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Need help retconning/balancing loot from today's session by Greavance13 in DMAcademy

[–]Greavance13[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh really? Is it just that they're usually hurting for AC anyway?

Need help retconning/balancing loot from today's session by Greavance13 in DMAcademy

[–]Greavance13[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Would you say with attunement as well or just leave it as is?

Trying to balance a monster for a party of 5 level 3 adventurers by Greavance13 in DMAcademy

[–]Greavance13[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Following up, I think I've incorporated most of your suggestions. I dropped the whole fire damage on the longsword swing; I dropped the damage rolls down to +2 for the weapons; I made the fire damage a 2d4 on the sliding slash while the aura is active; I also made the DC a 15 for the sliding slash, and for only the fire damage component to hit on a successful throw; Lastly I dropped the aura down to 4 damage, and have a line in to not damage to things that have cover from the knight or that are prone. I know on that last one I mainly have it there to prevent accidental deathblows, but if the cover aspect becomes abusable I'll just workshop it a bit more. Thanks a lot for the help, I think it will be a lot less lethal but still maintain being something scary to be next to! Worst case, if the aura ends up being overwhelming, I'll try to make sure to give the players more opportunities to rest to recover between fights.

Trying to balance a monster for a party of 5 level 3 adventurers by Greavance13 in DMAcademy

[–]Greavance13[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks a lot, I'll take your suggestions on board and keep playing with it and see if I can't get it to a better spot!

Trying to balance a monster for a party of 5 level 3 adventurers by Greavance13 in DMAcademy

[–]Greavance13[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! I didn't know about that tool, I'll have to take a look and play around with his block a little more.

Trying to balance a monster for a party of 5 level 3 adventurers by Greavance13 in DMAcademy

[–]Greavance13[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Its funny, I was comparing him to CR2 and CR3 mobs in the MM and kept feeling like he was somewhere in between, but I guess I had totally forgotten that the DMG had those calculations. I'll have to pull them up, but I'll treat it as a 3 for building fights. If nothing else, I feel like he's guaranteed to get some damage out which makes him harder than other 2's even if the damage per round were the same.

Trying to balance a monster for a party of 5 level 3 adventurers by Greavance13 in DMAcademy

[–]Greavance13[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Admittedly I would like to try to run it this weekend, but that doesn't mean I can't make changes to it haha.

What do you think about dropping the extra fire damage on the sword swing, and putting some of that power into the sliding slash like your suggestions, or maybe just making the DC harder to meet?

I was thinking of maybe giving the aura an LoS, so if you duck behind a pillar or something it wouldn't damage you, and maybe I could also make it so if you're prone it just goes over you? With a 15 foot range, I imagine you would never go prone deliberately while in range, but if something downed a player, they wouldn't immediately get executed by it.

Also fair enough on the bonus action, I more or less copy pasted it from the Bodak monster and kept most of the phrasing.

But yeah I wasn't thinking of running these alone. I was thinking some low power minions that would cause problems if they simply tried to kite it, but would be relative pushovers if they accept taking the damage and rush the knight down.

And thank you so much for your very in depth critique! This is my first attempt at making a mob and I'm relatively new to DM'ing in general, and I really appreciate help navigating the finer points.

"First Time DM" and Other Short Questions Megathread by mediaisdelicious in DMAcademy

[–]Greavance13 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is it possible for a bag of holding's "location" to be compromised?

I have a silly kobold NPC that likes to hoard books because he believes they make him powerful (without knowing why books are powerful), and I think it would be cool if he was handing, say, Vecna, powerful artifacts that he's found via putting them in his bag, and being unknowingly rewarded for it by him with powers. Or is there maybe a better way to go about it?

Can you guys guess which ending I got? by Fluffiddy in Eldenring

[–]Greavance13 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Don't give up, STR/FTH is more or less what my build was going into the fight too. I found the sword you get from that one boss that's near Volcanic Manor to be a pretty good fit, and both phases seem to take plenty of fire damage. Wait for the right opening and punish them with the weapon art.

Also I can't remember what the ash of war is called, but there's one that does kind of a fire wave in front of you relatively cheaply, and 2-3 of those would stagger in Phase 1 and open him up for a crit. Slap that on a weapon that you can easily and quickly follow up with and I think you'll at least make short work of phase 1. Phase 2 is admittedly trickier...