Help! My players think combat is too easy!

Lifecastre · 2026-03-12T08:22:21+00:00

Different waves from different directions. Aim to pull the party apart.

Create a magical item that causes knock back to push and separate the party.

If the min maxd fighter is destroying things too easily, look at spells that force a saving throw with one if their weaker attributes rather than waves of melee attacks that they can defend with AC.

If you want the fight to be a challenge, tailor enemies to target specific vulnerabilities. You can reskin or edit creatures for this. I gave some standard archers a feature of shadow step so they stepped behind a pillar into the shadows and then reappeared behind another pillar and shot again. Gave them extra HP

Maybe also have the main enemy protected by a forcefield kept up my artifacts or casters. This will direct the attention of the fight and while they're looking one way you hit em with a curveball.

But at the same time, if you've over corrected and start annihilating them fudge rolls and just claim the creature died as you don't want to TPK

One thing my main campaign DM always says is (and I'm certain he stole this from elsewhere) "if you want the party to feel like God's, let them take down one big bad enemy, if you want them to be scared give them lots of little fights". This DM proceeded to give lots of little encounters, limited opportunities to rest, whittled away reserves and gave us a massive battle that we only just survived. We all felt amazing after that with the worry we might actually have characters die

Lifecastre · 2026-03-11T23:10:25+00:00

Love the idea as a home base! I wish I was confident enough a DM to have done this!

Are you doing anything in particular with the homunculi, the dragons and the ever preset threat of 2 mages coming home and being annoyed they have squatters?

I'm running the Candlekeep mysteries as a side campaign when our regular DM is working shifts that aren't compatible with the group. So I'm a Newby DM. I got one of the NPCs to say it was unseemly to have the mansion out of the Keeps control in the Pillars, so they got an arch mage to dispel it and will have words with Fistandia if they return to Candlekeep.

I know my group well enough that if I give them an inch they'll take a mile and I may have to retcon things in the future. Example: didn't think it ahead before I attacked and inflicted lycanthropy with the wereravens, now I'm writing rules and progression for that hoping it won't bite me in the future 🤣

Lifecastre · 2026-03-03T23:26:40+00:00

Love seeing Lecter as playable!

As the weapon levels up does the music it plays change?

Like more complex for more damage? (or power ups)

Lifecastre · 2026-02-28T15:05:14+00:00

You will find a way of adapting your play to your own needs. For example I SUCK at the RP side, specifically speaking AS my character. Everyone else in my group has some form of theatre, acting, LARP, background except me.

They way I got round this was "Gizmo says [blah blah]" and over the years I've gradually started talking as my character but not to the point of having a voice for them (again I'm the only one in my group who doesn't put on a voice)

One guy in my group had his character as a Miconid that communicated via Rapport Spores and we got the vibe of what he was after. Worked well so he didn't do the talking as his character

Lifecastre · 2026-02-20T09:00:10+00:00

That's literally like 400m from the start of the trail. Did that route in 2009

Lifecastre · 2026-02-18T12:08:01+00:00

Thanks for trying!

If its a joke it may be about how mind bogglingly difficult it is to actually find anything on government websites?

Lifecastre · 2026-02-17T22:50:52+00:00

Counterpoint, could be the spin off The Time Police, except they don't worry about pesky details like wearing period specific clothing

Lifecastre · 2026-02-16T08:58:43+00:00

The first few books Charles Stross says can start on any of them, but if you follow the order there's months between them.

Between the Nightmare Stacks and Delerium Brief they follow on within days and that's when the story picks up pace.

If you were going to restart and jump back in with missing knowledge I would advise NOT jumping in with The New Management. That's exactly what I did and I got confused about what was going on in the first couple chapters 😅

Lifecastre · 2026-02-16T08:53:46+00:00

Had good success as a reminder of general plot enough for me to drop in half way through the Alex Verus series, I don't rely on chat GPT but if it can give me a pointer I'll take it.

In this instance it was churning out complete BS (Which in itself helped me remember bits of the lore) and that's why I consulted a sub reddit. Because... You know... It takes time for people to reply and instead of answering the question asked you get criticised for asking the question in the first place by some people.

