One of the most important aspects of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dungeons & Dragons is combat, so be๊ing able to balance your encounters properl💫y is a critical job for Dungeon Masters out there. You must ensure that enemies can take punches as well as deal significant damage while also making the fight dynamic and entertaining.

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Balancing combat is such a key aspect of the game that many YouTubers or websites have addressed adjusting combat difficulty - 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:including us. However, we're not here to talk about what you can do in combat to make it ღharder, but rather what to do outside combat, through indirect balancing techniques that you can do during the session or the adventure as a whole.

As is worth noting with any list revolving around increasing the difficulty of the game, don't overdo it. Using too many of these tips in the same session ♍or dungeon might cause a TPK.

10 Give Them Little To No Room To Rest 🍨 🥂

No Time To Waste

A dragonborn bard enchants a humanoid in Dungeons & Dragons.
Dragonborn Bard via Wizards of the Coast

A significant way to make encounters harder is to simply not give the party a moment to catch their breath. If they try to short rest in a dungeon, have minions approach them for a surprise attack - which can be e🙈ven worse if they have the gall to♍ try a long rest.

Another way to prevent the💯m from resting properly is to make their mission ti൩me-sensitive. If they waste an hour resting, the person they need to save will be killed by the bad guys, for example, thus resulting in the party failing to save them.

9 Don't Offer A Lot Of Healing Items

No Healing Potions For You

A man being fed a healing potion to save him from the brink of death
Potion of Healing by Pauline Voss

A simple tweak you can make is to simpl𝐆y make healing items a bit harder to find in dungeons. Instead, you can put more money around t🦹he area, encouraging the players to buy these potions themselves and prepare better before dungeons, or just offer little loot in dungeons.

This scarcity will make going through multip𒐪le combats harder, or it might make them rest more (which you can also prevent) or have them use healing spells outside combat, which will deplete spell slots, also making the following encounters har💞der in the process.

8 💜 ✤ Make Spell Components Harder To Find

No Diamonds For You, Either

A cleric attempts a raise dead spell surrounded by glowing white light in Dungeons & Dragons.
Raise Dead by Polar Engine

We did✅ say you can offer little loot, didn't we? The same applies to items that the players need for the stronger spells since they tend to require a material component that is not the easiest to obtain. You can make these items even rarer.

You can rarely have these spell components in dungeons, have less money to loot (𝕴and thus make it harder for the players to buy these items), or these items can be so rare that even merchants have a hard time finding them to sell them.

If you want your party to hate you, you can also make mercha🌼nts unreliable, selling fake potions or spell components. We're not responsible if your players curse you, though.

7 𒁏 Specific Goals

"Remember, We Need The BBEG Alive"

Strahd staring into the mists on his nightmare steed in Dungeons & Dragons.
Yesterhill via Wizards of the Coast

What if the main villain is a beloved NPC possessed by a monster? Whether the party will beat theꦐm without killing, try to use their re▨sources like spells to get rid of the possession, or accept the loss and kill the NPC is up to them, but you can give them a push.

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You can have other characters emphasize the importance of completing the quest in a specific way or demonstrate that completing it differently can have negative consequences - ideal for morღally complex stories. And hey, your players are still entitled to ignore all that and handle things their own way.

6 ✃ Quest Cﷺonditions

Keep Your Cover

Two students attend a ball at Strixhaven in Dungeons & Dragons.
Strixhaven Ball by Carolina Gariba

Not only can you make fights harder through specific quest goals, but the whole quest in itself can provide a challenge if it has specific conditions throughout its run. For instance,🔜 the quest can take place in a location whe🌞re the party must remain undercover.

In this exam🦄ple, they'll likely do their best to avoid combat altogether. Still, if it ends up happening anyway, they'll have the challenge of beating someone while not losing cover, such as luring the encounter to a place with fewer witnesses. If the whole quest has a setback right at the start, everything is harder.

