D&D players kicking your baddies' butts? How to fix it FAST 

Indeed not low int or creatures that just won't know wtf you are doing like that one bird enemy that saw my druid cast conjure animal and instantly new to focus him instead of the 2 vultures summoned cause they are just that informed about magic and tactical.

@@damanicampbell9567 I play a druid as well. I feel your pain.

@@fightingcorsair7297 lol it was once at least , he said mb to it. it was the once i played druid , played the spore druid but god I was tanky to the point I was "zzz" though but it a fun experience. Oh yeah and I never conjured more than 2 animals at a time cause that just breaks the game.

In many editions this kind of book isn't necessary but for 5e its practically a necessity for a DM. I would rate it more important than any of the books you could buy other than the core books. I've played in way too many games where difficult fights are easy because DMs don't remember monster abilities or don't use them well. Players get to practice using their abilities combat after combat. DMs often just get one shot to do it right with a particular monster.

There's also a website! Definitely recommend it!

5e has massively INFLATED hitpoints. in AD&D fighters could chop through any printed enemy (like say orcus) in a single round.

I'll tack onto this and say that if you read this and think "But I want my boss to feel strong on its own, not just because it has a bunch of minions" you can just lie and make the minions and their actions part of the boss, even if you give them separate initiatives. If it's a big boss (in literal size, not plot importance) give it a bunch of appendages and separate parts that act outside of its main turn, and give them their own hp that the players can hack at to get rid of them, if it's medium or large size creature, have it create apparitions, or teleport around outside of its turn to engage from different places, and have HP thresholds to slowly remove this ability. Basically, if you want your boss to be strong without minions, flavor the minions as being abilities or extensions of the boss creature, rather than separate creatures working for the boss.

I will say you CAN create monsters that can solo fresh parties... but you have to design them METICULOUSLY!

I would say though, while you should never punish your party for coming up with a clever tactic for a particular encounter, if they establish an effective tactic that they keep using for multiple encounters, you should absolutely design enemies that it won't work on to keep thing fresh. Especially important with high level spellcasters and all the gimmicks they can come up with!

Yup, if they roll good or just make really moves.... just accept it.

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DkSM-lMKrJU.html She already did it. It's Nymwen, the secret necromancer in love with a long dead poet. She also made a POV: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-WhkutPEBZBY.html

We got a mini steel this side quest in her introduction video!

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DkSM-lMKrJU.html

Her first video is here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DkSM-lMKrJU.html And she has another one here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-WhkutPEBZBY.html

and their is her character builder if you want to interact with her ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-WhkutPEBZBY.html

Does that apply to this video though? Very likely that the DM always planned to have a transformation and a phase 2, especially if the stat block for phase 2 was already prepared. It's not necessarily a case of you players destroying the boss, causing him to try to up the power and balance the encounter.

Separating from spellcasting focus... chefs kiss... well played :)

@@envytee9659 It absolutely applies to this video. It was literally one of the examples, no different from revealing a new power or item. And sure, it's possible the GM planned to do this all along. But it's just as possible the GM was thinking on the fly, as is their job, to make the encounter more fun and the drama more interesting. And the point is moot; you're not doing it right if the players can see the puppet strings. As with everything in this entire video, the players shouldn't be able to discern whether you've adjusted things on the fly. That breaks immersion.

@@Eshajori No, the example in the vid was to save a boss fight that was far too easy, without making it seem obvious, by describing the boss entering a phase 2 that you hadn't already planned. In this comment, the player describes a DM that already had a set two phases and stat blocks ahead of time, so it doesn't apply to a video about quick saves for an unexpectedly easy encounter.

@@envytee9659 the dm could have just looked up a different stat block once it was obvious the fight wasn't working out correctly.

An intelligent or wise villain will definitely do this. Especially stealthy or sneaky or spy types!

Oooh, love this

Just remember not to go overboard building the perfect counter to the party, as that could be really frustrating.