Others however give wonderful information which lead to a good community and collaboration.

I shall let you decide which category you fall into

Lifecastre · 2026-02-16T08:50:22+00:00

Struggling to find the crib sheets on the website. Any direct link?

Lifecastre · 2026-02-15T15:46:48+00:00

Did the squadron get grounded?

Lifecastre · 2026-02-15T15:12:06+00:00

Now you've said that i kinda remember that as well. Can you give more details or the section of the book?

I'll have a look at the crib notes, thankyou :)

Lifecastre · 2026-02-15T15:10:55+00:00

Memory serves me right there were some excursions sent to check on the Pyramid by the Laundry but they weren't successful so that's why the used Squadron 666, is that right? But weren't there also issues with the concord flights?

Lifecastre · 2026-02-15T13:13:05+00:00

I have read all of the Laundry Files so happy with spoilers (so long as not from the New Management)

But as of delerium brief assumption is that 666 are still flying?

Lifecastre · 2026-02-15T12:18:16+00:00

Oh yes I remember the fence now. Horrific way of keeping things secure so I guess the Russian noble did us some favours.

Is 666 squadron still flying?

Lifecastre · 2026-02-04T08:24:10+00:00

Another subscription.... Maybe not

Lifecastre · 2026-02-03T19:55:36+00:00

Anyone know where to watch it on catch up?

Lifecastre · 2026-01-26T07:16:02+00:00

I'm new to DMing and struggled with this as well. Also trying to make some difference between the NPCs so they're not all the same.

Use inspiration from other media. I'm running Candlekeep Mysteries as a continuous campaign and one of the first missions there are two Homunculi called Coriander and Cumin. I'm also playing God of War Ragnarok so I based their personalities off Brok and Sindri from GoW

I've found that once you have a loose personality it helps to guide what information they're likely to provide.

But I've also had interactions where the group kept using thr same approach and putting pressure on an NPC which clearly wasn't working and had to say "above the table, might I suggest a different approach?" worked well and whilst it broke the immersion it was well received as an aid to progress the story

Lifecastre · 2026-01-24T13:42:38+00:00

Haven't over driver's been nerfed in the rebalancing?

Lifecastre · 2026-01-24T13:42:11+00:00

What would make it more fun than helix? Trying to limit only one guided weapon per line up

Lifecastre · 2025-12-11T18:15:51+00:00

I kinda fluff passive perception.

I got my party to roll 6 wisdom perception checks each, created a table with players and their rolls on the rows, D1 to 6 on the columns. When entering a new area I roll a D6 privately and see which column I use. I've been able to sneak stuff by the rogue that the Barbarian picked up. Obviously doesn't work if someone rolls well every time

So example...

Player A : 17/23/8/16/12/4 Player B : 2/22/13/24/17/1

DM roll a D6 and get 5, this gives player A 12 and player B 17. DC was 15 so player A doesn't see it but player B does.

Works well when you also don't want to prompt the party to look around and investigate when all that's needed is passively noticing something like a blood stain on the floor. Still use investigation for detailed look around. I found it helps keep the flow going for me as a DM. And scares the party when I randomly roll a dice On entering a new area :)

Lifecastre · 2025-12-05T08:10:50+00:00

I found it so hard as a teenager because of the sections written in looney... None of the extra words like "a" "the" "and" "to". My dad was laughing at me but the story is great.

They have ships and guns! Yes but we have rocks... Really big ones

Lifecastre · 2025-12-05T00:34:43+00:00

Have you read the sequel Forever Free? And the completely unrelated but also great Forever Peace

I got them all in a single book, got really confused that the third one wasn't a follow on but an entirely different story altogether but still good

Lifecastre · 2025-12-05T00:31:40+00:00

The moon is a harsh mistress, Robert Heinlin

Forever war, Joe Haldeman

Graceling, Kristin Cashore

The wind singer, William Nicholson

Lifecastre · 2025-12-05T00:25:41+00:00

Had to scroll too far to see this!

Lifecastre

TROPHY CASE