5 🔴 Have Obs🌠tacles That Require Resources

"We'll Need To Fly To Get There"

A Dungeons & Dragons mage casting Fireball.
Fireball by Kieran Yanner

Puzzles, chase sequences, or complex environmental obstacles are always a great way to mix things up. While it's common to make all of these challenges beatable t🌊hrough wits, why not demand something more?

What if, instead of having a riddle to open a door have 'fire' as the answer, they may instead need to deal a significant amount of fire damage to the door in one go to open it, propelling them to use a spell slot for a fire spell? This is just one example, of🎉 course, but the idea is to create scenarios outside combat that need class resources to be completed.

4 Deadly Traps ꦰ

Get Them Hurt Outside Combat

Two adventurers stumble across an arrow-shooting trap in Dungeons & Dragons.
Poison Trap by Linda Lithen

We mentioned puzzles and other obstacles already, but there's one type of obstacle that deserves its own spot: traps. Instead of trapping doors and chests with things that are easily noticed and dismantled, have whole puzzle rooms or similar that get them stuck and wounded🐈 un♕til they find a way out.

Imagine a room being filled with poisonous gas, and they must find a way out before their health reaches zero. Not only are you making something more enticing and action-packed, but this will li♔kely harm them, even if just a bit, forcing them to waste resources on healing themselves.

3 ಌ E😼nvironmental Nerfs

This Is A No-Magic Zone

Adventurers scaling a wall with a rope in Dungeons & Dragons.
Infiltration by Craig J Spearing

If the party⛎ is about to enter a highly deadly location, like a boss' lair, having a specific condition that affects all trespassers is an i🍃nteresting challenge. Maybe whoever enters is slowed, has an annoying condition, vulnerability to a certain damage type, or even something like being unable to use magic.

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With that, the party immediately knows that their whole time within this dungeon will have an added challenge, regardless of whether they found the boss already or are fighting weaker enemies. You can give them a narrative wa𒈔y to bypass this nerf, too, such as destroying its source within the lair, giving the players a secondary task to make the boss fight easier.

2 Add A Weak Com🐲panion

Protect Them At All Costs

Dungeons & Dragons, the Blink Dog racing forward, with magical energy flowing over it, by John Patrick Ganas.
Blink Dog by John Patrick Ganas

Nothing makes things as complicated as a four-hit-points commoner🦹 that needs to stay alive because they're relevant to the plot. Okay, maybe a commoner is too weak, but the idea of having a weaker NPC that 💃needs to be escorted through a dangerous location makes things significantly harder.

Another way to make this type of challenge spike is if the characters have an NPC, ಞlike a companion or mount, but one that isn't a summoned creature, like a familiar or a magical mount. Making sure your horse stays alive so you can keep traveling fast (or because, you know, you actually care about your horse) is a nice extra challenge.

1 Have Monsters With💟 Lin🔯gering Effects

Wraiths Have Entered The Chat

An image of a Wraith, a spectral monster from Dungeons & Dragons (DND).
Wraith by Alex Brock

Your choice of monsters won't just make a fight against them difficult, but all other upcoming challenges. For instance, a creature like a Wraith or a Vampire Spawn can decrease the target's maximum health, requiring long rests (or actual spells ifꦰ we're going with 2024 rules) to undo this nerf.

Creatures that can temporarily decrease health or ability scores will highly increase the challenge of the overall dungeon, e🦋specially if🧔 this type of encounter happens early on. You can also have hazards and obstacles that trigger curses with similar effects.

dungeons-and-dragons-series-game-tabletop-franchise

Your Rating

Original Release Date
1974
Player Count
2+
Age Recommendation
🦩 12+ (though younger🧸 can play and enjoy)
Length per Game
F🦩rom 60 minutes to hours on end.
Franchise Name
🔥﷽ Dungeons & Dragons
Publishing Co
🦂 Wizards of the Coast