Sure, but are we the only existing adventurers in the DnD world? I find this advice quite lackluster. If the dude has eyes and ears everywhere, how come he's having such problems with us taking down his plans in the first place?

For exemple, players often have prefered destructive energies types, just like people tend to have prefered pokemon types for exemple. So if someone has seen that the sorcerer of the party dishes out fireball, the villain might ask his cleric to cast endurance to destructive energies (fire) on itself, for exemple. As much as the party can buff itself BEFORE a fight, if the villain heard fighting in the room beside its own, he probably can use every round of the preceding combat to buff itself with every spells or object that they have!

A good way to set this up is to take inspiration from the roman colosseum (under the floor is the hypogeum which had all sorts of mechanisms to do things like add lions anywhere to the field). Basically home field advantage, if the BBEG expects to be attacked it isn't unreasonable that they would set up "kill boxes" or arenas to engage the players on their terms. To add puzzle aspects let players enter a visible control room where a minion is using their actions (possibly as signaled by the boss) to mess with the part by triggering traps or inserting minions and stuff to be inconvenient. However, once players get into the control room they can use this stuff against the big bad (including locking the door to keep him out). It can be justified however you want narratively but if i had an arena i would want traps everywhere that I won't trigger. (I guess you could think of it as fancy lair actions that the players can hijack) Personally i wouldn't do this too much so it stays really interesting and novel, and reskin as needed to keep it fresh. (Maybe its a fight in a factory, or the security desk in a prison or ancient city, or maybe its litterally a colloseum) but if you give your players buttons to push they will love pushing them.

All my bosses are puzzle bosses, the DM routinely lets me design dungeons because my bosses are puzzle bosses (and I'm better at those than he is). The best puzzle boss I've designed is "The illusionist" who can weave realistic illusions. She was based on a monk-wizard hybrid concept and her arena was part of her fight. Even with Truesight the players weren't able to tell where she was as it only added more duplicates (The walls were the illusion, there were mirrors backed with bombs everywhere). There were plenty of torches, both magical and not, as well as a crystal ball in the ceiling. In the end it turned out she wasn't even in the room, she was controlling an armoured puppet through animate objects and was in a side room 4 rooms down the hall. After 5 near TPKs the party ran out and gave up. The key to this dungeon was simple, all they had to do was not break the mirrors and they would see that the mirrors were all reflecting from the crystal ball. A Dancing Light cantrip (which the party had) and an intelligence check would have revealed this. Unfortunately the party instantly thought to break the mirrors and exploded while doing so. I didn't even get to her second phase. Going up against someone called "The Illusionist" using the direct approach was a bad idea. Doing it 5 times in a row showed me that the party's dump stat was their intelligence. According to the Party I need to make my bosses less confusing and stop using actual tactics and group diversity.

@@inventor121 first of all, that's brilliant, and I'm suddenly rethinking my hexblade baddie (my players don't know what's what they are yet). Second, if your players can't formulate plans or think ahead, that has to be on them after a point. I've told my players that I intend to run encounters with a plan and baddies working together; if they want to survive the tough fights, they'll need to start putting together plans.

​@@MajorHickE You should absolutely do that, and while you're at it group together monsters into "squads" where there is a tank, DPS, and support. I like to mix DPS between Melee and Ranged depending on what makes sense in the situation. Also please give me details on your hexblade baddie. For example: City Guard: A squad of 7 men in a 2 column formation, 2 men in heavy armour lead the front with Tower Shields and shortswords, 4 in medium armour carry normal shields and spears (or longswords) as well as a sling and a few stones. A support mage in light or medium armour, or commander (battlemaster fighter) in heavy armour, marches in the center of the formation ready to give orders and bolster allies. This small group provides tactical flexibility while still retaining unit cohesion. Goblin raiders: A pack of 6 goblins have laid an ambush, they have dug a vehicle trap with spikes and are waiting in the ditch beside the road and the nearby trees. As the wagon passes over the vehicle trap the front wheels give way and arrows fly from the treeline 3 goblins with melee weapons make a rush for the wagon to engage the party. from the left. As the party is being engaged from the left a goblin comes in from the right to loot the wagon. One of my favourites for large battles (only against high level characters) though is the "firing line". A line of tower shield heavies and behind it a row of archers or musketmen and a few mages in the back for support. Skirmishers or cavalry can be added to the wings. I've also found that not all the players have to be in the boss room for the boss fight. Some of them can be running around baiting and misleading minions and cause mass confusion. I usually spring a random patrol on a wayward rogue to see what they will do. In some situations it's the right call the split the party, in others not so much.

