look out for our ressources ...
An a roper is a mean Monster. 20AC, 96 HP restraining up to 6 creatures...
My wizard was the only one not caught in the tendrils, thanks to shield and a cloak of displacement. Which was good, because if that thing would have bitten my character she would have been out of combat.
So we had a Bardlock, cleric and rogue caught by the roper.
Trough lucky dice roles, the cleric could do an inflict wounds. The rogue never hit anything Trough bad dice rolls. The bardlock escaped in round 1 and used an Eldritch Blast in round 2.
my wizard threw two fireballs at the roper doing something like 65 damage. Together with the inflict wounds and the Eldritch Blast that was enough to kill the roper.
but it cost me 2 of my 4 fireball spell slots, a first level slot and the cleric a 2nd level slot for an upcast inflict wounds.
If I wouldn't have thrown the fireballs, the fight wouldn't have been over after 2 rounds, it would have taken 4 or 5, probably downing one or more characters, becoming a deadly encounter.
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