This and boss stages! All my BBEG and sometimes even “mini bosses” have waves or stages. Ran a one shot for a bunch of players vs. Tiamat and the stages were pre summoning adds, slow emergence of Tiamat, pushing Tiamat back and an in between phase where Tiamat became invulnerable while some more adds showed up. Everyone loved it and it wasn’t a boring smash and grab.

Depending on player level, I like to give big bads legendary reactions, or an ability to shed/molt/drop armor when they take a high amount of damage. So if they take day 30 damage in a single turn, or or from a single attack, they can use this reaction to take no damage instead, but at the first of AC. So the rogue gets their Sneak Attack and deals 36 damage, their dagger cutting a line across the enemy from shoulder to hip. They can briefly see the creatures internal organs beginning to spill, only to watch in horror as the wound seals itself up, the dead flesh sloughing off and falling to the ground with a sick plop. The new flesh, however, looks tender and vulnerable.

I gave the last BBEG all of it in a challange way. The fight took the hole evening (that wasn't actually planned) and the party succeeded. No one died.

Lair actions are key.

never underestimate the power of a displacer beast cloak or mantle of Spell deflection on a BBEG. or just the shield spell on a BBEG. it does wonders. seriously

Minions are neat, but I fear using invulnerability phases. They feel way too "video gamey" to me, and unless executed really well, I suspect the party will feel the same way. The closest thing I've done is having a really stealthy boss turning invisible and moving silently around the battlefield after calling for minions, going "Bah, I'll have to kill you myself then!" after the minions die.

youre a great dm. you dont want to negate or nerf your party all the time. let the paladin obliterate the zombies. let the ranger snipe the orcs at stupid long range. let them use their skills/feats/items/abilities/weapons. so keep being a great dm.

@@Atma_Weapon Agreed. The players probably remember that fight as a good one.

Let them be powerful for a bit. It evens out later. I have a rogue right now that's level 12 and does insane sneak attack damage. A CR 6 creature dropped him after a failed save. It evens out after a while and you won't have to change a thing.

You will never be a woman.

When. No if.

@@nightfall89z62 Do. Or do not. There is no try.

Having wolves or goblins or something call for help and their family coming to help might be a good call, or maybe the village elder of the goblin colony has a level or two in druid! Or spears start getting loaded into spear guns!

Yes! Just sprinkle it in though -- when a DM uses a trick too often it gets sort of transparent and uninteresting. (DMing is hard you say?? Pfah! Lol)

Curses that remove the free will from a character are always problematic in an RPG. Either the DM has to take control of the character (very obvious and many players might not like their character being taken away from them, even temporary) or the player has to play along (difficult if the "new" conscience acts on information the player should not have after the effect ends, and the player will probably still hesitate to actively harm his comrades even if they currently aren't).

@@Milkymalk try having the item refuse to cooperate unless demands are met (Any/all)

@@eliotoole4534 That's one option, but the player will most likely be like "lol no".

Great book!

Came here to recommend this. The book is great, and a lot of it is available on the blog too. There's also a version for PCs 😉

@@khayyin359 have you seen the second book that covers Volo's and Mordekainen's? It's a bit more mathy than the first one, but still really helpful.

“No! They killed Jerry!”

That sounds INCREDIBLE

Worms fall, everyone dies

The DM had a backup worm on standby.

Whenever I want to get the most out of a combat, I spend time doing things like watching the first twenty minutes of Saving Private Ryan to get the feel and tempo of the kind of combat I want to run. Pullo's fight in the arena in the seventh episode of HBO's Rome is also useful inspiration, as is the movie Thirteenth Warrior. Make things intense, fluid, the enemy always has one more trick up their sleeve. Don't be afraid to make the party run, even if it's to a place where the ground is more advantageous for them. When half the party is unconscious and bleeding out, the last healing spell has been burned, when members of the party are carrying other members to safety, when the character with the most hit points (say about 4) is holding up the fighter's shield to guard the party's retreat---your players will feel like they've been in a fight from hell, and they will talk about it for months if not years to come.

Great point! The positive side of that warning is that cool items that you give your bosses can also be fun loot for players when they finally win!

@@GinnyDi also, some items are like the Tome of Horrible Evilness or whatshisname - they only work for the bbeg and any remotely decent pc would take 15d8 necrotic damage from just touching them. MUAHAHAHAH

There's always consumables. Once they're used, they're gone.

@@robertnett9793 yup, there's a Charm that lets you cast Lightning Bolt three times, then it's gone. Even even if you're not a Caster. Good Ace up the sleeve - possibly literally!

@@danielmclellan1522 Oh... Imagine magic items in form of playing cards - I don't talk about the Deck of Many things - just cards you can use and maybe combine... and then have one special effect if a character holds two black aces and eights and another card.

The bane of liches everywhere...

Bard: “No one ever expects…” radiant kittens! Liche: “W! T! F! is thaaaaat ?!?!!”

If that's not DnD, I don't know what is.

Cool idea! Did she have to do something to absorb a soul, like break the jar?

Good ideas

Or have them cutscene escape at 0hp...

@@draconicfeline6177 No. Bad. This is what video games do that always frustrates players. No "cutscenes" in DnD.

If you had that ability, along with exact %'s to avoid based on player stats, written down and even had a way and a stat necessary to discover the ability up front that was also written down before the session started, then that would be great boss design. Making things up on the fly because things aren't going your way is the definition of cheating.

@@7F0X7 And yet, everyone seemed really happy with how it turned out, and it turned a very lackluster "oh, was that it?" boss encounter into an "OMG WE WERE SO BADASS" boss encounter. :)

Dude, it's only cheating if it's DM vs players. Which it isn't. Also can you talk about over prep? If the players just skip the encounter? Yeah. Great.

@@JacopoSkydweller Encounters can be designed to be unskippable. You can just put the shiny thing the players need in the same room as the boss or do it a million other ways. I just dislike the idea of getting cheezed in a boss fight despite my preparation as the player. I shouldn't be punished for my prep due to the DM's lack of prep.

​@@7F0X7 did you... not watch the video? Tweaking a boss character on the fly to ensure an encounter is interesting is the entire point, not "cheating" XD I guess you might be confused if you've never been involved in a table top RPG before, but these aren't "DM vs the player" scenarios. The objective isn't to defeat the DM it's to have a fun game with memorable moments, and the role of the DM is to facilitate that. Your attitude to this dynamic sounds mega toxic with all this "cheating" "cheesing" "unskippable" "punished" "DM's lack of prep" crap, and I'm very glad I've never had a player like you in one of my games!

changing hp on the fly just feels cheaty to me. if we die, we die.

The set amount is good for on the fly encounters but for planned encounters you have the time to spend making it more detailed. Also you can just make a binder of various encounters like goblins in cave with a couple variations and appropriate party level this way you have prebuilt encounters for unplanned fights.

@@brandond2768 its not cheating if it is used too fix DMs mistake. I dont want a tpk because I did a bad job with encounter design.

@@brandond2768 But that's just it, you're not really changing HP on the fly, you're creating a range of HP in which the monster dies! Like, let's say they fight a Cambion. Officially a Cambion has 82 HP, that's what DMs would use. But his HP is also 11d8 + 33! So it can actually have a wide variety of HP, and it's still official, rulebook stuff! So when you make them face the Cambion, you decide that he has an amount of HP between 44 and 121, and every single one of those number is legal! You can then gauge how the fight is going and, as long as it stays within those margins, determine when the Cambion dies! Don't be a d**k about it, like, don't be the guy who at least wants to kill one PC before having your monster die, obviously! Players want fights that feels challenging but that they end up victorious in the end. Use what you have at your disposal to give them that!

@@ChevaliersEmeraude except by giving your self a range fir the fight instead of a concrete number ahead of time you are cheating your players of the experience of over coming the challenge you set before them without deus exing it. You're just hiding it better.

TPKs should be player fault not DM miscalculation. Challenging and Ancient white dragon at lv 2 is a death sentence, you should be allowed to be that dumb but you will also be killed because actions have consequences. Fighting the boss the DM intended you to fight when they intended the fight should be hard but no deaths without bad roles and no TPK unless the players fought well below their normal abilities. (Like the wizard only using cantrips when they have good spells ready that aren't reserved for something else immediately after the fight) Also DnD is a game about attrition and resource management, players shouldn't be at full strength when entering a boss fight if you want them to struggle.

@@jasonreed7522 Exactly.

I think the very best time and place for a TPK is when the party insists on actions they've been steered from taking (in world, not at table). I was running a campaign where they had a helpful yet shady NPC that they all wanted to kill just because he was creepy, despite his saving their bacons several times over the course of the game. They finally made their move and I just let it be their last. There are some creatures in that manual that were never really meant to be messed with.

I'd say it's a combo of adding abilities/increasing HP, but it *is* a classic narrative way to do so. That familiarity can make it seem more normal (and less sus) to players so it's always a good option to keep handy.

Depending on the kind of campaign this seems great. Just don't overdo it, lest your players get bored really quickly :D

A good version of this is the polymorph spell. Surprise! Turns out being an elf wizard was a disguise and they were actually a demon of some sort. You knocked out all of their temporary HP. Now you have to fight them i their true form with access to all the abilities that they didn't have earlier. If you're doing this to sve the BBEG from defeat you don't have to go that far, just reveal it was a fake and the real one will be much more powerful and it can he satisfying too as it makes them smarter and stronger.

That can feel like a cop-out unless it has been hinted at earlier in the campaign. Nothing obvious, just something that the players can look at with hindsight and make the connection. That way, you can use it if you need to.

I much prefer the, "You thought I was the top of this organization?"

I absolutely love those videos! The ideas in his vids are amazing. Making a wall of men to prevent an invisible player from running out of an ally for example is so clever! You wouldn't expect gaurds to be a threat because they aren't dangerous. But they can be very smart!

The Monsters Know What They're Doing (both the blog and the actual book) are both GODSENDS as well. The author's insight is borderline genius sometimes.

@@elfberry I reckon he's been running games since AD&D, you're bound to learn how to handle encounters by that point. But yes, impressive insight into how to rp and play tactically. Major kudos to Keith Amman.

another option instead of the first first in initiative is to have them set off a trap while the party approached before initiative get rolled. That should disrupt their planned and prepped tactics and require spending actions to recover from the trap from the get go.

I don't know the specifics of your situation, but in my experience, there are always players who absolutely will undercut the dramatic tension if they can. They'll interrupt the villain's monologue, they'll try to one-shot some big threat with some ridiculous plan, they'll have absolutely no interest in the fact that you're trying to build up to some big epic moment. But, at the end of the day, if you're going to be a DM, in my opinion, you have to just let the players do what they'll do. Player agency is a huge part of D&D. It's what separates it from all other kinds of games. Sometimes the players will one-shot your badguys, or ignore the plot completely, but that's their choice to make. The players WANT to feel like badasses and superheroes and absolutely curb-stomping the badguys is how that can manifest - don't arbitrarily take it away. If there's any advice I could give, it's don't make the final encounter of your campaign the 'ending'. Go on and have a proper ending. Have the players decide where their characters end up. Do they settle down? Do they have kids? Do they become kings and queens? A proper ending will always leave players with a great feeling. The final 'boss' encounter isn't the climax to your game; the 'ending' is. Good luck ending your campaign!

@@josephrossow8901Thank you so much for this advice! I definitely have plans for there to be an aftermath to the campaign and even do a little time skip so we can see how things play out and see how things have changed. (I'm running Curse of Strahd if that gives any context!) But I totally get what you mean by undercutting. And it feels good to know I'm not alone there but I think I'll take that advice to mean in some context that if that's the story we're going to tell together, it makes me feel better about rolling with it!

@@josephrossow8901 Ah yes, the "And Sam lived with his family for a very long time before he, too, left the Shire and as the last bearer of the Ring of Power, took the last ship to the Undying Lands."

@@josephrossow8901*pushes up glasses* Actually, technically speaking, I'm pretty sure that the boss fight is indeed the climax; what happens after would be falling action/resolution.

@@drchicken2477 Let'see... A climax is the most intense, exciting or important part of something, a culmination or apex. I don't know if that's really what a final boss is, in D&D. Like, in terms of the game, the players have faced dozens of difficult encounters and bosses by the time they reach it. All the 'final boss' is, is the characterss at their most powerful, fighting their most powerful opponent yet... which... probably the players have experienced before. I guess I'd argue that the culmination of a character is rarely that they "Defeated Garglenax, the Destroyer of Worlds," but more often that they "Became King, and Lord of the Castle Bob." I guess I'd argue - and maybe I'm wrong - that the climax is what the player ultimately wants to accomplish for their character, and that's often not related to the final boss. Maybe it's starting a school for mages, or marrying the princess and becoming heir to the kingdom, or inventing airships, or creating their own demi-plane. But, in my experience, it often has very little to do with the final combat encounter. By your definition I'd argue that achieving their ultimate goal is the climax, not the final encounter, and that 'living happily ever after' is the falling action/resolution. Maybe I'm wrong though. >_< I dunno.

This is only a decent advice if you have options for either outcome and also give the players a way to obtain something that will stop him fleeing a second time. Theres nothing more frustrating than fighting the same guy twice with the same abilities only to have him escape a third time. Thats just bad dm'ing.

Whatever methods your villain may use to try and flee, make it theoretically possible to stop them and kill them right away. And make it make sense! Don't just give them whatever the party doesn't have a counter for JUST because they have no counter for it. The villain either has to know or be able to reasonably suspect that the players have what they have in order to have a counter ready. If you have a Barbarian villain that suddenly casts Dimension Door, then WTF are you doing?! If you have a caster villain do the same thing, then you're good. Unless there's a _good_ explanation for why your Barbarian can cast that spell - and for why your Barbarian would even flee. If you have a caster villain throw a smoke bomb to prevent their escape Teleport being counterspelled, make sure they either have Counterspell, or at least have a good reason for knowing how Counterspell works (line of sight being needed, hence why a smoke bomb would prevent a Counterspell).

That is evil and I am going to use it

@@MajorHickE Please do. My first D&D character was a human illusionist from 1st edition, so...

This is an illegal technique and if the players learn of it, they'll call the rpg police. Good thing we're all GMs here 🤫

Alternative - The BBEG, seeing that their plans are failing, unleash all their might! They ignite their very soul ablaze to simply kill the characters. They get X rounds of invincibility to anything and everything but after that they begin to die at an alarming rate/instantly. The party needs to learn to be defensive suddenly instead of being offensive.

@@omnigenesis8823 love this one!

Why did I never think of that? I think it'd be a great solution

I see this recommended a lot, and it is one of the worst suggestions. Because it becomes super obvious very quickly, and players stop caring when they realize none of their actions, character choices, spell choices, etc ever make the slightest bit of difference. You're not really playing a game any more at that point, because games have rules, and that's essentially a giant flag saying there's no rules and combat doesn't matter. Might as well pick a different RPG system that has less of a combat focus if you're gonna throw out all the combat rules. Because then any time a player makes a character choice to help them in combat, it's the "wrong" choice by definition.

Me too, I'm embarrassed 😬

"Don't use fireball on a single target"? Bold words for someone in fireball range.

"Just banish them" oh like it's EASY (said with a laugh btw)

I tried 2nd edition and the party almost always curbstomped my bad guys. It got laughable when they killed the ancient magma dragon in 1 round. ONE. Tactics and prep should be the bare minimum to win against such a beast, not the nail in his coffin... I so missed the vrock who wiped the floor with their asses a few adventures before...

@@roswynn5484 That's because action economy is the king. Challenging a party with solo monster is hard because the monster gets to take one action in a turn while the party as many as there are members in it. The next time send more magma dragons.

@@tuomasronnberg5244 magma dragon + 2 useless fire elemental things, as per AP. Last fight I ran before giving up I ADDED a mate to the solo bbeg described in the adventure - it was just prolonging the inevitable. One would expect the APs to give you good encounters...

@@roswynn5484 Well, think it from the point of view of AP designers. They cannot possibly account for every possible party composition and player skill, so they have incentive to make encounters that are on the easy side so even a mediocre party has a fair chance of beating one. If your players are strong optimizers then they're going to steamroll encounters that are run as is.

@@tuomasronnberg5244 true. And mostly they have pretty good tactical minds. I dunno, I just didn't have the skills to give them the right encounters mostly, Ginny's advice will definitely come in handy next time.

Make it so that the magical effects are subject to counterspell and calculated as a spell with the same modifiers and stats.

@@fizzledimglow3523 I have a suspicion that's not RAI, and the new magic effects are a nerf for counterspell. has Jeremy Crawford said anything about this?

@@rantdmc is not RAI, or RAW. It's just an easy enough fix for the purposes.

I mean, Lich NPC's can be hella strong. And if they are raising undead meat shields to mess with the party, then the fights can easily ramp up in difficulty pretty quickly.

@@Magus_Union exactly. It would awesome and probably be fun for the players. Seeing how their previous actions informed her. It makes their things matter. It would also be fun to make her the mastermind of the whole campaign. Imagine they kill who they think is the main villan and then they see her.

A good rule of thumb I've found for this comes from the blog The Monsters Know What They're Doing (which is a fantastic resource, though I do not know if this rule is the author's creation). Essentially, a creature's INT and WIS scores should inform how knowledgeable it is about the player's abilities and, to a lesser extent, how the creature itself fights. On a score of 11 or lower, all a given creature should know is who is wearing armor, who looks sick or old, and which PC is the biggest. Magic users shouldn't be readily obvious to these folks, and might be especially terrifying if the monster party lacks their own caster(s). From 12-15, the NPC will have a rough of idea of what each PC is capable of, but won't be able to differentiate one type of spellcaster from another, or a fighter from a paladin if both are similarly equipped, at least not until the attacks start flying. At 16+ INT or WIS, the monster absolutely knows what each PC can do, and will plan accordingly, whether that means negotiating, Banishing the problematic brutes, or showing up with minions. I've found these guidelines to be incredibly helpful when planning encounters and ensuring that there's a good balance of the party kicking ass, meeting equals, and realizing (usually) that they're in over their heads.

Good points. Like the encounter version of when a DM sees your ranger's favored terrain(s) and enemies and avoids using them. Ever.